Examination of Witnesses (Questions 197
- 199)
THURSDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2001
DIGBY JONES,
AMANDA MCINTYRE
AND CHARLES
COX
Chairman
197. We are very pleased to have you as representatives
of the CBI here this morning to help us with our inquiry. Would
any or all of you like to say anything by way of introduction?
(Mr Jones) I am Digby Jones, I am Director-General
of the CBI. Thank you for inviting me. I am going to address you
for a couple of minutes in a moment, but may I just introduce
my two colleagues?
(Mr Cox) I am Charles Cox. I chair the CBI's Modernising
Government Committee. In business life I am the Managing Director
of the Work and Pensions business for EDS.
(Ms McIntyre) I am Amanda McIntyre and I am Head of
Modernising Government at CBI.
(Mr Jones) We at the CBI welcome this inquiry. We
think it provides an important chance to improve our collective
understanding of the fundamental challenge of improving public
services and the role of the private sector in this. The tax paying
public—which obviously includes business—expects delivery
more than ever. Delivery of better value public services will
be the biggest contributor to successful socially inclusive wealth
creation. The challenge to improve public services is huge. The
public's view of progress to date is not good. Whilst 100 per
cent of local councils and 90 per cent of health authorities surveyed
by the Local Government Association think services will improve
if present trends continue, only 35 per cent of the public and
31 per cent of businesses would agree with that. The Government
is starting to get a better understanding of how to deliver these
improvements. Management techniques are improving. Procurement
competence has some way to go but it is getting better. There
is recognition of the need for leadership, for using different
management styles in different situations, not a one-size-fits-all,
for using performance management and not micro-management and
making a reality of the word "partnership". But the
public sector has genuine capacity constraints. Central initiatives
to drive improvements in public services must be practical, strengthening
both commitment and skills in leading and managing change across
the public sector. This change is about, more than anything else,
culture. There are very many good, committed, hard-working, caring
people employed in the public sector who are held back from delivering
to their maximum potential by a system which for years has put
the deliverer's interests and issues and those of politics above
those of the tax-paying consumer. The private sector has to put
the consumer first, albeit for motives associated with shareholder
and profits, but with PPP the end result can be a fusion of the
best of both interests. The private sector has a vital role to
play. This is certainly not because of any false "private
good, public bad" rationale, but because by having a range
of service providers you get different sources of ideas and a
healthy competitive pressure on everyone to do better. We believe
the key requirement is for a public service ethos—not a
public sector one. The key is to make sure that the public and
private sectors work together in the right way in a partnership
where their motivations are aligned towards delivery of an agreed
outcome. The public and private sectors did not always work in
this way before and the damage to service quality, the damage
to staff morale was very serious. But both sectors are now increasingly
working in partnership and it is making a difference. PPPs are
improving the quality of public services, they are delivering
better value for taxpayers' money. But there is more to do. We
must build on the progress to date to improve procurement, to
improve contractual relations. The public sector must be a challenging,
partnering client, to drive the best results out of the best of
the private sector. Despite what emotive rhetoric for voter consumption
might say, this is not about "privatisation". Public
services are not being privatised by PPP. This is about using
private sector expertise and resources to deliver public services
which are a credit to the United Kingdom, a nation which has put
up with and paid for poorly managed public services for far too
long.
198. Thank you very much for that and thank
you for your most helpful memorandum which you let us have too.
I sense that, rather like the last session, we are going to have
a frank-speaking session, which is good.
(Mr Jones) I would have thought so.
199. Let me start then. You said some interesting
things there. You said that the private sector has to put the
consumer first.
(Mr Jones) Yes.
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