Examination of witnesses (Questions 480
- 499)
TUESDAY 10 FEBRUARY 1998
RT HON
CLARE SHORT,
MP, Mr Mark Lowcock and MR
DAVID BATT
Ms Follett
480. I am taking us back to the European
Community aid programme. In evidence to this Committee in January,
Mr Harm Rozema from the European Court of Auditors identified
a range of weaknesses in the European Community aid programme,
though he did say we shared it with other donors. However, these
included poor project and programme preparation, weak targeting,
insufficient transparency and monitoring, and problems with capacity
building. Given that an increasing share of UK aid, which is already
greater than 30 per cent in fact, is channelled through the Community's
development programme, what practical steps do you think should
be included in Lomé V to remedy these defects? Overall,
a much broader question to end with, how do you think reform can
be achieved, ie in pushing for improvements to Lomé? What
mechanisms or levers can Her Majesty's Government use to promote
reform? What alliances can be built? What role could this Select
Committee play?
(Clare Short) Thank you. As I have already said,
and as it is generally agreed and as the OECD DAC review suggested,
European Union aid disbursement is not as effective as it should
be and there are very significant sums of money and making them
more effective could make an enormous difference. Generally on
the world stage the work of my Department and its predecessor
is seen to be high quality. One of the old views in Britain was
why do we not get all the money back, we can spend it better?
We have adjusted our outlook in the Department in the course of
preparing the White Paper. Britain could not achieve the international
poverty eradication targets if we had the whole of our 0.7% of
GNP, which we hope to have in the future, and spend it as effectively
as possible alone. We have to have good programmes ourselves both
to make our contribution to the international effort and to learn
about the best possible system of promoting development but we
also have to put significant work into the international system
to get an effective international system if the poverty eradication
targets are to be achieved. Therefore, putting effort into improving
the European Union's performance is more important than arguing,
and anyway we cannot in the short-term because the agreement was
reached, to bring the resources back to Britain. We are putting
increased effort into trying to increase the performance, improve
the performance and effectiveness of the European Union. The work
on the 21st Century Strategy, which I am personally very committed
to and involved in personally, is part and parcel of all of that.
Getting agreement across the Commission, Member States and Parliament
about the direction that reform should take is part of getting
a consensus about how we increase effectiveness otherwise we have
a very fractured system with everybody blaming each other and
no progress and no change. This is one of the reasons for this
seminar that we are organising, to get everyone taking a step
back and looking at what kind of change is necessary. If we can
get a broad consensus we are more likely to be able to deliver
it. On some of your detailed questions can I hand over to Mark
Lowcock. My officials are very highly involved in some of the
detailed negotiations to try and get improvements to the system
and I am sure he would like to comment on that.
(Mr Lowcock) Firstly, I think we agree with a
lot of the points that Mr Rozema made in his evidence and they
reflect points that Member States have made over the years with
the Commission too. I think the general answer is we feel with
the appointment of a new head to DGVIII and the strong commitment
that he has to address some of the underlying issues——
Chairman
481. Who is that head?
(Mr Lowcock) This is Philip Lowe.
(Clare Short) Who is British. He is very experienced.
He has worked in the Commission for a very long time and therefore
knows the system very well. He is personally very determined to
help bring about reform and increase effectiveness. This is a
real opportunity to get behind him and try to help him carry through
the kinds of reforms that he wants to support.
(Mr Lowcock) This is a propitious moment to be
addressing this. A general thing we have done is to ask the Commission
to come forward with their own detailed proposals to flesh out
what is in the mandate document in general terms about improving
the management of Lomé resources. We think that getting
their ideas really is a good starting point. There are a range
of ways in which Member States can help them. We second staff,
for example, and others do the same. In terms of the sorts of
issues, decentralisation is an issue balanced by the accountability
issue which the Secretary of State mentioned. The question of
the overall rules which the Commission across all the Directorates
General, not just on the aid side, applies to the use of its monies
is an issue which is governed by something called the financial
regulations which is shortly due to be renegotiated and we hope
through that renegotiation there will be opportunities to streamline
procedures, for example, on the contracting and tendering side
which leads to a lot of delay which is one of the things that
a lot of people complain about. Those are a few examples. It is
an extremely wide ranging topic which has to be pursued in lots
of different ways is our feeling. Now is a good moment to be pushing
a lot of these issues because of the renegotiation of the convention
and the particular willingness of top management in DGVIII to
work with Member States on this.
482. But has not all the power been taken
away from DGVIII just as we have got a Brit in charge by the creation
of this unpleasantly named committee, SCOOP?
(Clare Short) No. Although Philip Lowe is British
that is not what is most important about him. It is that he is
very experienced in the working of the Commission and very committed
to reform and increased effectiveness. That is what is important
about him. Really most importantly because there is too much placement
of nationals in the Commission and there should be more emphasis
on effective people and making the whole system work better. I
do not mean that as a reprimand. What is special about him is
not his Britishness, it is that he is determined to try and carry
through some reform. This question of the new aid management system,
the Commission always insists it is entirely a matter for them
and not for the Member States so we have not been closely involved
but my officials are watching like hawks and have some concerns.
(Mr Lowcock) It is not precisely clear what the
division of responsibility between Directorates General and the
Common Services Directorate will be. We do have some concerns
about some things that have been said which we have flagged up
with the Commission. In any case, the Directorates General, including
DGVIII, will have an extremely strong incentive to make sure that
whatever the new arrangements are they operate in a way which
does not suffer from some of the problems in the past. Within
the Commission, if this Common Services Directorate is set up
in the way that it might be, there will be incentives from DGVIII
and pressure from them to address some of these weaknesses as
well which is perhaps an important change from some of the things
in the past.
(Clare Short) There is one additional point I
would like to make. The Development Council of the European Union
meets only every six months. One of the problems in the past,
therefore, has been under each Presidency the new Presidency passes
a resolution saying things ought to be better and then it has
had its Presidency. Very fine resolutions have been passed on,
say, poverty or gender or whatever but everything just carries
on as before. Although we wish to pass a resolution on commitment
to the 21st Century Strategy, beyond that we are not going for
new work. We want to take out the resolutions that were passed
in the past on poverty and gender and look at what happened on
implementation as a way of getting inside the question of effectiveness
in the period of our Presidency. That is one of the reasons why
we are proceeding in that way rather than writing some new policy
that is good that equally in terms would not be necessarily implemented.
You asked what the Select Committee could do. I think getting
consensus about how improvement is to be brought about is very
important, that is why we are going for the seminar. I think parliament
to parliament a lot of work could be done and the Select Committee
could lead that. If we have got a body of informed opinion across
all the Members States that is not just knocking the Commission,
because that ends up damaging public opinion across Europe in
its commitment to development, the criticism is justified but
if we are not careful then everyone says "it is all a mess,
it is full of corruption, it is inefficient, there is no point"
and then it undermines the whole political commitment to promoting
development right across all the European Union countries. I think
the Select Committee could do an enormously valuable job if we
can build a consensus on how we need to go forward to improve
the quality. Building support across the parliaments of the European
Union for a way forward could be very important.
483. You might like to know, Secretary of
State, we are planning to call together those of our sister committees,
including the European Parliament's Committee on Development,
during the course of our Presidency to meet here in London to
discuss issues. Obviously the main one will be the renegotiation
of Lomé but there will be other issues which we want to
discuss with them. I hope that this will be a regular feature
of our proceedings. I wonder why we do not hold the Development
Council meeting more than once in six months? The European Agricultural
Committee meets every month as far as I know and other committees
meet more often, why not the Development Committee? Is it not
so important that we keep the pressure on the Community in development?
After all, it is the second largest budget of the European Union.
(Clare Short) Firstly, I very much welcome that
initiative the Select Committee is making and if there is any
kind of support that the Department can give to strengthen your
efforts we would like to be as helpful as we can because it could
be very significant and important work. On the question of the
frequency of the meetings of the Development Council, I do not
know, I think we would need more discussion because, of course,
as with our own Government we do not just need a separate place
where we talk about development, we need commitment to development
to run through the policy of the whole of the European Union,
it is thinking about trade, it is thinking about agricultural
reform and so on and so forth. There is always the danger if you
strengthen the development organisation everyone can leave development
to it and then think it has got nothing to do with agricultural
reform or trade and, as you all know, that is the complexity organisationally
of the work we do. I think we need to keep talking about whether
the Development Council should meet more frequently or whether
there are other ways of strengthening the commitment within the
whole of the Commission and the European Union in general to development.
I do not know if you would like to comment.
(Mr Lowcock) I do not know the origin of the frequency
of meetings.
(Clare Short) Lomé, for example, is taken
at the General Affairs Council also which is when the Foreign
Ministers meet and they meet monthly. On Lomé I go there
to talk about Lomé for the British Government, but then
you get Foreign Ministers who are not attending to the detail
of development talking about Lomé. That is the same problem
we have on agriculture or trade or anything else in our system
and in the whole international system, that people who are not
involved in development need to take development seriously if
we are really going to make more progress on trade and debt and
agriculture and environmental sustainability and so on.
(Mr Batt) Two points if I may. More frequent meetings
of the main Council may not necessarily be the most effective
way of doing business, hence the idea of the seminar on targets,
not taking this in a main formal Council meeting but taking it
in a way where there is a reasonable hope of making more progress
in talking about the ideas.
(Clare Short) The exchanges tend to be rather
formal and often Ministers read things out and then you are not
getting much moving of minds.
484. Thank you for that insight, we do not
see these things.
(Mr Batt) One should not be too fixated just on
that part of the process and the frequency of that part of the
process. Secondly, just to follow through the Secretary of State's
comments on what else is happening in other parts of the machine.
You mentioned the Agriculture Council, GSP has come up already
in questioning, and again what we need to do is to look at the
discussion that is going on in that GSP group, be it on the least
developed or positive incentive scheme or on a whole raft of other
areas. We need to see that as part of what we are trying to do.
Chairman: Andrew Rowe
has been anxious to get in.
Mr Rowe
485. I just wanted to say that in development
it seems to me that Professor Parkinson's bicycle shed is alive
and well. It is easy enough to get money to build a road but it
takes forever and is almost impossible and totally frustrating
to get $300 to buy some books or to send an official or an aid
worker for a short course somewhere. I just am anxious that the
European Union structures still make it almost impossible to get
small sums of money quickly to individuals or to villages or to
small projects and yet all the evidence suggests that the effectiveness
of small sums of money quickly secured by worthwhile projects
or worthwhile people is far more effective than many of the very
expensive projects. I just wonder if you saw any way of improving
that blemish?
(Clare Short) Firstly, I am not sure that I agree
that smaller sums disbursed quickly are more important than other
work. It is essential sometimes when there are disasters and emergencies
that money can be disbursed very quickly. My own view is that
we have to move from projects to sectors and build the capacity
within countries to build and sustain a universal free primary
education system, to build and sustain basic health care for all,
and that sort of sectoral work with parts of the government to
build that capacity and the ability to raise enough taxes to sustain
it over time. That is much more the sort of long-term work that
then has increased the capacity of the country to develop the
talents of its own people. You need the capacity to move very
quickly when there are emergencies. Of course, in the European
Union's ECHO and Emma Bonino's Directorate is all the emergency
aid. There are different procedures. There is also an NGO budget
line, I think they call it, and the EC did not manage to disburse
that. I think one of these questions of comparative advantage
is do we want lots of staff capable of disbursing small amounts
of money to individual villages across the world or should the
European Union concentrate on bigger spend? We should be able
to do that kind of work sharing out geographical areas through
the Member States. I think we must not try, with respect, to have
the capacity in the Commission to do absolutely everything that
needs to be done in development. We need a complementary relationship
between what the Member States do and what the Commission does.
I would suggest on the small and immediate it may be that Member
States can do it better.
Chairman
486. Why do we not have combined offices
in the recipient countries between Member States and the European
Union, it would save money and aid co-ordination and management?
(Clare Short) Is there not some such proposal
somewhere?
(Mr Lowcock) There are certainly examples of staff
exchanges between Member States and the Commission in delegations
and examples which we are participating in and one or two which
we are hoping will be agreed very soon to build on this exchange
of information. In a lot of cases countries will have an embassy
and the Commission will have a delegation and their responsibilities
will be much wider than the management of an aid programme, they
will be about the wider political relationship, for example, and
other things as well, consular for example in the case of different
countries. There is quite a lot of complex issues in the idea
of combining diplomatic representations which certainly I am sure
colleagues in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office would have
some views on.
487. It is not attractive to the bureaucratic
mind you mean?
(Clare Short) The foreign representations of countries,
there is a lot of—— What can I say? Countries attach
a lot of importance to the way in which they represent themselves
and the style of that representation and so on, all countries.
Again, I stress that the OECD DAC 21st Century Strategy calls
for massively more collaboration.
488. Yes.
(Clare Short) That is EU and beyond. That is the
way forward. The World Bank, the UN agencies, the donors are talking
together and with the government and indeed with society in that
country about the strategy for the country, in sharing out the
tasks and the expertise. Then everyone does not have to have all
that expertise, you can have complementary expertise. That is
the way forward for the EU because it cannot be staffed up to
do everything, it will never get the resources to do that, and
anyway it is the way to go to improve the effectiveness of development
in general.
Chairman: Ann Clwyd
has also been bursting to get in. I am sorry to keep you waiting.
Ann Clwyd
489. You have touched on what I wanted to
ask. I wonder if you can be more specific. Mr Harm Rozema from
the European Court of Auditors when he came here talked about
enhancing the role of the European Parliament in monitoring aid,
fraud, etc. You have touched on things like committees exchanging
information and so on. I wonder if you have thought of anything
more specific in terms of enhancing the role of the European Parliament
in development matters?
(Clare Short) What we have done in preparation
for our Presidency is to take the Parliament and Development Committee
very seriously. I have been over twice to meet with them. That
is very much because it is the right thing to do but also I am
absolutely convinced if we can build a consensus of good thinking
it is a precondition to getting agreement as to how to improve
effectiveness. It is also good politics in building that kind
of consensus. We have been very close to the Parliament. I think
they have welcomed that and feel very involved in our Presidency
in a way that they have not always in the past. That strengthens
our capacity to achieve. I know that Parliament has views that
the whole of aid should be budgetised—that goes back to
this question of the separate EDF for Lomé—because
that will give the Parliament more authority, and one understands
and respects that, but in the short-term it is not going to happen
because many countries are opposed and there is the problem that
it might reduce the total spend. Although I understand and respect
their call for that, that is not actively under consideration.
We are working very closely with the Parliament. We see them as
very important allies. Glenys Kinnock is a very effective and
active member. To have a former Prime Minister of France as the
Chair of the Development Committee gives it enormous status and
significance. To work with that Committee as an ally to get the
kind of change we all want, they are a very important potential
ally and we are taking that very seriously indeed.
(Mr Lowcock) I think the important thing is to
have a dialogue on the issues as they arise. For example, Parliament
at the moment is working on a report on the Lomé issue
and we are very keen to maintain links with them and exchange
ideas with them on that, as the Secretary of State did when she
visited the Development Committee last month. I think that sort
of ongoing dialogue on the issues is perhaps the most important
aspect of this relationship.
(Clare Short) The other good news is that Parliament
decides in each Presidency which subjects to have a general debate
on. I do not know the precise language. Time has been allotted
in the Parliament to development, both the 21st Century Strategy
and Lomé I think from memory, when I will answer for the
Union in our Presidency. Parliament is giving a lot of priority
to this work.
490. As you said yourself, our Presidency
moves on and somebody else takes over. I think Parliament has
got a very important role in monitoring the Commission and monitoring
the Council. I think it is pretty weak at the moment actually.
I wonder whether it is possible for us to establish a more active
role for the Parliament in monitoring EU aid?
(Clare Short) A constitutional role?
491. Yes.
(Mr Batt) I am not sure whether that would be
for us. The point that I was going to add in response to your
earlier question about the role of the Parliament more generally
is one of the things which struck me at the Secretary of State's
last visit was actually the breadth of the interest of the Development
Committee of the European Parliament, certainly on Lomé
and certainly on aid effectiveness issues, but actually on a much
wider range of development affected issues outside the immediate
parameters of aid. The second point I was going to add was in
addition to the role of the Development Committee of Parliament,
of course the European Court of Auditors are tremendously important
and interested to see the evidence that you have taken on this.
We ourselves have been closening our links with the European Court
of Auditors and met them before Christmas and it is one of the
further alliances, if you will, that we would like to build.
(Clare Short) I think, in brief, constitutional
change is not our business, thank heavens, and within the six
months' Presidency is not achievable. Working much more closely
with the Parliament to get agreement on ideas to be pushed forward
is and we are working very hard on that and I think they are welcoming
that and that alliance will make us more and more effective.
Mr Canavan
492. Secretary of State, some critics claim
that the European Union aid programme is not sufficiently focused
on poverty elimination and I think from some of your previous
remarks you might go along with that criticism, at least in part.
If so, could you tell us what is the reason for this? Is that
a fault in the policy or is it an inability to deliver the policy
effectively? What can be done? Is there something wrong in the
European Union Commission that they do not have a sufficient mix
of skills to tackle the problem of poverty? What could the British
Government do to ensure that in Lomé V poverty elimination
becomes a cornerstone?
(Clare Short) I think it is probably a problem
of both policy and effectiveness. Although, as I said, there was
this poverty resolution passed by the Development Council in 1993,
which had all the right analyses, we have doubts about the implementation
so that on one policy level it is all there but in practice implementation
has not been as good as it might be. We are seeking to address
that during our Presidency and also address the commitment to
the 21st Century Strategy. If it comes to Lomé this very
complex agreement channels funds through all sorts of instruments,
Stabex and Sysmin being part of it, and if you look at the distributive
effect of that it does not go to the poorest countries. One of
the changes to get the whole of the European Union's programmes
committed to the 21st Century Strategy and to differentiate the
needs of the least developed and middle income countries is part
of making the whole thing work more effectively on poverty eradication.
There is a purely political problem in the ACP alliance. As I
said earlier, the majority of the countries are middle income
countries so if we are not careful we can lose this commitment
to differentiating and prioritising poverty. It is not that we
are saying middle income countries do not have needs, they do,
but it is a different kind of need to differentiate the kind of
assistance that is provided. It is effectiveness, it is policy,
it is what is in the old Lomé. We need to attack on all
fronts and make the improvements that we have been talking about
this morning.
493. Do you think that our bilateral aid
programme is more focused on poverty elimination than the European
Union aid programme and, if so, is there perhaps a case for reversing
the trends whereby an increasing proportion of our aid budget
is being channelled through the European Union and a decreasing
proportion being put into our bilateral aid programme?
(Clare Short) I am busily in the process of focusing
our programme more effectively on poverty eradication. One of
the problems in this field is that everyone uses the finest language
of poverty eradication but you have to get into the detail and
the spend to see whether the follow through is really there. Post-White
Paper we are going through all the budgets, spend and policy of
the whole Department by country, by region and by sector to do
that redirection. We are at that work right now. We will be more
poverty focused at the end of this year than we were in the past.
In the case of the European Union we hope to work on a similar
process. This is, of course, big work and it is trying to improve
a big institution but we hope the thinking at the seminar will
become part of the currency and when Austria takes over from us
there will be enough agreement between Member States about the
direction of reform that there will be a continuing commitment
to a sharper and more effective poverty focus. On your final point,
given this problem will it be better if we disbursed our own funds.
It is about a third of our own funds that goes through the European
Union. In the short term it is not possible. The agreements have
been reached. I do not know how long they last and so we had better
get on with making the disbursement more effective. If we stay
at home and rail and the money is badly spent then that is an
ineffective use of our resources. Secondly, as I have said, as
a Department we are putting greater priority on trying to use
our influence in multi-lateral systems internationally to get
more effective development institutions in the whole world system
in order that the poverty eradication targets can be reached.
It does not matter how good Britain is alone, if we do not get
a more effective international system we will not secure them.
Therefore, the work of improving the quality of the EU's performance
now we consider as very important work and it is probably more
important to improve its quality because the size of the spend,
the potential influence of all of those countries, if it was all
very effectively and dedicatedly committed to the poverty eradication
strategies of the twenty-first century analysis, could help us
to achieve success.
494. If and when additional resources become
available to your Department, would you prefer to see these additional
resources being put through the European Union or would you prefer
to use them for your own bilateral aid programme?
(Clare Short) Happily, as and when we get more
resources, as the Government is committed, they will not be attributed
to the European Union. That is already settled.
(Mr Lowcock) Roughly speaking, between two-thirds
and three-quarters of the EU spend which comes off the DFID budget
is through the European budget for which the forward decisions
have been taken up to the end of 1999. During the course of next
year there will be further negotiations amongst the whole of the
EU about what is called the Post-Edinburgh Financial Perspective
in the jargon, in other words the European Community budget for
the years from 2000 onwards. As part of that negotiation there
will have to be a discussion about what slice of the cake should
go on external assistance. Those discussions have not yet begun.
(Clare Short) There is one other point I would
like to make. As our resources increase I would intend that our
increased resources would not be confined to increasing only our
bilateral programme. I would like us to be a bigger player in
the international system, in some of the UN agencies and so on
in order to work to strengthen them and increase their effectiveness.
That is part of our contribution to achieving the twenty-first
century strategy and we are starting to work in that way and to
look at the big UN agencies. Britain has reduced its spend below
what we should proportionally be spending as a country in UNICEF
and UNICR and UNDP, but I do not want to increase our spend, I
also want it to be part of a strategy for increasing the effectiveness
of those institutions. That will be part of the way we will proceed,
not just by strengthening our own bilateral aid.
Chairman
495. But presumably that will be provisional
upon them adopting poverty focused programmes of which we approve?
(Clare Short) Absolutely, but again less than
in the past, hectoring UN institutions and more making alliances
in agreement about how the institutions can be strengthened and
then backing the endeavour to do that strengthening all framed
within the poverty eradication targets.
Dr Tonge
496. I wanted to chip in on what Dennis
was saying really because my instinct to all of this is, "Oh,
for goodness sake, this is so complicated and it is so difficult
to grasp, why can't just go it alone, get on with our own aid
programme and stuff the rest? We know what we want to do. We know
what our priorities are. Why can't we go on and do it and not
have to bother with all these other agencies?" The problem
is for the recipient countries, is it not, because it is far easier
for them? We cannot give them all they would want and therefore
it is far easier for them to deal with the European Union, presumably
because that will be a bigger chunk of aid than it would be if
they had to go round first to Britain and then to France and then
to Germany and all these different places. I look at all this
constantly and try to get my head round this and say, "How
can we simplify it?" I feel like exploding and saying, "It's
just too complicated", and there is too much talking and
negotiation going on and too much money being wasted along the
way at the different levels.
(Clare Short) I understand your frustration.
497. Sorry for the outburst!
(Clare Short) If you look at TACIS and PHARE and
the resources that are meant to flow into the transition countries
in Central and Eastern Europe you can get even more exasperated,
if I can put it politely. You speak as a Member of a Party that
is very pro-European Union, but when you get into the nitty-gritty
of this institution it becomes very frustrating, there is no doubt.
Here we are at this point in history with the European Union as
it is and the easy thing would be to take it back home and say,
"We can do it better ourselves," but the international
poverty eradication targets will not be achieved if just one or
two countries have very good programmes. We have got to make the
whole multi-lateral system work. The potential influence of the
alliance on countries, that is the European Union, if they were
working effectively for development would be phenomenal. So the
prize is very large to get the institution working better. It
can be very frustrating, there is no doubt, but I am sure it is
right to work for that prize because I think myself that the European
Union is less than the sum of the parts in this endeavour, whereas
if it became more effective then its voice for international development
could be phenomenally influential on the world stage.
Dr Tonge: That is
what is so frustrating, that it could be so great and so influential
and yet somehow it is not doing that.
Chairman
498. The draft mandate that we have received,
and some of us have read, talks of replacing conditionality with
contracts. Does this make any practical difference, and are these
two concepts consistent with the concept of partnership?
(Clare Short) Conditionality with contracts? What
is the word?
499. It replaces "conditionality",
which used to be where we were going to give aid on certain conditions
and conditionality was involved, with "contracts" between
the countries or the programmes.
(Clare Short) I did touch on this in my introductory
remarks. The idea and the thinking is this very clear knowledge
that we have now which is that conditionality temporarily imposed
on a country that is dissatisfied is a very ineffective way of
doing development. Where you get success is when both sides agree
on the objective and work together to achieve it you get much
more successful development. Therefore, the move from conditionality
to partnership is not just because it is a nicer word, it is that
if you can get that agreement about the strategy for poverty eradication
that is owned by the country and they want it and are committed
to it—and I think we need to go beyond government and have
a sense in the broader civil society of an understanding of the
strategy for the country—then the chances of success are
much greater, but a partnership is a two-way thing. You then need
to negotiate about the detail and both sides need to agree that
this is an effective way of securing the ends of that strategy,
but that is meant to be the big shift from conditionality to partnership
and two-way agreement about the most effective way of securing
progress.
Chairman: That explains
it to us. It is in there. We were not certain what it meant.
Mrs Kingham: It does
actually say "contract" in here though. What is the
difference? Some parts of it say partnership, some parts say contract.
Chairman: "It
is dialogue at the fulfilment of mutual obligations based on the
notion of `contract' rather than of conditionality." That
is what we were not quite clear about.
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