Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 303)
WEDNESDAY 15 MAY 2002
MR PETER
LAUENER, MR
MARK BEATSON,
MR CHRIS
RILEY AND
MR ALAN
RIDDELL
Chairman
300. It seems to be getting worse, maybe that
is just a sign of success because the Government is spendingmore
money but the complexity seems to be getting worse. Over your
professional careers is it getting better or is it getting worse?
All of your management time, your key active time in your professional
lives being spent on co-ordination must now be bigger by a factor
than at any time before.
(Mr Riddell) Everyone is spending more time because
there is much more partnership working everywhere. I suppose as
you get away from silos you spend a lot more time at local and
national level in partnership working. The seminar I attended
on Friday with David Webster was jointly sponsored by DTLR, the
DWP and the Treasury to look at regeneration and employment policy.
301. You are all optimistic about this? You
are all enthusiastic about the future? The system is not grinding
you all down?
(Mr Riddell) Yes. I think we would all agree we all
work much more closely together. Whether that means we have better
outcomes, I do not know. We do work closely together.
Rob Marris
302. When will you know whether you have got
better outcomes? When will we know?
(Mr Riddell) You will know.
Rob Marris: What is the time frame?
Chairman: Can I ask is it possible—we
are hopefully producing our report which will be as informative
and constructive as possible—to get an appendix at the back
of that which seeks to identify all of these schemes in the workplace
with who is in charge of them, where the funding streams comes
from?
Mr Dismore: What you propose to do and what
the targets are?
Chairman
303. That might seem like an obvious thing but
for people to make the best use of our report, and again this
is not trying to be clever or trying to trick you in any way,
if it would be possible to get a consolidated glossary with a
list of all these important schemes we have been talking about
as an appendix to the report, that would be valuable for us[19].
If I might just add, I know we have loaded work on you this morning
at a high rate, and I apologise for that, we are doing it for
a purpose and it is an important report and if you can help us
with that as you have helped us this morning that would be very
much appreciated.
(Mr Lauener) Yes.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed.
That has been very informative. It has been a long, hard session
for you all but it has been very helpful to the Committee. Thank
you for appearing this morning.
19 Please refer to the supplementary memoranda submitted
by the Department for Transport (ES 12A) Ev 127, the Department
for Education and Skills (ES 13B) Ev 136, and the Department of
Trade and
Industry (ES 16A) Ev 145. Back
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