Examination of witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
TUESDAY 25 JULY 2000
SIR HAYDEN
PHILLIPS, KCB, and MISS
JENNY ROWE
20. One of the criticisms of PFI has always
been that you ultimately end up paying more for it at the end
of the day than, perhaps, if you did it yourself. Are you confident
that this is going to be a cost-effective way for the Department
to operate?
(Miss Rowe) Yes, I think it will be. I am pretty clear
that we could not have, with our own internal resources, delivered
what this contract is delivering. We would have had to buy in
expertise in order to do it. We are, currently, in the middle
of a benefits realisation programme as part of this to realise
all the benefits we thought would accrue on this, and I think
once we come to the end of that we should be okay.
(Sir Hayden Phillips) I am sure the Committee comes
across this in other areas too. What you can get wrong is to hand
over too much, and what you have to hang on to (and I think we
have learnt this too) is the capacity intelligently to manage
such a contract and to be well enough informed about what you
want delivered to make sure that the PFI partner does actually
deliver. That is with your reference to managing, as it were;
trying to make sure we get the benefits out of this. It is not
just sitting there and waiting for it to happen, we have to do
something and be active about it. I think that is one of the things
that comes out of all of these contract relationships.
21. The Chairman spoke earlier about the difficulties
of carrying management and staff with you as you go through change.
This is almost a double change, because you have got to go to
resource accounting anyway and you have got the involvement of
these new people. How are you managing that change so that your
budget managers and staff in departments understand what their
role is going to be in this new regime?
(Sir Hayden Phillips) I think the biggest challenge
to introducing resource accounting and budgeting is not, really,
technical but actually making sure that the training programmes
for staff and their understanding—both of the changed way
of doing accounts and accounting but, also, the implication that
has for the way the Department is managed—is really understood.
I do not pretend to you for a moment that we have the strength
and depth across the Department to be satisfied that that is the
case. We have professional accountants and we have training programmes
to roll out but it will not be until later this year that I think
we can really assess whether we have the strength and depth to
make it work well.
22. To that end, what assurance could you give
the Committee that your resource accounting for 2001/02 will actually
be complete and accurate in terms of telling us what your Department's
activities are?
(Sir Hayden Phillips) I do expect to receive an unqualified
audit opinion for the accounts. I believe we have training programmes
and techniques in process to get that done. I hope we will be
able soon to get rid of the long-standing qualification on criminal
Legal Aid in the magistrates' courts. I think we will get there.
You will hold me to that aspiration.
23. We will take that as an unqualified guarantee.
(Sir Hayden Phillips) Right.
Mr Cawsey: Thank you, Chairman.
Mr Fabricant
24. Just a quick one following on from there.
You mentioned training. It seems to us, when we have interviewed
other departments, that there does not seem to be a great deal
of co-operation between departments on resource accounting; each
one seems to operate in isolation and has to learn its own lessons.
Am I being unfair, only it seems to me that a relatively small
department like your own could learn from the experiences of others.
It seems to me you are not the only department—let us put
it this way—that has had problems with the National Audit
Office. Do you speak to other Permanent Secretaries? Do you speak
to other government departments to see how they are resolving
these problems on resource accounting?
(Sir Hayden Phillips) We do. I will let Jenny come
in and say a bit more about her knowledge on this. The fact that
we now have a Criminal Justice System working arrangement with
the Home Office and the CPS means that we do have regular talks
about the way in which the system is managed. Clearly, at the
interface between our accounts and those of the Home Office and
the CPS in that Criminal Justice System we have got to co-operate
so that the information bases are the same and we understand what
is happening. More widely than that I do not know how it works
from the point of view of contact.
(Miss Rowe) We are represented on various working
groups which are looking at resource accounting and budgeting
across the whole of Government, and those provide useful fora
in which to discuss what are common problems. We also have an
extremely good working relationship with the NAO and we can raise
issues with them about how we are going to treat something and
they give us information on how they have resolved issues with
other departments.
Chairman
25. Best practice, you might call it.
(Miss Rowe) Yes, which is extremely helpful.
Mr Fabricant
26. On training, there is no common training
programme throughout Government. At the end of the day, although
government departments are different, obviously, in how they operate
because of the functions they are performing, resource accounting
is resource accounting.
(Miss Rowe) There is core information which Treasury
have provided which we are using as part of our programmes, but
I think it is important that whatever you deliver is tailored
to the circumstances of your particular department, and that is
what we are trying to do at the moment.
Mr Fabricant: Let us move on to the e- side
of your business. Looking at the cover of your departmental report
Modernising Justice, part of the modernisation, as you
have already said, is the implementation of electronic provision
of services. I note in your memorandum that although 100 per cent
of people working at the Court Services Headquarters have access
to external e-mail you do not mention those actually working at
individual courts. Will there be a time—and if so when will
the time come about—when I can e-mail my local court to
find out when I am due to be had up for speeding, or whatever
else I might be had up for? It is a hypothetical question.
Chairman
27. You hope!
(Sir Hayden Phillips) It is not for me to comment
on those matters. The position at headquarters is quite good and
we will be 100 per cent covered, both internally and externally,
by the end of the year. The big issue is what we do about the
networks across the country of 10,000 staff where, at the moment,
only 10 per cent have access to internal and external e-mail.
All I can say is that with the resources we now have and with
the programme of work on this that the Court Service has in hand
we will progressively be able to improve that. What I am not in
a position to give you now are the targets and timetables for
that. If the Committee would like us to find out from the Chief
Executive of the Court Service what he proposes by way of roll-out
over the next couple of years, then I will provide that information.
However, you are right, that is where we want to be able to make
real differences in the way services are delivered. We have got
the resources to do it now and I think you will be interested
to know what our plans are. We have got all sorts of pilot projects
going on of one sort or another in joining up electronically different
parts of the system. We have got a pilot starting in September
or October on the electronic presentation of evidence, and these
things are very interesting and they are the way forward, but
they are not about providing what you and I want to provide, which
is on-line services to court users, as it were, but we will give
you some information about that.
Mr Fabricant
28. In connection with that, there are two ways
I could find out court listings. One is by e-mailing and asking,
which is the point you have just addressed. The other way, of
course, is for individual courts to have their own sub-websites
so that I could pull out the website and look at the court listing
for myself. Do you see that as part of the system that you were
talking about in the roll-out of 10 per cent of e-mail access?
(Sir Hayden Phillips) Yes, I think the state of business
in any court and when access can be given to members of the public
when cases are coming on should be a part, and will be a part,
of the electronic service that the courts should provide.
29. I notice in your memorandum, as well, you
said there were associated offices, and I was not quite sure what
associated offices were. I assume that is the Lord Chancellor's
Department rather than the Court Service. Ninety-seven per cent
of employees have internal e-mail but only 45 per cent external
e-mail. Why have you got that discrepancy, whereas, in fact, there
is much greater correlation both at the LCD headquarters and at
the Court Service's headquarters?
(Sir Hayden Phillips) The associated offices are a
group of small, if you like, departments that are around the core
of LCD headquarters. To give you an example: the Council on Tribunals,
the Official Solicitor, the Legal Service Ombudsman—a whole
series of things like that. There are some of these on which external
e-mail progress has not been made, but I am told I can say that
by December 2000 we will ensure that all of them have achieved
100 per cent for external e-mail. I know the Committee will be
happy to know that.
30. Also in your report, if I turn to page 16
paragraph 24, which is to do with Queen's Counsel (and you will
be questioned more on that later), just under 20 per cent of applications
received this year were on forms downloaded from the Department's
website. Later on you said that you are charging a fee in 1999
of £335 for that application. Bearing in mind the poverty
of so many barristers nowadays, and given that you have said that
some fee reductions are offered to users of electronic services,
could you explain, maybe, whether (a) people applying for Silk
will get a reduction in their fee if they do so from your website
and (b) what other services will be entitled to a reduced fee
if they apply from your website?
(Sir Hayden Phillips) There is a programme to try
and develop the whole of the judicial appointments system and
applications so it can be done on-line. Insofar as that is done,
the cost will come down. However, the fees that we are charging
on the Silk front—QCs, as it were—I would have thought
would only be marginally affected by that change because the vast
bulk of the amount of money involved is actually in staff time
in assessing the applications, collecting information, as it were
and then advising the Lord Chancellor. I think there will be some
reduction in fees that will come about as a result of that, but
they will not be incredibly substantial compared to the overwhelming
bulk of the cost, which is in staff time.
31. Where will they be incredibly substantial?
What services do you see will be reduced in cost by making applications
for those services through websites? What does "incredibly
substantial" mean? A reduction of 50 per cent? Seventy per
cent?
(Miss Rowe) The Court Service already offers a discounted
fee for on-line issue of claims through the Claims Production
Centre, which is, I think, 5 per cent. Looking at the Land Registry,
they discount by 50 per cent fees for official searches which
come on-line.
(Sir Hayden Phillips) I am sorry we have to answer
these by giving specific examples rather than the across-the-board
picture, but I think the generalisation is that the more the whole
of the actual transaction can be conducted on-line the greater
the reduction in cost will be. With the Land Registry example,
here we are talking about a reduction from £4 to £2
for a single fee, but that is substantial. Similarly, I think,
we will find as we move down to the position where we can get
many more transactions carried out electronically—and, as
you know, there are plans in the Land Registry for electronic
conveyancing—then you will be able to bite into what, at
the moment, are very costly, manpower-intensive systems that take
a long time. So there will be a substantial reduction in delay
as well as some in relation to cost.
32. Let us move on to your website Just Ask,
which was launched in April this year. It seems to be quite a
popular website and I gather it receives between 1,000 and 2,000
page impressions daily. You say in your report that 80 per cent
of feedback by users of the site regard the services as reasonable
or better. How far do you think this website Just Ask sets
a standard? Do you think it has already reached the pinnacle of
its success, or how do you see it improving in years to come?
(Sir Hayden Phillips) It has reached a pinnacle—not
the South Col but quite a way up the mountain—in the sense
that it won what I believe are the Internet Oscars. It won an
award—the New Media Age Effectiveness Award—for the
public sector and charitable area, which, as it were, from a standing
start, all those in the Department (and it was not me) did extremely
well to get to that point. It shows that you can, in the public
sector, present things in a way which wins the applause of the
market in which you are operating. As you say, feedback has been
good so far and the number of people visiting it is reasonably
high. I think there are three areas where we need to develop.
The first is improving the search functions for getting advice.
For example, we already say to people "If you want to say
you do not want information about suppliers of advice any more
than five miles away from where you live, press the button",
and you do not get page after page, you just get those people.
Secondly, we want to invest in providing information and advice
in languages other than English. I think it is very important
for us to do that. Thirdly, I am really keen for us to use this
website, which is pretty good quality, with the Department for
Education to be able to provide for a part of the citizenship
curriculum in schools good quality information about the law and
legal systems. In each of those three areas I am pleased to say
we have some money from the Invest to Save fund, so we will be
able to develop this website over the next year to meet those
three development areas. They will be real improvements and we
will go on trying to keep it up-to-speed, up-to-date and user
friendly.
33. I am pleased to hear that you are speaking
to the Department for Education, because it seems to me if you
are getting an Oscar for the site—and I have had a brief
look at the site and it is an attractively presented site—going
back to my old question about joined-up government, what advice
are you giving other departments about how to improve their websites?
Presumably you have used an outside contractor to develop that
website. Do you know if that contractor is advising other government
departments too?
(Sir Hayden Phillips) ICL is our contractor and the
award is jointly for the Department and for them. I am sure they
are working with others. I think the particular departments that
will be interested in what we are doing are those who are trying
to deliver one-stop shop services locally in communities—the
DETR, DFEE and others. In a number of parts of the country we
are trying to join up with them. So the Community Legal Service
is not just seen as a separate thing. I am very careful, however,
not to lecture my Permanent Secretary colleagues as to how good
we are; I just mention we won the Oscar, let that settle and leave
it there. We also got second prize in this area for the Public
Record Office's work on the learning curve, which is a tremendous
package of good stuff for schools. I hope, Chairman, one of your
department's team did quite well in this area.
34. Not everybody has the web. I was looking
at a thing on the BBC site yesterday and I saw that Iceland had
the biggest penetration of access to the Internet and Burma had
the least. Britain is somewhere in between. How convinced are
you that you are managing to get the information in Just Ask
and other websites that you operate to those people who really
need it, because some of the most needy people, of course, will
not have access to the Internet.
(Sir Hayden Phillips) This is not a problem, obviously,
unique to my department, and I think it is a worry for a lot of
people. One does not want to produce, as it were, an e-under-class,
where you have got access electronically to lots of people but
the people you need to target are precisely the people who do
not have it. I think that is why, in relation to the Community
Legal Service, we need to develop locally, as it were, places
to which people can go to get access in a remote way themselves.
This also links with the issue of trying to make sure we have
good coverage for legal services, particularly, in rural areas.
For example, we have, in East Yorkshire, a video pilot—this
is analogous—which enables remote access to information
about legal services. That is important, and I think that as we
develop the website strategy we want to make sure that that is
available not just to those who personally have the tool kit but
to those who may not be able to have it but can get to it.
Chairman
35. In libraries, for example?
(Sir Hayden Phillips) In libraries, in courts. For
example, we have in hard copy all the information about what we
call the CLS Directory of Legal Services—"Where do
you go to get help?"—in every library and every court
in the country. There is no reason why we cannot have interactive
website availability at the same time. So that is the sort of
thing, and we will do that, one day.
Mr Fabricant
36. It is not just "ordinary people",
as Charles Falconer would call them, who need access to websites,
but also judges themselves. In fact, your report says, and I quote:
"All full-time judges will have quick access to legal information
including Strasbourg and domestic human rights jurisprudence via
the Internet."
(Sir Hayden Phillips) Yes.
37. What percentage of judges have got computers?
(Sir Hayden Phillips) Of full-time judges, 1,000 out
of 1,200, and the provision of IT to the extra 200 is now being
rolled out. The 1,000 who have them at the moment will get the
necessary software to get into the Internet now. The roll-out
will be complete on 27 July—ie, this week. I can give you
more information about what they can get,[3]
but that provision is there. It does mean that, particularly in
relation to the human rights area, there is no want of information
available to them quickly about the jurisprudence that they will
need to draw on . I think that is, on the whole, a reasonably
good story.
38. I think you get 9 out of 10 for that.
(Sir Hayden Phillips) Wait a minute. What happened
to the 1?
Mr Linton
39. I just have a couple of small supplementaries
on the subject. Do the associated offices that have only 45 per
cent external e-mail include the Public Trust Office?
(Miss Rowe) No, that is not an associated office.
That is a separate agency.
3 Note by witness: The roll-out of 1000 computers
to the judiciary will be complete on 27 July 2000. The roll-out
of software to allow internet access will be complete by the end
of August 2000. Back
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