Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 38)
THURSDAY 14 MAY 1998
MR ROBIN
YOUNG, MR
ANDREW RAMSAYAND
MR MICHAEL
SEENEY
20. So, at the end of the day the responsibility
for those bodies to whom you are giving money to distribute on
can be traced right back to someone in the department?
(Mr Young) That is certainly the aim. We will set
objectives, some of which you see in the annual report. For example,
some museums have to achieve x million visitors or x
per cent more visitors than last year; or they must maintain visitor
satisfaction at 80 per cent. Or to give another example, the draft
departmental objectives contain the new objective to promote the
role of our sectors in urban and rural regeneration and combating
social exclusion. If that objective stands we will have to erect
performance measures for ourselves and our sponsored bodies which
show whether we are hitting that. That may mean performance measures
relating to increases in participation rates by particular sectors
of the community or increased spending or concentration of spending
in particular targeted areas. That will be openly expressed in
our funding agreement with the sponsored body who will report
back and publish how it is achieving those objectives. That is
the plan.
Chairman
21. It is a curious relationship. As far as
I can gather, it is not a relationship that seems to be consistent.
When Mr Brooke was Secretary of State there was a reorganisation
in the Arts Council. Mr Brooke came to the House and made a statement
about it. Mr Robinson has now taken over as chairman of the Arts
Council. He is restructuring it in a far more radical way than
before. I do not criticise that. The Secretary of State is just
letting him get on with it. Will a point be reached where the
Secretary of State will regard it as appropriate to come before
the House and make a statement about Mr Robinson's restructuring?
I am not saying that necessarily he should because there does
not seem to be a track record one way or the other. But things
appears to have been approached in an inconsistent manner, without
using that expression in a pejorative sense?
(Mr Young) Under the framework approach to our relationship
with sponsored bodies which I have outlined, there would be no
need for him to make a statement. The key to the Arts Council's
success or failure is the extent to which it achieves the objectives
set out as discussed with Claire Ward. That ought to be how it
works, but one hesitates to say that the Secretary of State will
never want to make a statement about various aspects. But in principle
there will be a funding agreement under which the Arts Council
is expected to hit various targets. It is the extent to which
it hits or fails to hit those targets which matters, not the internal
management of the Arts Council. It is our business to see that
it hits those targets, not to interfere in its internal management.
As I understand it, that is the principle which the framework
sets up and which I am trying to explain.
22. But that leaves very unsatisfactory penumbral
areas, does it not? To go back to one of our recent inquiries,
we discovered that the Arts Council was conducting itself in what
could best be described as a slovenly way. As far as I can gather,
had we not decided to look at that issue the Arts Council would
have continued to conduct itself in a slovenly way. While your
department asked it to fulfil certain requirements it did not
ask it to do what it assumed the Arts Council was already doing
in terms of monitoring the way that money was spent or certain
activities were carried out. How can you be sure that such a situation
cannot arise again?
(Mr Young) It would be very unwise of me to give any
such assurance. I was describing my understanding of the way in
which the Secretary of State would exercise policy influence over
the sponsored body. As to financial propriety or the avoidance
of slovenliness, my role as accounting officer is to ensure that
the correct systems are in place in all the sponsored bodies including
the Arts Council. We have two approaches, as it were: propriety
and financial efficiency and the rest. With my accounting officer
hat on, I have to ensure that the system is in place, not carry
it out on behalf of that body, and look at the way in which our
policy is being addressed. It is a twin approach. I did not mean
to imply when talking about our policy interest that the department
was not interested in propriety or the avoidance of slovenliness.
Perhaps I gave the wrong impression.
23. The function of the permanent secretary
in his role as an accounting officer is an extremely stringent
one, and it is totally independent of Ministers. I do not have
a word of criticism about the way in which your predecessor carried
out his function as accounting officer. Nevertheless, although
he has carried out that function in what I am sure was a most
scrupulous way, if matters are not proceeding as they ought within
the Arts Council it is conceivable that other sponsored bodies
may not be conducting themselves in the same efficient and effective
way. Regardless of the accounting officer duties which I know
permanent secretaries take very seriously indeed, that does not
mean to say that sponsored bodies, for whom you are responsible
ultimately, are nevertheless carrying out their responsibilities
to the taxpayer who funds them?
(Mr Young) To hear words like that is a dire warning
for an incoming permanent secretary. Under the spending review
we are looking at all kinds of ways of tightening financial control
over our sponsored bodies and ensuring the avoidance of just the
kind of the circumstances that have been outlined. But the key
to a successful Department for Culture, Media and Sport is the
right relationship with its sponsored bodies in all activities.
I would hope that we have a department that can work closely enough
with them, whatever the formal controls with those bodies, to
get early warning of inadequacies like that and correct them.
I am not saying that it will be easy, not least because there
are so many of them, but the relationship between ourselves and
the sponsored bodies is absolutely central to a successful policy
in this department.
24. From your experience, do you think that
the arm's length system works efficiently? I know that it is a
great convenience to Ministers not to have to make these decisions.
Nevertheless, is that a principle worth continuing to defend?
(Mr Young) Unquestionably, it is. We can all think
of examples where it looks as if it may have been strained a bit,
but in general I think it is terribly important that an arm's
length principle is sustained. The bodies that we have set up
take myriad decisions. If the Government were instead to take
them I do not see how a department like DCMS could cope. If we
nibbled away and took detailed decisions which the sponsored bodies
were set up to take, or sought to influence them in such a way
that meant effectively government took the decisions, an important
principle would be lost. It would be a major change to centralise
back into the department decisions which the agencies were there
to take. That is not to deny that funding agreements can be used
so as greatly to enhance and clarify government influence over
these sponsored bodies.
Mr Green
25. Having had a full week to survey your new
empire, do you think that the boundaries are right? Does it hang
together as a coherent whole?
(Mr Young) The first thing to strike one is the very
length of the boundaries. It is a small department with a huge
span of interests and activities. Having read reports of this
Committee in its previous incarnation, lots of questions were
put to my predecessor about various boundary disputes and suggestions
about how we might accrete a little. I think that after eight
days I am agnostic, partly because coming from the Cabinet Office
what is important to me is how we work with other agencies and
departments with adjoining responsibilities, not whether we take
them over. From where I sit, having come from the Cabinet Office,
which department has titular responsibility for a particular subject
is not important; what is important is how they work together.
Over the past seven or eight months in the Cabinet Office attempts
were being made to erect new ways of forcing departments to work
together rather than focus on some rather tired-looking boundary
disputes. Though that is where we come from, we are well aware
that there are areas where people say that boundaries might be
altered. I start from an agnostic position but with a wish to
make the existing distribution work.
26. Do you think that all the existing functions
naturally sit together? One can try to promote more cost-effective
working, but in practice on a day-to-day basis there is a huge
difference in performance between one department and another.
Do you believe that everything that is now within your responsibility
naturally falls within the ambit of the department?
(Mr Young) We can all thinks of ways in which the
department could have been set up differently. After six years
of existence I think that the department has coherence in the
way in works. It is interesting how if a department stays together
in this area it appears to be more sensible than perhaps when
it began, probably because of efforts to make it into a manageable
whole. There is now a departmental ethos. As I saw when I was
in a government regional office it is striking that all of the
various agencies that come under the DCMS work together in a way
that they did not do before. It is natural that disparate bodies
held together only by their sponsorship by DCMS come together
now in every region and effectively act as the department's regional
arm. As attention focuses on the regional development agenda and
so forth, it will be seen that the DCMS-sponsored bodies hang
together and have different approaches to issues, and an increasingly
important approach to them, and it makes sense for them to be
in one department.
27. You make the point that you have a small
department with an enormous span of activities. One of the criticisms
made of the department in its early days was that given its range
of responsibilities it was rather under-powered in terms of both
the number and calibre of staff that it attracted. It was regarded
as insufficient to ride this enormous beast properly. Has that
problem been solved in your experience so far?
(Mr Young) I have been very impressed by the calibre
and enthusiasm of the staff and the various agencies that I have
inherited. It probably does not make sense in looking at the size
of the sector to compare that with the number of civil servants
in DCMS but to have a more sensible discussion of the amount of
public resources being aimed at the sector. I do not believe that
the size of the department is the important issue but the weight
within Whitehall that is given to this sector. Just as I understand
that part of the remit of this Committee has been to shout loud
the importance of DCMS sectors to the economy, so I see it as
part of my function to bring home to Whitehall the present and
increasing importance of DCMS sectors both to the economy as a
whole and the quality of life, and therefore to ensure that the
department punches its weight more effectively. I do not think
that that is necessarily to do with the number of civil servants
but the reputation that they have and the impression that they
make. Part of my personal objective is to ensure that the department
punches its weight in Whitehall and that people understand the
contribution that its sectors make to the economy.
28. It would be a revolution in Whitehall to
say that size does not matter.
(Mr Young) Revolutions can always be made to happen.
29. You said earlier that one of the purposes
of the Comprehensive Spending Review was to have tighter financial
control over the sort of bodies that the department sponsors.
If you achieve more successful and tighter financial control that
will be yet another nail in the coffin of the arm's length principle,
will it not?
(Mr Young) Not in the way that I define "financial
control". In answering the Chairman I tried to draw the difficult
distinction between propriety control and system control and decisions
on individual grants, for example. I believe that we should have
tight control over the systems by which the sponsored bodies give
out grants but no control whatever over the bodies to whom those
grants are given, always providing that such grants are used to
achieve the objectives that are set out. I seek a framework under
which the department has control over financial systems, control
after discussion over objectives and monitoring but no control
over individual decisions within those two. That is the deal that
we hope to offer.
30. As to systems, in the first report of the
Committee to this Parliament one of the aspects that was highlighted
was the inadequacy of the advice given to the Secretary of State
when he faced a huge crisis in his first week about Mary Allen
wanting to swap jobs, and so on. Was that a systemic failure?
If so, what measures do you propose to avoid that happening again?
(Mr Young) I do not know enough about the particular
matter to which you refer to comment on it. It was before my time.
Under the framework that I have outlined there is no need for
any such failure to occur. Under the framework once the objectives,
monitoring arrangements and financial systems are all agreed the
agency does the business. I think that the issue you raise is
one of appointments.
31. Clearly, it impinged on the whole area of
propriety in relation to a grant-receiving body. To an extent,
your predecessor advised on an area of propriety. Without commenting
on the merits of the decision, the Secretary of State was left
in a delicate and difficult position. I wonder whether you think
that there were systemic weaknesses inside the department which
caused it or it was just a one-off happenstance?
(Mr Young) I make no comment at all about the Mary
Allen case. I do not know enough about it, and I do not think
that it is right for me to comment on it. We are very keen indeed
to set up open appointments arrangements and to enforce on all
our sponsored bodies equally open, fair and accessible appointments
regimes. I have been very struck since coming to the department
about the number of appointment issues that come across my desk.
We are again in the middle of reviewing our appointments process.
The Secretary of State is keen to open it up further. We ourselves
have very strict control over appointment. Even after eight days
I have already sat on three appointment panels with outside bodies
as a result of open advertising. Internally, I am happy that we
have good, fair and open appointment procedures and that they
will improve. We then hope to ensure that our sponsored bodies
adopt the same procedures.
Chairman
32. All government structures are untidy. There
is never a perfect boundary. Following Mr Green's question, it
seems to me that the boundaries of your department can be regarded
as particularly untidy. The department was founded six years ago
by Mr Major for Mr Mellor, and it was created very much in Mr
Mellor's image, ie he was interested in the arts, particularly
opera, and football. He was given a very nicely-wrapped present
and had responsibility for those two areas. But that did not make
a department on its own, so it had to fish around for other things,
some of which had been wandering round other departments and others
that had been very firmly with one or other department. For example,
broadcasting has wandered all over the place, from the Department
of Post and Telecommunications, to the Home Office and now your
department. On the other hand, although you are responsible for
things which are regarded as sport and the lottery, which is concerned
with a game of chance, you do not concern yourself with gaming.
That is the responsibility of the Home Office. We have the curious
concept of "hard gaming" and "soft gaming".
Probably the biggest industry for which you are responsible—certainly
the one that employs the most people—is tourism, and yet,
although a very good Minister is in charge of it, it seems to
be a rather forlorn sector. It is a huge industry involving an
enormous number of people and vast amounts of foreign revenue,
and yet somehow it is not the glamorous part of the department
in any way. Obviously, I am asking an administrative and not political
question. Do you think that the frontiers of the department are
tidy? Do you feel that you have everything that you should have
or that you now have things which could sensibly go elsewhere?
(Mr Young) After only eight days that is a tricky
question. To answer the last question first, I do not think that
we have anything that does not fit well with the department's
objectives. I am not conscious that I have anything within my
responsibilities that would best go elsewhere. To respond to your
question about tourism, we would hotly deny that that was seen
as a less sexy bit of the department. I think that that is absolutely
central to the department. Having spoken to tourism bodies since
I have been in the department, they feel quite comfortable about
remaining with the department. If one takes the example of our
contribution to various policies like welfare-to-work and new
deal, the contribution by the tourism and hospitality sector to
the employment of 18 to 25 year-olds has been remarkable. I believe
that as a sponsoring department ours is in the forefront of the
efforts of the Government to make the sectors participate fully
in the new deal. In achieving some of the departmental objectives
that we have set out here, the tourism sector and the part of
the department responsible for it will be central. You referred
to betting and gaming. As to that, I am agnostic at the moment.
The advice I am getting is that the department can certainly work
within the existing boundaries; similarly, we could work with
changed boundaries. I would rather focus on making the current
arrangements work well than stand in the last ditch about boundary
reviews. Of course, in the last analysis it will be for the Prime
Minister to decide whether the machinery of government should
change.
33. For example, it strikes me as a great illogicality
that horse-racing is regarded as a Home Office responsibility.
We looked at it years ago and made a recommendation which was
disregarded. To go back to tourism, we made a recommendation about
a co-ordinated system for the classification of hotels. The department
said that it was looking at it but it never got round to making
a decision it. That is a very important matter.
(Mr Young) I regret to say that I cannot help on that
point, but I stress that the department's focus on tourism is
at the very centre of its objectives.
Mr Keen
34. One of the trends over the past 10 to 15
years—it has not changed under the new Government—is
that local authorities have found it harder and harder to fund
certain activities. Grants to the local arts like theatres had
to be cut. Some boroughs have had to cut money from leisure services;
other boroughs have managed to hang on to them very well. Obviously,
there is a great temptation to cut leisure services rather than
meals on wheels, for example. In other areas there has been a
trend to transfer leisure services to trusts. Have you had a chance
to look at that? We have to consider democracy. There is a massive
amount of resources going into what may be undemocratic. Have
you had a chance to look at that in terms of the future of the
arts but also sport?
(Mr Young) The truthful answer is: not in great detail.
But I am conscious that I would be trespassing on ministerial
decisions if I said too much about it. I would like to stress
the extent to which the department involves itself as part of
the local government team within Whitehall, as it were. We are
members of all the central government's committees and structures
which consult with and talk to local authorities and the new single
association. I am keen that we should continue to play our full
part in that. It is in that forum—which is Hilary Armstrong's
area—that new structures and arrangements are being looked
at in terms of a possible transfer out of the public sector. If
I went much further I would probably trespass on ministerial decision.
35. Another area that gives even greater concern
is libraries which may fit better into education than the traditional
leisure services. My own borough's library service has undergone
a big change. It has been cut but presumably it has gone into
a trust along with the rest of the leisure services of the department.
We have not yet been able to investigate this thoroughly. But
is that something about which your department is concerned?
(Mr Young) Yes. The department is working extremely
closely with DfEE both on the information age for libraries and
the national grid for learning. Both of those are highly relevant
to the future of libraries. That is an area in which I believe
the department can make a big contribution, working closely in
this case with DfEE because we share responsibility for the information
age and national grid for learning issues.
36. As far as local authorities are concerned,
there is no doubt that over the past few years although people
have perhaps paid less council tax their quality of life has been
reduced. I take the simple example of the inability to plant flowers
on roundabouts any more. It is part of the quality of life. I
would have thought that the National Lottery could provide money
for that; otherwise, the whole country will be covered in concrete.
That is what we see in many urban areas. One thinks of the Hogarth
roundabout at Chiswick. It has been said that so many thousands
of pounds have been spent on one roundabout for the benefit of
the environment. The purpose is to make Britain look more attractive
to people coming from Heathrow Airport. We are worried about the
side streets. I presume that this is not your department's concern.
What is your department's view about grants for such purposes?
I am not concerned particularly about roundabouts but the whole
principle of improving the quality of life and the surrounding
environment.
(Mr Young) One of my previous jobs was head of the
Government Office for London. We were very keen on that project
to enhance people's view of London as they came in from Heathrow.
I remember that scheme very well, which I am glad to hear is going
so well. It improves the appearance of the Hogarth roundabout.
But I am not sure that that is a matter for my department. I think
that that is the responsibility of the local authority within
the resources that it is given.
37. But we have been talking about the boundaries
of your department which at times are quite woolly. The example
I have given fits in with sport and the arts whereas other departments
tend to care just about money and spending as little as possible
rather than enhancing what is already there.
(Mr Young) Our answer to that is that we will play
as full a part as we can in the parts of central government that
look at the annual settlements with local authorities and the
reform of local government and its functions, which is what we
are doing.
Mrs Golding
38. Following Mr Keen's questions, it seems
to me that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is a rather
cumbersome title for the functions that it carries out. Do you
think the name should be changed and, if so, to what?
(Mr Young) With the greatest respect, the suggestion
that a permanent secretary of eight days should volunteer to change
a name that has just been carefully invented by his Secretary
of State is one that I think should be ignored. That name has
been carefully produced by my Secretary of State, and I think
that it is an excellent one.
Chairman: That answer does you great
credit, and probably ensures your longevity in the department.
Mr Young, we thank you and your colleagues.
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