| Previous Section | Home Page |
Column 1062
charter was published. That achievement, which has already been mentioned, was to reduce the waiting time for driving tests to a little more than five weeks. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said earlier that in 1988 the waiting time was 13 weeks, but that by the time the charter was published it had fallen to seven weeks. Since publication, the time has been driven down by a further two weeks.I do not belittle that achievement, but I wish that such demonstrable benefits could be shown in more of the areas in which the charter made promises. To say that a matter is in hand is not the same as to say that what has been promised has been done. It is a little like saying, "My cheque is in the post." It is promise rather than fulfilment.
Shortage of time prevents me from commenting on all the areas covered by the charter, but I have picked out one--the health service and the patients charter--partly because I am familar with the subject and partly because the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was Secretary of State for Health when the charter was published. "The Citizen's Charter--First report : 1992", which was published yesterday, lists 10 key rights and entitlements under the heading of patients and the patients charter. I refer back to the document published a year ago, the patients charter, which listed 19 key rights and entitlements. What has happened to the other nine? Among the missing rights is the patient's right to be referred to a consultant acceptable to him or her. We know that the internal market now means that patients can go only where the contract is placed. A second missing right is the right to a second medical opinion. A third is the right to ensure that everyone, including people with special needs, can use services. A fourth missing right is patients' right to have their community care needs settled before being discharged from hospital. A fifth is the right to have one's complaint, if one has cause for complaint, dealt with promptly. That was one of the three key new rights introduced in the patients charter--but it does not appear in the one-year report.
Other rights which appeared in the patients charter have now been subtly and quietly watered down. The patients charter said that patients should be guaranteed admission for treatment by a specific date. The new document says that the patient should
"be guaranteed admission to hospital for virtually all treatments by a specific date".
That is a subtle introduction of new words which allow some treatments and conditions to be exempted. Why has the commitment been watered down, and why are the reasons for watering it down not spelled out ? Why is the public sector's performance against the standards set in the "150 or so" commitments not spelled out ? It is spelled out for some but for many it is not.
For instance, the patients charter promised that out-patients would be given a specific appointment time and be seen within 30 minutes of that time. In the summer I asked the Secretary of State for Health to find out in how many cases that promise was being met. The answer which I received was :
"This information is not collected centrally."
Another patients charter promise was that patients would be seen immediately for an initial assessment on arrival at an accident and emergency department. I asked the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of patients were seen when they arrived at an accident and
Column 1063
emergency department within five minutes, within 15 minutes and within 30 minutes. The answer which I received was :"This information is not collected centrally."
I asked about the commitment in the patients charter to the effect that
"your operation should not be cancelled on the day you are due to arrive at hospital." [Official Report ; 13 July 1992 ; Vol. 211, c. 516 and 514.]
I asked the Secretary of State what proportion of patients had their operations cancelled on the day that they were due to arrive in hospital. I received the same answer--the information was not collected centrally.
The patients charter says that the patient has a right to have his complaint dealt with promptly, so I asked what proportion of complaints from patients were dealt with within one week, within one month, within three months or within a longer period. Again, the answer was that the information was not collected.
The patients charter says that health authorities should ensure that services can be used by everyone, including people with physical disabilities, by ensuring that buildings can be used by people in wheelchairs. That is a laudable aim--so I asked the Secretary of State what proportion of NHS buildings were accessible to people in wheelchairs. I was told that the information was not held centrally. I could cite many more examples in which the answer to such questions is, "Dunno, mate." I ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how he could be so sure when he told the House yesterday that 90 per cent. of the promises in the citizens charter were being met, when information on so many of them is not collected by the Government. How does he know?
I do not want to be uncharitable, so I point out that some of the standards are being met. The driving test standard has been met. The redundant workers charter promises that 80 per cent. of claims for redundancy payments will be paid within 14 weeks. I checked and found that the figure was 84 per cent. The charter standard has been out-performed. Some standards have been massively out-performed. Ninety per cent. of work permit applications were processed within eight weeks, against the charter standard of 75 per cent. In this area, it seems that the Government are taking a leaf out of Joseph Stalin's book. He managed dramatically to out- perform all his five-year plans by setting standards that were easy to achieve. All the evidence tells us that if, as in the case of the work permit office, the Government set the standards low, it pays to set standards low. If, perhaps under pressure from a Minister, a civil servant is tempted to aim high, he can always get off the hook. Either the data are not collected so that no one can measure success or failure against published standards or, if the data are collected, the findings are not published in the annual report on the citizens charter. If the Government are really on the hook, the wording of a promise can be changed. The promise, for example, that patients will be treated within a certain time becomes a promise that patients will receive surgery within a certain time in almost all cases. The golden rule seems to be that people can do what they like as long as they do not let on. If they do not let on, nobody will ever notice, they hope. As Members of Parliament, it is our job to notice and to hold the
Column 1064
Government to account, as we are doing tonight. It is noticeable that there is no Select Committee that deals with citizen charter issues. The separate departmental Select Committees can examine the promises and the performance of individual departments, such as the Department of Health and the Department of the Environment, but there is no point at which the strategy of the citizens charter is open to scrutiny in the way that the work of individual Departments is. Why are the Government so shy? What have they to hide?8.12 pm
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough) : You may remember, Mr. Deputy Speaker, from your days at school that there was an English king of whom it was said :
"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York."
To a certain extent, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley). I prefer to say that the sun has come from Chester this evening. The speech by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) surpasses many this Session. I have a secret to impart to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in addition to those already revealed by my hon. Friend. We agreed to swap speeches before my hon. Friend delivered his speech. His speech was a tour de force and I congratulate him.
There are four limbs to the citizens charter programme : privatisation, where it is appropriate ; competition, where it is possible ; the devolution of decision-making ; and the application of charter principles, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Chester spoke so eloquently.
There has been a good deal of progress in privatisation since 1979. Some 46 major activities and many smaller ones have been privatised, to the benefit of the British public. That scheme of things has caused annoyance, dismay and alarm on Opposition Benches. There is alarm and dismay because, as the programme unfolds year by year, Opposition Members see the good sense of it and they see the poverty of their own arguments levelled against them. Why should the British public be imprisoned by monolithic, state-run organisations? The Government--the state--had no business being involved in so many of the activities that have now been privatised. I am sure that many of my constituents welcomed the privatisations of the past few years. We know that there are to be further privatisations, and we welcome that in matters in which the Government have no proper role and in which there is no constitutional need for them to be involved. Why on earth should the Government--the state--be involved in the running and day-to-day management of an agency such as Companies House? It is ludicrous and unnecessary for the Government to be involved in such detailed work. The work could clearly be covered by an agency and I trust that it will be before long. Other examples are the docklands light railway, the drivers and vehicle operators information technology department, the National Engineering Laboratory, Parcel Force and the vehicle inspectorate. They are all areas of national life that are capable of being dealt with by non-governmental agencies. The sooner they are, the better they will be.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chester has dealt eloquently with the concept of market testing and I do not propose to add to what he said on competition. The third area is the devolution of decision-making, which, in essence, means taking decisions closer to the customer. As
Column 1065
my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said, in instances where, for whatever reason, there is no choice but public ownership and no chance of competition being applied, the third of the four elements must come into play.Our role must be to devise and apply disciplines that, in their own way, are no less demanding than open decisions. Why should we not bring to the public sector the disciplines of the private sector? As my right hon. Friend said, the system that we have used has been the creation of next steps executive agencies at arm's length from Whitehall. I understand that such agencies are increasingly, although grudgingly, being accepted as the proper way forward by Opposition Members.
The next steps programme, which was initially opposed by the Labour party, has revolutionised the organisation and management of the civil service. Some 76 agencies have been established and a further 27 candidates have been announced. Half the civil service is already working along next steps lines. I very much look forward to the day when the other half does the same.
The fourth element of the proposals is the citizens charter. The charter brings to bear on the public services a range of additional disciplines including the monitoring of performance and the publication of results, and consultation with service users to ensure that services are geared not to the convenience of the providers, but to the needs of the public. Why should Opposition Members fear that? Surely we are here to provide the public with a service and not a straitjacket. The third discipline is the introduction of truly independent inspection procedures so that public services are assessed not only by expert professionals, but by members of the public who use and rely on those services.
An area of the citizens charter of which I have some knowledge from my work as a lawyer is the courts charter and its application to the criminal and civil justice systems. Hon. Members may have had a chance to glance at the first report which deals in some detail with the citizens charter's application to the criminal and civil justice systems. Those of us who work in the justice system well know the frustration of clients, whether plaintiffs or defendants, or members of the police who are helping with prosecutions.
We know well the frustrations felt by jurors who come involuntarily to court to assist in the system of justice and of other lawyers who wish to get before the court when our case has finished. We know the existing deficiencies of the system, which the courts charter seeks to address. It will now be necessary for witnesses to be given more information before they arrive in court, and it will be essential, the charter promises, that they are kept in touch with the progress of their case on the day. That is not unfair ; it is entirely reasonable and should be advanced as quickly as possible. The courts charter also provides that arrangements should be made for vulnerable witnesses, such as elderly people, children and rape victims, to visit courts in advance of the proceedings. Going to court as a witness--be it involuntarily or voluntarily, to assist a friend--or as a party to a civil action, can be one of the most terrifying experiences for a member of the ordinary public. Imagine what it must be like for a person who is wholly unused to the somewhat Dickensian atmosphere of the High Court or a county court in a town or city far away from his or her
Column 1066
own small town or village to have to come to terms with that strange environment and get used to giving evidence high up on a pedestal.I have only had to give evidence once--at Wandsworth county court--and although by then I had had 10 years' experience at the Bar, I can assure the House that it was much more frightening than appearing before the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, which I did not so long ago.
The charter also includes national targets for reducing delays in bringing cases to court, which were published last July together with details of performance against those targets. One of the great frustrations that both parties and lawyers face is the problem of listing. Often, a case listed for a particular day cannot be reached because the cases in front of it have been delayed--for good or bad reasons.
I am glad to see that the courts charter deals with that, because it seems to me that a revised and modernised system of listing, which can make use of all the computer technology now available to us, will enhance the role of the listing officer at the county court or the High Court so that we get a proper standard of efficient throughput. I fully accept that there is no justice in rushed justice. If a case requires a week, let it take a week. Equally, though, there is no justice in delayed justice. A man whose case is not reached on the day on which he expects it to be has good reason to be aggrieved and will think the less of our justice system for it. The courts charter will deal with that or do its best to do so.
Some 30 per cent. more cases have been transferred from the High Court to the local county courts, which, by definition, are easier to access for parties and witnesses. I know from my own experience of the High Court here in London that many civil jury cases, particularly those dealing with false imprisonment and malicious prosecution--cases against police forces--are now being referred to county courts in and around London, especially to the Croydon court centre. That has enabled the throughput of cases to be increased greatly over the past two years.
That procedure should be encouraged, and cases that are simple as matters of law and matters of fact--albeit important to those involved in them-- should be transferred to a forum as close to the citizen as possible. I applaud the trend to move cases out of the High Court to the county court. I add to that a plea that there should be sufficient judges appointed to meet the new load on the county courts, that sufficient courts should be made available for judges to sit in and that the judges should be adequately remunerated for their work--but that may be a debate for another day.
It is essential that the greatest efficiency is brought to bear on our criminal justice system and our civil justice system. Without it, the system will crumble. Without it, well-founded feelings of annoyance will exacerbate the frustrations that we all feel when Big Brother lets us down. It is vital that, with the Government's encouragement, we proceed rapidly towards the fullest possible use of the citizens charter throughout the system of government.
8.24 pm
Mr. Terry Davis (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) : I agree with the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) about one thing : I, too, have given evidence in court, and I agree with him that it is a frightening experience for anyone to be a witness, especially in a Crown court. I have
Column 1067
not had the experience of being dismissed or declared redundant, but I imagine that that, too, is a frightening experience. That is one of the things that the debate should be about, and I shall come back to it later in my speech.I want to deal first, however, with the speech of the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth). It is silly for Government supporters such as the hon. Gentleman to pretend that Labour Members are satisfied with the way things are and to claim that we accept low standards of performance from the civil service. The civil servants working in the city of Birmingham would tell him that it is Labour Members who are most demanding, who have the highest expectations and who set the highest standards of performance for civil servants. That is because we believe in the public service. We want a better public service and we are entitled to ask our civil servants to perform to higher standards, just as they are entitled to say to us that, if we want the highest possible standards, we must pay respectable wages in return. That, too, is one of the things that the debate should be about.
The hon. Member for City of Chester was too easily convinced by the targets set by the Benefits Agency. I recently went to the local office of an executive agency in my constituency and discussed with the local manager the performance targets that had been set for that office. Of the nine performance targets, seven showed no improvement this year over last. The other two showed a deterioration. In other words, the target for the current year is worse than the performance last year. When I asked that manager, "How on earth have you got away with this? How have you managed to convince your boss that you should have seven targets that are no better and two that are worse?", he told me, "Mr. Davis, I am better than the national average, so of course my boss lets me slip back a couple of performance indicators." That is how targets are operating locally.
Market testing has nothing to do with trying to get the best out of the civil service or with improvements in its quality. It is not--as the hon. Member for City of Chester said it was--something to do with getting things done in a better way. Market testing has nothing to do with the improvement of service ; it has to do with two Government objectives, the first of which is cutting costs--reducing the cost of the civil service. As most of the cost of the civil service goes in civil servants' wages--it is a labour -intensive service--one can only reduce that cost by reducing civil servants' wages. It has nothing to do with measuring the human cost and everything to do with cutting the financial cost. We are talking not about doing things better but about doing them more cheaply.
The second Government objective is to privatise as much as possible. The hon. Member for Harborough was clear about it. He tore away the veil of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and I respect his integrity. He is dogmatic, and believes that privatisation is better--that things are done better by private organisations. He does not realise that, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster says, some things may be done better in the public sector.
The reason the Government want to privatise the civil service is that they want to create profit opportunities for private firms, both large and small. Those companies care only about making a profit. It follows that, if they are to
Column 1068
do the work more cheaply and make a profit, they must pay lower wages and provide poorer conditions for the people who do the clerical jobs and dirty jobs in the civil service. It is inevitable that the workers will be paid less and enjoy poorer conditions. The way in which market testing will work is that the Government will market-test a particular activity in the civil service. A contractor will tender at a price which is less than the calculated cost of the civil servants who do the work at present. The contract will be given to the outside contractor, and the people who do the work will have two possibilities.The first possibility is that they will simply be declared redundant--at the expense of the taxpayer. The second is that they will be taken over, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster confidently forecast, by the outside contractor who wins the job. There is no guarantee that the workers will be taken over by the private contractor, or that they will enjoy the same wages, negotiating conditions and terms of employment which were so hard won by the civil service trade unions. The workers will be expected to work on exactly the same basis as so many people in the health service, who are expected to do the work that they did before the service was contracted out.
Many people who do the dirty jobs and domestic jobs in hospitals, and security guards in hospitals, are paid less than they were previously for the same work. I have met unemployed people who say that they used to work at the local hospital. They do not work there any more because the work was contracted out. They were offered a job at a reduced wage by the private contractor who won the bid. The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor), who spoke for the Liberal Democrats, said that his party was all about giving people control over their lives. I cannot imagine anything that takes away someone's control over his or her life more than being unemployed. Being unemployed gives people no choice whatever. It is the total destruction of their personal liberty. Their status, income and everything else depend on having a job. Not only their financial resources but their psychological value in society depend on their being employed. Therefore, the Liberal Democrats should recognise that it is nonsense to tell people that the citizens charter and market testing are all about giving people control over their lives. Some people will become unemployed ; other will keep their jobs because the civil service will be forced, in the market-testing procedure, to bid and to put in tenders for work that is already done by the civil service. We have seen the way in which the Government impede that process. The Government may say that they want to see what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster always calls a level playing field. I remind the House what a level playing field is in practical terms. We have had some experience of it.
Several of my hon. Friends mentioned the Inland Revenue. When the Inland Revenue prepares in-house bids, it is required to include an on-cost to take account of the civil service pension scheme. The on-cost is 13.5 per cent. of the wage bill because the Government have calculated that the value of the pension scheme for civil servants is 13.5 per cent. Of course, the figure takes into account everybody in the civil service--not simply people on the lowest wages who do not have a good pension but those on the highest wages who have good pensions. The process is therefore weighted against the civil servants whose jobs are market-tested.
Column 1069
A group of typists in Bristol who are subject to market testing took the initiative and went to an insurance company for a quotation for their pension scheme. They were told that it would be 6 per cent. of their wages. That figure compares with the 13.5 per cent. that the Government make management include in the bid for the work that those people do at present. If management cannot find other savings of at least 7.5 per cent., workers lose their jobs and become unemployed. That is a scandal. It loads the dice against the people who do the jobs at present.Another Bill is going through the House at present. The Civil (Management Functions) Bill introduces local pay bargaining and settlements for precisely the same reason as we have discussed tonight. The purpose is not decentralisation, which many of my hon. Friends support. It is to break national pay agreements and have pay agreements negotiated locally. That will enable managers to keep the work by having lower wage rates than they have at present. Market testing is a one-way street. We never hear about market testing the other way. We never hear about the civil service being given the opportunity to quote for private work. Why should we not have public enterprise? Why should the civil service not be able to do the work it does well? If the Chancellor means what he says, he should accept that there are some things that the civil service does very well. Why should the civil service not quote for work from private companies? Apparently, that idea never crossed the mind of this dogmatic Government.
Market testing is not the only one-way street ; there are others. Many of my hon. Friends have mentioned confidentiality. Indeed, some Conservative Members have made the same point. When we read this morning's newspapers, we were horrified to see the breach of confidentiality involving the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I shall not make any jibes about that. It is scandalous that the Chancellor's private affairs should be put on the front page of newspapers. I should condemn that breach of confidentiality whether it involved a Conservative or an Opposition Member. But that is not the point. The point is that there must have been a breach of confidentiality. The Inland Revenue is not the only organisation with confidential information. The Department of Social Security has a great deal of information about individuals, their families and their relationships. The Employment Service has a similar amount of information about individuals, their families, their relationships and their dependants. All that information is at risk. It would be ridiculous to suggest that there would be leaks from all private firms in the country. We do not have leaks from all banks. The difference is that, in the case of Access and the National Westminster bank, which owns Access, an individual citizen has a choice. If we believe that there is a risk of breach of confidentiality with regard to our Access or bank account, we can go to another bank. We will not be able to choose another Inland Revenue, regardless of whether its work has been market-tested and contracted out. There will only ever be one Inland Revenue, one Department of Social Security, one Benefits Agency and one Employment Service. Individuals have no choice between private and public or between different private firms. Individuals will go to the Inland Revenue, the social
Column 1070
security office and the local employment office. What is more, they are required to give private personal information to those agencies and departments.We can choose how much information we give our bank ; we have no choice whatever about the information that we give to the Inland Revenue, the Department of Social Security or the Employment Service when benefits are calculated. We are required by law to give that information. All citizens and all hon. Members should be concerned about the clear risk of confidentiality shown by the experience of the Chancellor in his personal affairs.
Not only civil servants but all of us are affected. Civil servants are especially affected because their jobs are at risk. Their jobs will go as a result of market testing. That is why more than 800 typists and secretaries at the Inland Revenue--they are hardly a militant group of trade unionists- -came to London today to protest about their work being market-tested and their jobs being put at risk. They are bewildered and angry, and they cannot understand why the Government are doing that to them. They have given years of service to this Government and previous Governments. Many of them have worked in the civil service for 20 or 30 years.
They have experience and proven loyalty over many years ; but loyalty is another two-way street. Civil servants cannot understand why the Government are not loyal to them. The Government are prepared to sack them to get the job done more cheaply for lower wages, despite their service in the past. It is not surprising that civil servants feel that the Government have no confidence in them and place little value on their years of service. The time will come in three or four years when those civil servants will have an opportunity to say that they have no confidence in the Government. 8.38 pm
Lady Olga Maitland (Sutton and Cheam) : I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis). I find it depressing that he scorned and jeered at the importance of trying to instil value for money and standards in the civil service, when we spend taxpayers' money on running it. I find it rather cheap that he should deliberately go in for scaremongering tactics, suggesting that jobs are at risk because contracts are being put out to the private sector. He suggests that people will automatically be paid less. Jobs put out to the private sector mean more jobs in that sector--it is merely a shift from one to the other.
We must ask ourselves ; who is paying for our civil service? Undoubtedly, the answer is the hon. Gentleman, me and the taxpayer. I sometimes find it galling that the Opposition totally fail to connect Government spending with the fact that all that money comes out of every working man and woman's pay packet. Let there be no doubt about the Government's commitment to cutting waste. It is a moral responsibility, and it is admirable that they have got around to it. I welcome their initiatives in that direction.
In these belt-tightening times, it is even more appropriate that we should ensure that our civil service gives value for money, in much the same way that the private sector does. It is salutary that we should have the guts and the courage for close self-analysis. We are talking about improving public services--improving the way in which they serve their customers and
Column 1071
ensuring that they provide value for money. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Hodge Hill said, market testing is a good way to achieve that. I find it strange that, just for the sake of principle, he is determined to knock it down.Market testing has been a significant step forward and the Government have been working on it for some time. It is salutary that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster yesterday announced that £1.5 billion of Whitehall work is to be exposed to competition. The Government have been developing that policy for the past four years and when they began, the amount was only £25 million. We should congratulate the Government on extending that commitment fiftyfold. It is essential for all competing services to offer better value for money than the civil service. If work can be done cheaper outside, without any loss of quality--we set great store by quality -- [Laughter.] It is true. We must use outside contractors if work can be done cheaper, as that is a far better use of taxpayers' money. The service must be exposed to competition. It has never had that pressure in the past, but the taxpayers' money now comes first. If we consider areas where private sector companies and service users have been put in the same category, we learn a great deal. An article in the Financial Times today mentions value and the fact that tendering is good news for taxpayers, service users and private sector companies alike. It states :
"Yesterday's announcement that more than 44,000 jobs in the United Kingdom civil service are to be put out to tender is good news for companies that are well-placed to bid for the contracts the prospect of almost £1.5 billion of new business in the next 10 months is welcome. But it is also good news for the taxpayer, who can expect significant savings in public expenditure--and better quality services to boot."
Let us examine the services that could be dealt with in that way : financial services, such as basic clerical functions ; audit services ; payroll duties ; keeping the books ; and some legal services could be included. Why cannot property and estate management be contracted out? The Department of Health is relocating one of its offices to Leeds. Why not use a private firm to look after the maintenance, cleaning, heating and lighting of the property, instead of recruiting the civil service? It would be far better if the task where leased out. The Government will maintain control of what I call the hands-on function, but it will be privately managed. In that way, one can get the best of all worlds.
What about information technology? Should not the maintenance of computer hardware and programming be put out to private contractors? What about financial legal services, such as conveyancing of Government property--for example, when the Department of the Environment buys land for roads and other projects? Many companies could compete and, with the peaks and troughs in the market, the advantage for the Government is in not having to keep on full-time staff unnecessarily. They could rise to the occasion and take advantage of outside contractors. The saving on full-time employees is obvious.
I remind Opposition Members that we would be shifting civil service employees to the private sector. There is no suggestion that they would lose their jobs. Customs and Excise debt collection is another possibility, which is also subject to variations in demand. It must be more economical.
Column 1072
Mr. Terry Davis : The hon. Lady says that there is no question of civil servants losing their jobs and that they are simply shifting to the private sector. Is she prepared to give a firm guarantee to that effect?
Lady Olga Maitland : I am sorry, but I did not catch the hon. Gentleman's question.
Mr. Davis : Is the hon. Lady prepared to say unequivocally that, as a result of market testing, civil servants will not lose their jobs, but will simply change employers?
Lady Olga Maitland : It is simply a matter of market forces and of moving from one area to another by natural selection. That is important. It is more economical to use half the civil servants on a permanent basis and to use half in the private sector according to need ; hence the need to use local solicitors.
Home Office dog training is a more quixotic area, which could be contracted out. Until now, guard dogs and dogs that sniff for drugs have been trained by civil service dog trainers. Does one need in-house dog trainers? The Home Secretary could survive very well by using an outside service, from which I am sure he would get cheaper service and, in many cases, better value.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food uses the Royal Navy to mount surveillance on foreign fishing vessels which operate inside the limit. Why not use outside contractors with their own patrol boats instead? I understand that British companies are already providing such a service for companies overseas--for heaven's sake, let us use them at home.
What about engineering services? The Ministry of Defence has sub-contracted aircraft maintenance, instead of using its employees. Catering could be contracted out. Five years ago, there were more cooks than economists at the Treasury--a strange state of affairs. Why did not the Treasury manage better and apply its financial rectitude to cookery? The answer is to contract out, put catering in the right hands and get better food, more efficient use of staff and value for money.
Why should the civil service pensions administration be considered a great sacred cow and have to be dealt with internally? The pensions work could be managed by an outside contractor. There are scores of private sector businesses providing the service for other employers. The whole pensions sphere should not be considered sacrosanct. We can learn many lessons from the past. Where there has been competition in sections of central Government, savings have averaged 25 per cent., with no loss of quality. It is interesting to note that, when contracts have remained in-house, after close examination with outside competition, the same saving has been achieved. We must have more stringent examination of our affairs. The fact that that has not happened must mean that outside comparisons have not been made. The Government have had great strength of character in examining the way in which we examine our affairs. They accept that we must no longer believe in the old adages about the state providing all, with other people's money being spent. We must have a more reasonable way of looking at life.
Labour Members have thrown several red herrings into the debate. For example, they talk about confidentiality.
Column 1073
Safeguards apply in the civil service whether the work is done in-house or outside. For example, the defence industry would not flourish if the Ministry of Defence could not trust outside contractors. The code of conduct that has existed all along works very well indeed.Why should the honesty and integrity of private sector employees be considered any less than that existing in the public sector? In many cases, a criminal offence would be committed if information were divulged, irrespective of whether employees were in the public or private sector.
I remind the hon. Member who referred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's affairs that if the details had been exposed to the public through a leak by the Inland Revenue, a criminal offence would have been committed. Had the work been contracted outside the civil service to a contractor, my right hon. Friend's affairs would still have been sacrosanct. Opposition Members seem committed to opposing any privatising of the civil service. They are opposed to change, irrespective of reality and modern methods of working.
I remind them that we are talking not about the core work of the civil service but about its support services, so we should concentrae on the core business of the civil service, which we are good at and can conduct efficiently, and let the experts deal with what might be called the subsidiary work. In other words, let us ensure that the country gets real value for money.
8.53 pm
Mr. Ian Davidson (Glasgow, Govan) : Conservative Membes have indulged in some knock-about debating and general abuse of Labour's position. It is important for us to explain precisely what we favour, because our view has been rather parodied.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) said, we are in favour of rigour in the provision of public services. We want efficiency, effectiveness and economy. We are also in favour--more so than Conservative Members--of equity in the provision of those services.
We support the concepts of decentralisation and devolution of implementation and we recognise that the public services must be under constant review. We have always appreciated the need for making improvements where possible, and we are keen to ensure that new ideas and systems are applied to the public service. That demonstrates our commitment to change.
We accept that the civil service should be modernised and we want many sections of it to move away from a safety-first and cannot-do attitude. The agency system has helped in that process, and we welcome it.
While the Government claim to be engaged in an exercise to improve the public service, we are bound to be cynical about their commitment to the public sector. Many people believe that the Conservative recrod shows that the Government want to destroy the public service and cast everyone concerned with it to the vagaries of the market, apart from law and order and defence--items that go to create a strong state--and a few other sectors which they feel obliged to maintain in the public sector.
The Government make the assumption that everything should go out to tender unless, for some reason, it must stay. My hon. Friends and I do not say that everything
Column 1074
must stay in-house. We prefer to take an objective look at where services are best provided. That is the way to determine where they should be performed.We are in conflict with the Government on certain issues. I shall concentrate on the question of devolution as compared with contracting out. In some instances there is a discrepancy between the policy of the Government of devolving management and their determination to contract out the work done by certain agencies. The decision whether to contract out work should be determined by whether a better service would be achieved by contracting out or by leaving the service where it is. The Government seem to have a prejudiced view and think that everything would be better done in the private sector. That has led them to try to sectionalise the work of individual units or agencies.
That has led the Government to seek to break up the work of a complete organisation, such as the National Savings bank. They then identify a section of activity, such as clerical services, cost it and make it compete. That results in the staff involved, competing for their own jobs, having an inevitable self-interest in trying to minimise the amount of work that they undertake for other sections beyond the contract that has been undertaken. There is pressure on them to have a narrower focus on what they are doing, concentrating on their own self-interest.
Managers in the public sector should be set clear targets and be left to get on with determining how best to achieve those objectives. Agencies should be examined as a whole. The managers and staff should be given an opportunity to take a realistic perspective, which does not mean artificially chopping off certain sections and contracting them out. I am not aware of staff in the private sector having artificially set targets involving a proportion of work being put out to a subsidiary, to the private sector or to the public sector. Nobody in the private sector operates in that way. People make their own decisions.
There is a contradiction between saying that targets should be established for agencies and telling people how to achieve those objectives. If the Government were genuinely committed to the principles of decentralisation and devolution, they would set rigorous targets and output figures and then tell managers, "It's your responsibility. We shall not tell you exactly how to carry out those functions."
To do otherwise is to centralise. In many ways, the Government are being more centralist than previous Governments by directing managers how to go about achieving their goals.
The process of examination and review that has been going on in the public sector over a long period--not rigorously enough, in my view--shows that the existing system can modify itself. An onus should be placed on the Government to give the existing system an opportunity to self-reform before they artificially divide work tasks.
The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) said that she believed that all was likely to happen was that people presently working in the public sector would be moved into the private sector. That is unrealistic because, for many of the tasks now being contracted out or market-tested, the main expense is that of salaries and the main source of competition must come from people who undercut on salaries. That is a clear attempt to drive down wages and conditions of service. Indeed, it is a Darwinian approach. It is how the natural law of selection works.
Column 1075
Lady Olga Maitland : Will the hon. Gentleman give us evidence to back up his comments?
Mr. Davidson : Certainly. My former local authority lost public sector cleaning contracts to a private sector company solely on the ground that it undercut on wages. The hon. Lady may look puzzled, but it is true. If she wishes, I could take her to schools in Strathclyde where there is difficulty in recruiting, retaining and motivating cleaners because of the low wages that are being paid.
Many Conservative Members recognise the real difficulty. If local companies are competing on the basis of wage rates alone, in areas of high unemployment the bids--the cost of that work--will inevitably be driven down. But we end up with people who have been recruited because that was the only job available and who have no loyalty because as soon as a better job comes up, they are away. There is great difficulty in retaining those workers and the staff have no enthusiasm for their work.
If the Government insist that managers must market test, the managers involved must be left free to pick from the bids as they see fit, according to the criteria that they wish to apply. There is more to bids than cost. Local authorities have been obliged to accept bids solely on the basis of cost and have not been allowed to take quality into account. It is important that they be allowed to take multiple indicators into account when assessing bids.
Another point that I discussed in Committee was where the policy of contracting out clashes with another announced Government policy-- dispersal. I am keen as are many of my hon. Friends from deprived areas of the country--areas which a Conservative Member called "the provinces"--to ensure that Government functions are transferred to our areas. We must be clear about what happens in circumstances where there is a clash between how a contract is allocated, if it is done solely on price, and the Government's regional policy.
An example was given earlier of the possibility of the Metropolitan police data processing contract going to the Phillipines, and the Minister treated it as if to say, "Oh well, that may happen." People in my area would be horrified if an enormous amount of data processing work in the National Savings bank, which is one of the largest single-site employers in the entire west of Scotland, was alloweed to go somewhere else in the world. That would have a serious effect on the area's economy. The Government must be prepared to recognise that there is a clash between their policies. I hope that they will be prepared to bear in mind my point about the importance of regional policy.
From all that we have heard in this debate, it appears that Conservative Members are biased towards breaking up the public service. We have heard, in Committee and in the Chamber today, that a process of on-going review is under way. I understand that an organisation will be examined for its suitablity for agency status, an examination will be carried out with a view to contracting out and market testing, and subsequently there will then be an opportunity to sell the whole thing off. In those circumstances, it will inevitably be difficult to promote enthusiasm among the staff. If they achieve the targets, they will be working themselves out of a job. The Government must say whether or not other principles will override their ideologically driven policy which pays little regard to the objectives of public service--to provide a first-class service to its recipients--and has
| Next Section
| Home Page |