Examination of witnesses (Questions 472
- 479)
WEDNESDAY 12 APRIL 2000
MR IAN
MCCARTNEY,
MR JONATHAN
REES and MR
ALAN WHYSALL
Chairman
472. Good afternoon everyone. We are delighted
to welcome the Minister this afternoon. This is the final session
in our seemingly long running inquiry into innovations in public
participation and it seemed appropriate to end with the voice
of the Cabinet Office which we have in the form of the Minister
of State, Ian McCartney. We are delighted to have you here. Would
you like to make a statement to kick us off?
(Mr McCartney) Just a short one and then we can perhaps
get our jackets off and have, I hope, a significant discussion
and debate. Can I make a couple of offers? It is important to
me that I get some significant feedback from yourself on this
and wider issues. Therefore, I will not do a final draft until
I receive from your Committee your deliberations and I will try
to incorporate that, not knowing in advance what you are going
to suggest, of course. Secondly, we have an event on 17 May which
is a culmination of Better Government for older people, a national
event at QEII. I would like to issue an invitation to Members
of the Committee who would like to come along as our guests and
be able to first hand talk to those who have been involved in
the process rather than just hearing it from me. Then you can
judge what I believe the success of the programme is compared
to what their assessment is.
473. These are both excellent offers and I am
sure we shall want to take you up on both of them.
(Mr McCartney) Perhaps some time later in the year,
I will come back at a later date and have a more detailed discussion
with you on these matters. The Code of Practice which we are putting
out on written consultation today is based on, first of all, making
more open and effective response in terms of the government and
its relationships. We see consultation as a central, key tool
to improving policy making and services. There has to be a process
in developing ideas and in the outcome of the idea is a modernised
updating of services provided in the community. We want to make
sure that consultation is in a continuum from the thinking out
of the process of the idea to the end result in terms of improved
services. We need to also tackle people's aspirations in a practical
way. Again, the best use of consultation will bridge the gap between
what people's perceptions are and what government can deliver,
whether local or national government. We need to tap into citizens'
ideas and experiences. There are lots of people out there who
have spent a lifetime in the community. They have ideas and experiences
and we need to be able to utilise their ideas as well as those
of front line staff. The government also has to build meaningful
relationships in the community with business and with community
groups and organisations. Therefore, the consultation process
is central to succeeding in these aims.
474. We start, do we not, from a position where
on the whole consultation has a bad name? Consultation over the
years has become a kind of pejorative word meaning not really
consulting but having to jump through some kind of formal hoop.
Do we not start from that low point in trying to turn people's
understanding of what it means around?
(Mr McCartney) For a long time that has been the case.
There has to be a connection; consultation has to be meaningful
in the sense that there is an absolute clarity, that you are able
to publish the outcome of the consultation, both of what has been
said and what your intentions are in respect of addressing the
issues that come up in the consultation. But another aspect of
it must surely be results on the ground, to be able to show in
a practical way that you have delivered. We will give examples
here today of the kind of practical changes that have taken place
through the consultation processeswork on better government
for older people and young people, and also about Charter Mark,
for example, where local authorities, the Health Service, the
police, the fire service, all those involved in it, are delivering
on the ground practical examples of change and better services
for the communities they serve. If we can do those three things,
people will see that consultation is a worthwhile exercise. Secondly,
they will want to be increasingly involved in the outcomes of
those consultations.
475. Along the way of this inquiry, we have
had people tell us that there are lots of guides around to how
we should do all this. You are producing a new code now in draft
form at the moment. What is new about it?
(Mr McCartney) It is the first time ever that government
has decided to grapple internally and externally with poor practice.
On the one hand, you have a variance in quality of documents provided,
inadequate response times, inadequate processes in terms of publicising
results and a failure to monitor successfully and appropriately
the exercises taking place. If there is poor practice, it is incumbent
on the government, given what I said at the outset, to put in
place standards which will require government departments, ministers
and other public bodies to follow through. That is not enough
either. Each consultation that goes out, from the outset, will
have to set down what the standards are. If a minister does not
carry out those standards, those who have been consulted will
know immediately that that is the case. Secondly, if a minister
wants to diverge from these standards, they will have to have
a pretty good reason why. The Prime Minister is absolutely committed
to this process of these high standards and developing and promoting
them, not just for written consultation but to look at other forms
of consultation and how we can improve them and how the government
involves themselves in the consultation process.
476. It strikes me that what is most novel about
this is that here is a set of practices which are to be effectively
binding on departments and public bodies. This is a quite new
development, is it not?
(Mr McCartney) It has literally never happened before.
Whether this is because of inertia, departmentalitis or because
there has not been a real sense of commitment to consultation,
I was not in those positions in the previous government or in
this government, but we have to start from here and see our experience
so far in the first three years in the Cabinet Office and with
other government departments in the rolling out of our policy
programmes, that consultation has increasingly been seen by government
departments, ministers, public servants, as a critical factor
in the successful outcome of those programmes. Increasingly, even
those who have been sceptical realise that you cannot succeed
with complex programmes if at the outset there is not a buy-in
from all the stakeholders and partners. Perhaps we have opened
a Pandora's Box. We have done a lot but there is a lot more to
be done. Having started the process, there is no turning back
here. I believe we will see an extension in the programme, a whole
lot of innovative ways of communicating in a more effective way
both pre-consultation, consultation and in the outcome and how
the service is delivered on the ground.
477. When consultation exercises take place
in future and are reported upon, will the reporting upon them
carry with it indication or certification that they have taken
place according to the code?
(Mr McCartney) The fact that the code is placed within
the context of each consultation document is a ready reckoner.
Secondly, there is a requirement to set out in the public domain
the outcome of the consultation process. As you have probably
noticed, we are doing an exercise in terms of people's perceptions
of how the consultation exercises have worked in practice and
whether they can be improved on. This will be a continuing process
of improvement. This is far from the final stop-off point. As
we get into more sophisticated forms of consultation involvementand
we have been very innovative; perhaps at some stage we can talk
about that with Jonathan and AlanI do not see this as a
stop-off point. I see this as a starting point.
478. You see no contradiction between the idea
of consultation as an innovative process that organisations own
and develop for their own needs and the idea of a binding code
from the centre?
(Mr McCartney) No. The code is a dynamic factor here.
If we are going to change culture, we suffer from two things in
the system. One is the centralisation of policy making. We miss
out on a great deal of people's experiences. Secondly, we miss
out a sense of ownership at the point of when we decide to deliver
the policy. Therefore, this is a dynamic process where we ensure
that there are minimum standards in place. We see there is accountability
of the ministers and others to carry out the process. Each case
is assessed, whether the process has been adequate and can be
improved, and at the other end, as well as doing that, there is
a feedback as to what happened with the process. What services
did we provide? Did we get new care services? Did we get new,
joined-up benefits between the Benefit Agency on the one hand
and local government on the other? Have we been able to introduce
new transport policies related to people? There has to be that
capacity to weigh up the benefits of the consultation with the
practical outcome of the policy.
479. How wide does this code go? You talk about
public bodies. Which kind of public bodies are we talking about?
Does it include local authorities, for example?
(Mr McCartney) Local authorities, regional authorities,
the public sector, in terms of consultation.
|