Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
OFFICE OF
GOVERNMENT COMMERCE,
DEPARTMENT FOR
WORK AND
PENSIONS, HOME
OFFICE, HM PRISON
SERVICE, AND
DRIVER AND
VEHICLE LICENSING
AGENCY
WEDNESDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2004
Q60 Mr Allan: The second
area is the issue of skills and it talks here about developing
a cadre, a group of skilled managers, and in one of our recommendations
it is clearly there. Are you happy that we are developing the
right skill-sets across government departments and do you have
any recommendations to make in that area, particularly over the
issue of comparisons with the private sector and the attraction
of the public sector in the IT field?
Mr Oughton: Well, I think it is
an issue. I am pretty clear that the work we have done so far
around the programme and project management specialism is a very
important part of this because there are many IT-enabled, mission-critical
projects on which I report to the Prime Minister every four months.
We have now got over 1,300 members of that specialism. It is providing
a career path through the system which people did not have before
and I could quote from individuals who have joined that specialism
who say, "This has given me something I didn't have before
which makes the career opportunities better for me".
Q61 Mr Allan: What I used
to come across in the Health Service was, "We don't want
to train people up because then they'll leave to get more money
in the private sector". Is that culture dead and you are
happy to train people up?
Mr Oughton: Yes, of course I am
happy to train people up because, frankly, across the economy
as a whole both on the supplier side and on the client side, there
is not sufficient skill to manage all of these major projects
unless we invest in developing it, so, for me, that is a very
important thing to do.
Q62 Mr Allan: And now
they are under departments, it is up to them?
Mr Oughton: Yes. I might make
one other point, if I may. Three or four weeks ago the Government
launched the Professional Skills in Government Programme which
is a serious attempt to move away from the conventional divide
which has operated in government since Fulton, of specialists
and generalists with specialists as the second class sort of group
of people. We have now identified three cadres, if you like, the
policy and analyst specialists, the operational delivery specialists
and corporate service specialists who are enabling the business
to operate effectively. Each of those is to be equally valued
and each of those provides a career route through the system for
individuals to reach the various highest levels so we can make
more of them in the department. I think that opens opportunities
for some of those who work in these skilled areas, the delivery
areas, that have not been available to them before. You could
progress through projects to the very largest project in the department
and there is your glass ceiling, so where do you go next? I think
this route allows us the opportunity then to exploit those skills,
those delivery skills, and move them into a mainstream management
posting at a very senior level.
Q63 Mr Allan: Let's move
on to the other area I want to look at, which is relations with
the other bits of this sector. The National Programme for IT is
outwith your framework, is it not? It is not part of the Gateway
Review process?
Mr Oughton: It is in fact because
although the NHS as a whole is outwith the formal Gateway process,
two things are done. For the mission-critical and high-risk programmes
and projects, they are `Gatewayed' as part of the formal Gateway
process, so the National IT Programme will be Gatewayed and in
fact it has been going through a refreshed Gate 0 more or less
even as we speak. Also within the NHS we have trained and accredited
Gateway reviewers to run a parallel system, if you like, which
they run internally in their own organisation and they are self-sustainable
for doing this.
Q64 Mr Allan: Are you
taking learning back from them in terms of the innovative contracting
they have done?
Mr Oughton: Absolutely. Indeed
many of the features of the contracting process that the NHS IT
Programme adopted has been mainstreamed into the Decision Map
and the Contract Innovation Guidance that we issued following
the decision in July 2003 to move away from a PFI model for IT
contracting to a more broadly based, conventional model of contracting,
so in December of 2003 and then again for some of this year we
have produced guidance and that draws very heavily on the best
parts of that procurement process.
Q65 Mr Allan: And then
finally in relation to e-government, which is the other bit of
the triangle, the trinity, looking at some specific examples,
like the open source guidance, guidance on the open source across
government, EM lawyers have had a fairly flabby and open source
policy operating for a while and you have just issued, as OGC,
a much more robust, positively encouraging analysis of that, but
who is doing the policy? I thought that the E-Government Unit
now does the policy and you do the implementation, but on something
like that one, I am not clear.
Mr Oughton: Well, we started running
with this, so we completed the pilot work and brought forward
the reports and it did get some very good coverage and did provide
some opportunities to move forward into the open source area.
Ian Watmore and I have discussed how we take this forward and
we are both agreed that the key issues that need to be addressed
are ones which the E-Government Unit, with its newly scoped role,
will be responsible for, so I happily pass the baton to him for
taking that implementation forward.
Chairman: There are one or two supplementaries
now.
Q66 Mr Bacon: The E-Government
Unit sits inside the Cabinet Office?
Mr Oughton: Yes, it does.
Q67 Mr Bacon: And you
sit separately from that.
Mr Oughton: We are an independent
office of the Treasury.
Q68 Mr Bacon: I would
have thought there was a lot of sense in Mr Watmore and you almost
sharing the same office as your objectives are so similar.
Mr Oughton: We see one another
so frequently, you cannot really spot when we are apart actually,
Mr Bacon. We are extremely close and we both recognise, we absolutely
both recognise that we are a partnership here. We bring different
skills. Mr Watmore clearly has to be responsible for the major
strategic issues around developing the Government's IT strategy,
working with this new network of chief information officers that
he is setting up. I would expect to support him, underpinning
that relationship with the major suppliers, with the commercial
skills that we can bring to the table. We work very closely together.
Q69 Mr Bacon: May I ask
Mr Davies from the National Audit Office a question. During your
study of this area, have you found any evidence from the suppliers
that they object to the Gateway Reviews being published?
Mr Davies: We have found no evidence.
Q70 Mr Bacon: You have
found no evidence that the suppliers object to it. That does not
surprise me, Mr Oughton, because during the Work and Pensions
Review of 1990, you may be familiar with the fact that several
people said that they thought that the failure to publish Gateway
Reviews and talk about commercial confidentiality was a smokescreen
because suppliers do not really care what their policies are,
there is a high staff turnover and they really know what it is
all about, and it is really about protecting civil servants from
criticism. I am not sure if that is the case or not, but you do
have the Freedom of Information Act coming up.
Mr Oughton: Yes, we do.
Q71 Mr Bacon: And what
I would like to ask you is this: do you think that the position
of not publishing Gateway Reviews is going to be compatible with
the Freedom of Information Act because if people apply to look
at Gate 0 or Gate 1 and you say, "Well, we don't publish
Gateway Reviews", and the Information Commissioner looks
at it and says, "Well, there's not really a lot here for
you saying either on commercial confidentiality grounds, national
security grounds or anything else that it should not be published",
you are going to be finding again and again that you are having
to accede to publication of bits of Gateway Reviews, so why not
just go the whole hog?
Mr Oughton: You will expect, I
think, that we are looking very closely both at the exemptions
under section 35 and section 36, but also at the issues that would
surround different gates at different stages of the process because,
of course, any freedom of information access request that is made
after January would have to be treated seriously, as the Government
has committed itself to do. We would assess those issues case
by case, and you would expect us to take into account all of the
public interest arguments balanced again against the conduct of
business arguments in exactly the way that you would expect us
to do with any access request.
Q72 Mr Bacon: Another
article in Computer Weekly is actually by Mr Allan.
Mr Oughton: It sounds just like
a double act!
Q73 Mr Bacon: It is just
as good as mine! He says: "If we are to scrutinise projects
properly we need to be able to look at the reports compiled during
the Gateway review process and see how decisions were made in
response to recommendations. We have already seen some instances
of projects such as the new tax credit system of the Inland Revenue
being given the all-clear by Gateway Review, and then developing
problems when implemented." That is the point I made earlier.
He then goes on to talk about the ID system. We know from people
in the industry that the case for ID cards is "vacuous",
which is the word that has been used; and Mr Allan says in this
article that assessments have been made of the technical feasibility,
and we know that is the case. "Parliament could have a better
debate about ID cards if this information is in the public domain,
rather than depending on general assurances from Government that
it can produce a working system on time and to budget." Given
the history of the failure of government to produce these things
on time and for them to work, would it be better to have the debate
more in the open rather than rely on these bland, not to say glutinous
general assurances that everything will be fine?
Mr Oughton: I am not going to
address ID cards as an issue: it is not the subject of this Report
and it is not one of the case studies.
Q74 Mr Bacon: No, it is
not.
Mr Oughton: As a general principle
however, you can take it that, as I have described throughout
this evidence, the application of the Gateway process is becoming
embedded. It is happening right from gate 0 and gate 1 in many
more cases than was typically so when the Gateway process was
first introduced. You can take it that a major mission-critical
programme or project such as national ID cards would be subject
to that Gateway process.
Q75 Mr Bacon: Can you
send us a list of your mission-critical projects that you send
to the Prime Minister every fortnight?
Mr Oughton: No, I do not think
I can because that would be advice to the Prime Minister.
Q76 Mr Bacon: We just
have to take it that you have all the projects that are mission-critical
in your list. I do not see what the huge objection is to making
it more public. You say that the "safe space", which
you described at the beginning, would be hindered. I worry that
far from there being a safe space there is a cosy space. In the
case of the National Traffic Control Service, there was essentially
collusion going on to hide how serious the problems were. It was
only when an independent study was undertaken by the Transport
Committee using Arthur D Little that the scale of those problems
was revealed. Why are you not trying to use the power of shining
the torch deeper and the oxygen of transparency that could be
of assistance to you, to give yourself more suasion and power
than you currently have with departments?
Mr Oughton: I would have to question
one of your assumptions, Mr Bacon. As the recipient of a double
red from the Gateway process, I can assure you that it is not
a very cosy space at all because you have to address the issues;
you have to find the solutions. My evidence from examination of
those other departments that have received serious red criticism
from the Gateway process is that they feel very uncomfortable
about that, and they deal with those issues.
Q77 Mr Jenkins: We have
already established that centres of excellence are fundamental,
partly because they are responsible for improving the skills level
within the department.
Mr Oughton: Sure.
Q78 Mr Jenkins: In fact
they are so important that in June 2003 the Cabinet set a target
for all departments to have centres of excellence.
Mr Oughton: Yes.
Q79 Mr Jenkins: Yet when
I read the Report I see that not "good" but only 25%
of departments are "making good progress". It is a shame
that your colleagues have come along today, maybe not saying a
word but can you tell us why you think the figure is only 25%
for departments making good progress, and would you let your colleagues
tell us how they view their centres of excellence in their departments
if they think it "good" or, as the Report says, "fair"
or "mixed"?
Mr Oughton: Let me have first
go, and then—
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