Examination of Witnesses (Questions 88-99)
24 FEBRUARY 2005
MR JONATHAN
BAUME, MR
CHARLES COCHRANE
OBE, MR PAUL
NOON AND
MR MARK
SERWOTKA
Q88 Chairman: Can I call this Committee
to order and welcome our witnesses this morning, Jonathan Baume
from the FDA, Charles Cochrane from the Council of Civil Service
Unions, Paul Noon from Prospect and Mark Serwotka from the Public
and Commercial Services Union. Thank you very much indeed for
coming. I think we have seen almost all of you before during our
inquiries but it is very nice to see you again. As you know, we
are just beginning a general inquiry into civil service effectiveness
issues so it is very useful to have you come along and talk to
us. Thank you very much for your various memoranda which have
been very helpful to us. Would any of you or all of you like to
say anything by way of introduction before we ask you any questions?
Mr Cochrane: I
think we agreed that it would probably not be the best idea if
we all made introductory statements so I think I have been delegated
to do it. Very briefly, we do very much welcome the opportunity
to come today. We have put in quite a detailed response to your
papers which is a common response covering all the unions and
we do work together very closely on all of these issues. I think
we have a common position on all of these issues although there
are obviously differences of slight emphasis. The other point
I would like to make, if I may, is that we have an interest in
the totality of the Civil Service, that is the 530,000 in all
the departments in all the locations and I think it is particularly
pertinent that we are here today because we are in a very, very
difficult time for the Civil Service. There is a great deal going
on at the moment: we have the spending review 04, we have the
Gershon report, we have the Lyons relocation stuff, we have the
pension proposals and we have continuing difficulties about pay.
All of those are having an impact on the morale of the civil servants,
whether they are in Whitehall or whether they are in a local office
in the north of Scotland. I think that is an issue which is very
relevant to your deliberations today and I think it is something
my colleagues would like to elaborate on in response to your questions.
Q89 Chairman: Thank you for that. If
we are talking about Civil Service effectiveness could you just
say in a rather general way in what areas you think the Civil
Service is effective and in what areas do you think it is possibly
not as effective as it might be?
Mr Baume: I think the Civil Service
is very effective as an organisation. If I can speak about an
area personally which is the area the FDA represents on the basic
support to ministers and the management of ministerial policy
initiatives through Parliament, I think the Civil Service has
an excellent record. Despite some of the public criticisms I think
the Civil Service has a very good record on service delivery.
I think it has coped enormously well with an almost unprecedented
scale of change. We have been through constant reorganisation,
internal structural change and cultural change for a period now
of 25 years both under the Conservative and Labour administrations.
I think that, despite some of the issues currently around morale
which Charles touched on a few moments ago, the Civil Service
is a very effective organisation. The area that I would say the
Civil Service has not always been as effective as it should be—which
we touched on in the memorandum—is the area around some
of the people management issues. Colleagues certainly think the
general Professional Skills for Government programmes and the
need to professionalise some of the corporate services—the
HR functions, the finance functions, et cetera—is a very
good idea. It is certainly a move that the FDA has been calling
for for some period. The area that I think we have not been as
effective as we should be is on the people management and people
development sides. Of course, those managers are in turn our own
members; this is not about personal failings but I think it is
about the culture internally and about the emphasis and importance
that in the past we have not always placed on getting these issues
right. Generally I think the Civil Service is a very effective
organisation and I think if you look at some of the more public
statistics about the efficiency of the executive in the UK compared
to international comparators, the UK Civil Service is almost always
right at the very top of the list, which is why people continue
to come to Britain and ask for the UK experience of how to develop
and run a civil service. It is interesting that the developing
democracies and the accession states within the EU very often
look to the UK model for help and experience in developing their
own internal civil services as they move into a democratic future
and into the EU framework.
Q90 Chairman: Before I bring others in,
I wonder how that sits against what important voices say to us.
I am thinking here particularly about Sir Michael Bichard, former
head of an agency and, until not long ago, a leading permanent
secretary who writes, and I quote: "Unless the Civil Service
is reformed there is precious little prospect of public sector
reform becoming a reality and yet in spite of the impressive rhetoric
and the language of modernisation we still have a Civil Service
that is risk averse, introspective, exclusive and process centred.
We have a service that continues to under-value the importance
of leadership and management and lacks, at a senior level, people
who know enough about operational management to be able to set
and monitor sensible targets. We have a service which, because
of its structure, its training and the behaviour of its leaders
is incapable of the creativity needed to solve the complex, economic
and social problems we face. We have a service which has successfully
avoided anything like the public accountability which it has imposed
on other parts of the sector. We have a service which has failed
in most departments to import the fresh blood from outside which
is needed to convert the stagnant puddle into a fast flowing stream."
That is a pretty devastating indictment from an extremely senior
former civil servant.
Mr Baume: It is. I do not endorse
that view. I think Sir Michael—for whom I have a lot of
respect—was someone who always felt uncomfortable in the
Civil Service. To pick up one or two of those comments, I make
the point—I accept—that we need to improve the leadership
of management skills; I have just said that. I think most of his
other criticisms are simply unfair. In this forum I have certainly
talked before about the issues around what does risk averse mean
and the fact is that the Civil Service is, on behalf of ministers,
responsible at times for the very lives of citizens. There are
issues about public accountability. We could have a very risk
culture that puts public money at stake where we are prepared
to waste millions of pounds because some interesting initiative
has gone wrong, but rightly that is not a culture that Parliament
has ever wanted to see which is why we have a very effective NAO
and Public Accounts Committee. As to some of the other criticisms,
I simply think it is a complete mis-representation of what the
Civil Service has done and achieved. The Civil Service works within
accountability structures through ministers and into Parliament.
Michael was someone I think who believed that permanent secretaries
themselves should be very public figures; they should be out there
in the public domain arguing. Take that one step further and you
have civil servants arguing with ministers and politicians. There
are those who think that is the way we should go. I totally disagree
with that. We have recently had that Ed Straw pamphlet where he
is in favour of zealots: what you should have are civil servants
personally committed to a particular policy initiative. However,
we have seen examples recently where civil servants have appeared
to stray into that and policies have gone very wrong. The role
of the civil servant is to advise ministers and to implement the
policies that ministers determine; it is not the role of the Civil
Service itself to be personal proselytizers for a particular policy
initiative which may actually be an initiative that ministers
change quite quickly. I could give a whole range of examples on
that. Michael has been making similar criticisms for a very long
time. I do not believe those criticisms are valid and I think
he would, in practice, be hard-put to justify that level of criticism.
There is a very particular role as well for the Civil Service
in working through with ministers accountable to Parliament and
at times if we are slightly what you might call risk averse there
are extremely good reasons why we are risk averse.
Q91 Chairman: Reading all of your submissions
to us, Bichard might find his verdict confirmed. He could compile
quite a long list of all the things that you are against, from
Gershon to pension reforms, to contracting, to de-centralised
pay bargaining. You have a huge long list of things that you are
against and would that not rather confirm his view that there
are all these horses lined up against the kind of changes which
someone like him thinks are required.
Mr Baume: I think that is a crude
characterisation of our position. We are not saying "no"
to Gershon; there are aspects of the Gershon proposals that I
do not think are well-thought through but there are others that
I think are eminently sensible. Similarly, the FDA is certainly
not saying "no" to pension reform; what we are saying
is that we want proper negotiation and we want individuals to
have choice within that context which we are not being offered
at the moment. We are not saying that there are not genuine issues
to look at on the future sustainability of public sector pensions.
It is not about saying no; it is about the detail of particular
initiatives, it is about how we manage those initiatives and it
is about the involvement of individuals in taking those initiatives
forward. It is the same for things like pensions, individuals
having a degree of choice and involvement in the way that pension
schemes change. I think that is a very crude characterisation.
Mr Noon: Perhaps I could just
come in on that last point because one of the points we made to
each of the 10 ministers for the Civil Service that there have
been since 1997 is that it would be wrong to characterise the
Civil Service trade unions as being opposed to change. Historically
we have been modernisers. We have been arguing for a process of
reform very often against ministers who did not want to see it.
Examples are in relation to equal pay, in relation to equal opportunities
in the civil service, in modernising pay systems and structures.
On all these things we have been arguing a case for change and
have tried to respond positively. Obviously as trade unions we
need to identify where we see change as being harmful either to
the interests of our members or the Civil Service and respond
accordingly. Where we have been opposed to privatisation of the
Forensic Science Service or other bits of the Civil Service, we
have never just argued for the status quo but to see how the needs
of government and what we think is the effective service for our
members can be squared together. We have argued for other changes,
other forms of structures in the Civil Service which would allow
organisations for instance to see a better investment, to see
freedom given where it is appropriate but still to retain them
in the public sector. I do not think it is fair to characterise
us as being opposed to change, but we are opposed to change which
we do not like. Could I also make a point in relation to the overall
effectiveness of the Civil Service by specific example of things
that have gone particularly well because we often quote things
that have gone particularly badly? If we take the Meteorological
Office which is part of the Civil Service, they had a hugely complex
move from Bracknell to Exeter. They had to move computing systems—which
has often gone spectacularly wrong for organisations—which
had been in a place for a long time, almost lock, stock and barrel
to their new location. They did that extremely effectively. They
carried the interest of the staff and the unions with them in
the process. It improved the effectiveness of the organisation
and modernised it in a way which is valued by its customers—particularly
the Ministry of Defence—but of course that does not get
trumpeted loudly because things have gone well and it was successful.
So it is possible for the Civil Service to effectively manage
complex projects like that and it has happened. From a Prospect
point of view, representing professional and specialist grades,
we see examples of this. We also see examples where the vocational
commitment of our members in areas like health and safety where
we represent health and safety inspectors is still there and is
very strong, but they do not feel the organisation is as effective
as it should be because the resources are not there to do it.
We have factory inspectors, health and safety inspectors, who
know when they go round to inspect establishments or workplaces
that they can only get round once in thirteen years to these places
and they know the employers are not going to be all that concerned
about inspection regimes. They know that if they had more resources—we
are not talking about huge amounts here in terms of the total
numbers involved—that they could be more effective in doing
their job. Notwithstanding that, the death rate, the number of
accidents and injuries is reduced and that is because of the policies
and actions of the specialists in the civil service.
Mr Serwotka: Before I was General
Secretary of the PCS I was a civil servant for 21 years in a benefits
agency as a clerical officer (so you can see I was on the fast
track to a glorious career) and therefore my experiences are based
on being a civil servant in a highly stressed front line job and
now as the General Secretary of PCS which represents 330,000 people
from very junior grades up to fairly senior ones right across
government. To answer your question "What is the Civil Service
effective at?" well I think it is tremendously effective
at delivering the policies set out by government in a way which
often does not attract much publicity but behind the scenes, if
you look at all government success stories from 1997, the Civil
Service I think has been at its heart. Just to give you some quick
examples: tax credits, devolution of Scotland and Wales, the National
Minimum Wage and Sure Start. These are flagship policies that
are being delivered by civil servants out of the public gaze and
they are delivered by civil servants in a very effective way.
I say that from the point of view of the complexity of some of
the legislation and changes that constantly have to be introduced,
introduced against a backdrop of appalling IT failures—to
give one example—where, if it were not for the dedication
and effectiveness of the staff instead of inconvenience there
could have been a crisis. What do I use as an example? The biggest
computer failure in public service history in the DWP where there
were 88,000 terminals out of action for nearly a week and the
reality that meant that that was not a crisis merely an inconvenience
was because there were dedicated public sector staff in offices
(incidentally, one is earmarked for closure and the staff earmarked
for redundancies in the next three years) who manually wrote out
giro cheques and were able to give them out to the most vulnerable
people up and down the country. I think that was a very effective,
dedicated staff delivering for government in a way that did not
really catch many people's eye. I think it is effective in what
it does and I think the calibre of the staff is extremely high.
I say that from the basis that of Britain's Civil Service 25%
earn less than £13,750 a year; 41% of Britain's Civil Service
earns less than the European Union decency threshold; 81% earns
less than the average manual/non-manual wage in the UK; the average
pension is £4,800. So these, I think, are people who have
a commitment to the public service and generally get on with it
without complaining. I think that is its effectiveness. However,
I also think it is ineffective and I think if I were to start
my list I think it is not a particularly effective employer. I
say that from the basis that there is no coherence in my view
to treating half a million people as employees of the Crown, that
the move to delegation has actually meant that we have broken
up in many ways what I think is the strength of the Civil Service.
We now have 229 different sets of pay terms and conditions; we
have a difference of 0.001p on motor mileage between different
parts of government. As an employer we have a fairly ineffective
Civil Service that I think is quite wasteful. When you say that
we do not support Gershon, we put evidence into Gershon that did
support where he wanted to go on procurement but particularly
made the point that at a time when the big words was bureaucracy
and inefficiency we pointed out that with more effective personnel
and management practices across the whole, we felt there would
be millions to be saved and it would be a much more coherent body.
I mean this in terms of people at the bottom of the administrative
scale right up to people at the senior management levels. Therefore
I think as an employer it could be far more effective and I think
it could be far more effective in wanting to have meaningful dialogue
with the people who work in the Civil Service. I think there has
been far too much evidence of late of imposition, of bringing
in what are seen to be modern techniques perhaps on the outside
but actually do not accept that part of the beauty of the Civil
Service is the skills contained within it. I do not just mean
senior managers here, I mean people at the sharp end of delivery.
I think there has been an unfortunate move to break it up into
separate silos that means the ability to move around the Civil
Service and have skills that can be taken around the different
parts of government may have been lost. As an employer I think
it could be far more effective and far more efficient, but I think
the quality of the staff and their ability to adapt and deliver
in difficult circumstances is exceptional.
Q92 Brian White: One of the criticisms
of the Civil Service is that it is very centralised and that Britain
as a country is very centralised and our productivity as a country
does not match that of other countries. Other countries have different
ways of organising their public administration. What makes Britain
so special that we can have a Civil Service that is centralised,
that is focussed on process and not outcome?
Mr Cochrane: Perhaps I can start
off by saying that we are by no means as centralised as we were
10 or twenty years ago. As colleagues have said, one of the great
successes has been establishing the devolved assemblies in Scotland
and Wales and at the same time maintaining those very important
Civil Service values. I think most people seem to accept that
the Home Civil Service support for those devolved assemblies has
been one of the reasons why they have been so successful so far.
If we are talking about greater decentralisation within England,
far be it from us to comment on recent referendum results, but
certainly the Civil Service unions were ready and willing to grasp
that challenge if we were going to have regional assemblies—the
voters have decided they do not want them—but in terms of
Civil Service structures one of the huge developments of recent
years has been the expansion of the government offices. This was
not an entirely flawless process and it is still a slightly Byzantine
structure but in many ways in terms of taking central government
nearer to people and to local issues and focussing on regions
I think it has been quite successful. I think the other point
that is worth making is that the reality of the Civil Service
for most citizens of this country is not Whitehall, it is not
men in grey suits with bowler hats, it is the local job centre,
it is the local county court, it is that service in the community.
It is hugely important that we make that point in this discussion,
that the reality of the Civil Service is actually there in your
constituencies not just round the corner from here.
Q93 Brian White: How is the civil servant
different from any other public sector worker at that level?
Mr Cochrane: There is a debate
to be had about what services are best provided on a consistent
level across the state and those services that are best provided
locally. That is a constant debate and different countries have
come to different conclusions about that. It is certainly not
for us to say that the solution they may have found in another
European state or anywhere else is wrong. The nature of the state
we have is a product of history and is constantly changing. I
think the big issue about civil servants is that they are out
there providing those consistent services which the state has
decided should be provided on the same basis to all of its citizens.
If the state decides that the service needs to be provided on
a different basis then that is for other parts of the public sector
to provide.
Q94 Brian White: What about the NHS staff?
Mr Cochrane: Local authorities
have, at a very petty level, discretion as to whether they provide
leisure and recreational services and what type. They have discretions
as to what levels of rents they charge for council properties.
If that is the way forward, fine. What we are saying is that if
there is a national provision to be made then that should be provided
by civil servants operating under the long-established and well-proven
basis of civil servants operating as the apolitical arm of the
state and providing those national services.
Mr Baume: Could I just add to
that, as Charles has said only about 15% of all civil servants
work within the Greater London area and that 15% includes every
Jobcentre Plus office in London et cetera, et cetera. The very
central London numbers in the Civil Service are absolutely tiny
because that is where ministerial offices are based. You can have
arguments about relocation which we may come on to, but by and
large the central London Civil Service is very small. If we are
looking at centralisation in a broader sense in terms of powers,
that is a political decision; that is absolutely the direction
that politicians have chosen to take over the last 25 years. Since
1979 central government has brought more and more powers back
into the centre from what were previously local government or
more devolved NHS powers; that was not the decision of the Civil
Service, that was because primarily Margaret Thatcher and then
Tony Blair (I do not think it was particularly developed one way
or the other under John Major's administration) chose to move
in that direction. It is at that level really that the question
needs to be addressed. There was a very interesting article in
The Guardian by Robin Cook last week where he made a pretty
devastating critique of the over-centralisation of powers within
the executive in the UK, a point that the FDA has raised in the
past. As to the issue about process, I am not entirely clear what
we mean by that but I think one of the problems we have had for
a number of years is that there has not been enough emphasis on
the process. We saw that in Lord Butler's pretty devastating report—very
careful language but I thought very devastating report—last
summer where actually what he was drawing attention to was the
dismantling of effective process in central government and the
breaking down of the collective cabinet structures that actually
make the Government in the round more effective. What we are now
seeing is a quiet rebuilding of those structures behind the scene
because the Government has suffered from the lack of effective
process within the cabinet in the round. I do not understand this
idea that somehow the Civil Service is process-led; it is not,
but there are very clear processes both on those issues and on
things like accountability, finance trails et cetera that we pride
ourselves on. One of the reasons that Britain is one of the least
financially corrupt countries in the world—this is at all
levels of the public service—is actually because we have
very effective financial management controls which are about process
and accountability. We know for the most part how public money
is being spent and where it is being spent. Actually those process
issues are critical and I think the Government in 1997 under-estimated
the importance of proper and effective process in government.
Q95 Brian White: Moving on to Gershon,
is one of the issues about Gershon that he wants two or three
companies to do the IT systems so you do not have a lot of little
contracts? Is that going to be a real problem for your members?
Mr Serwotka: When we gave evidence
to Sir Peter Gershon we were absolutely clear we wanted an efficient
Civil Service that could deliver the policies of the government
of the day which is why we made it clear that in areas of procurement
we thought there was a lot of common ground that we could share.
We made our own suggestions about efficiencies in the Civil Service
acting as an employer. Where I think we have extreme doubts and
misgivings is that we feel the problem Gershon revealed—whether
it was meant or not—is that it has become politicised to
the extent that we are not convinced it is about efficiencies
at all. It is about head-count reduction and essentially a bidding
war between the Government and the opposition. It is not evidence-based;
it is not based on having found more efficient processes and calculating
what there is out there. It was driven by: here is the head-count
reduction, now go and find the cuts that can deliver, which has
seen in some departments a frenzy over the last few months of
people seeking to find their part of the job cut reduction without
having a wider look at what the effect is of the core service
delivery. On IT our concern is that essentially what is happening
is that a very small number of huge multi-national companies are
essentially popping up and bidding for Civil Service IT contracts
right across government. It is always the same companies, many
of them do not have the greatest track record and the result of
that has been that the public sector is losing its expertise in
IT. Therefore, when we see major problems like in the CSA, like
in the Inland Revenue with the delivery of tax credits, the thing
that frustrates the staff is that they are trying to do a job
with one arm tied behind their back because the computers are
not working, and secondly the appearance that companies are getting
away with blue murder. Major promises are not being delivered
and we have to take it in the neck because giros are not arriving
and tax credits are not arriving in the right place at the right
time. There seems to be very little sanction on the companies
involved. We tried to make the case to Gershon -whether it be
on IT or delivery—that generally working together we could
see lots of efficiencies that we could commonly work towards but
it was the politicisation of it, we think, that meant it was taken
in the wrong direction. The last thing I would say about that
is that we made surprisingly common cause with the CBI. I addressed
the CBI in September and I had a meeting with the CBI's board
of public sector contractors and I have to say that their view
also was that there was very little to do with efficiency and
everything to do with politics. What we were seeing here was the
worst form of short-termism. This big rush about whether it is
100,000 jobs or latterly with the conservatives 235,000, scrapping
168 public bodies and privatising the whole of Jobcentre Plus
is that it is a short-term reduction of people the state is employing.
Whereas the CBI accepted our point that we are genuinely looking
at the short-, medium- and long-term about more efficiently running
public services and it certainly would not be done in the way
it was being done under the Gershon review.
Q96 Brian White: Will you survive Gershon?
Mr Serwotka: I believe we will
survive it. I have seen so many things invented, discarded, re-invented
and pop up over my 20 years in the Bedford service: abolition
of regional tiers then the re-introduction; centralisation of
personnel then its devolution. Clearly we will adapt and we believe
that ultimately services have to be delivered. It is not a question
of surviving, I think we will survive. What we are trying to put
on the political agenda is that we should not have to go through
a crisis, a problem with delivering services and I think we are
quite clear that currently the Government is on course for really
undermining its position on public service delivery because in
terms of talking about choice what it is in danger of doing is
actually taking away choice from the public as to how they access
public services. It is forcing many people down the route of call
centres and technology which should be a useful supplement to
face to face contact but in our view can never replace an office
in a locality that can deal with the sick, disabled and pensioners
and give detailed advice. We do fear that there would be a problem
with service delivery for some very vulnerable people. I think
our plea is that rather than afterwards say that we pointed this
out and let us see how we can re-build, we should take stock now.
We would never portray ourselves as opposed to Gershon per se;
we are for a very genuine dialogue about efficient delivery of
public services, not political short-termism. I think that is
the danger and the position we are getting in.
Q97 Mr Prentice: The Civil Service is
clearly very resilient. It bounces back in spite of all these
things government has asked the Civil Service to do. We have this
memorandum from the Cabinet Office that tells us that efficiency
gains are being delivered and then goes on to talk about the Department
of Work and Pensions having reduced its workforce by over 6,000
already. Has there been any adverse impact at the loss of those
6,000 jobs? Or has the system just absorbed all this and coped?
Mr Serwotka: I know the DWP reasonably
well. There has been adverse impact but at the moment I would
say that it is on an anecdotal localised basis. In Hampshire,
for example, an office that is so chronically under-staffed in
the DWP that it was finding essentially that its terminally ill
and incapacity benefit applicants were dying before they were
getting round to assessing their cases and therefore they had
to make an immediate short-term decision to fast-track all the
terminally ill applications to make sure they were dealt with
before people died. I would say that that is anecdotal evidence
about how there is already a crisis of staffing in many of the
offices. In South Yorkshire, for example, they are now trialling
a system that is designed to keep the public out of the waiting
rooms of the offices because they cannot cope with the amount
of people turning up in Sheffield. Therefore the answer to this
is to try out something that encourages people not to come in.
The whole concept of Jobcentre Plus and the Department's modernisation
programme is actually a seamless ability for the public to come
into one place, have contact with trained people who could do
everything from their job broking through to benefit advice. Now
we are moving towards keeping the public out, asking them to use
free phones, making contact with contact centres. I have rung
them myself and been told I am number 182 in the queue and then
I get classical music. It is quite frustrating, but I am not waiting
for my winter fuel payment or my giro that has not turned up.
I think there is anecdotal evidence of problems in the DWP. What
I would say, though, is that they have not yet reached the point
where the serious job reductions start because the ability to
reach the 30,000 net reduction—40,000 gross—is based
on closing 550 processing sites throughout the UK, closing 10
pension centres and actually seeing the local offices closed in
some of the most remote communities in the UK and centralising
the processing. That has not really started to bite.
Q98 Mr Prentice: That is very apocalyptic
stuff.
Mr Serwotka: It has not started
yet because the offices have not yet shut. Going back to the point
I made a the beginning, had this already happened the computer
failure we witnessed last year would have been a major problem
for government because people would not have had the instruments
of payment on which they rely. In our view that would have been
very serious stuff. My answer to your question is that it does
not surprise me that we have lost 6,000. If you actually look
at turnover rates in the DWP and in the Civil Service natural
wastage would allow for those jobs to have gone, but we are reaching
the point—which will probably come after the election—where
the serious inroads into the 30,000 reduction will be made and
that is when sites will close, staff will probably be made compulsory
redundant and the public who can currently go to a local social
security office staffed by people who live in the community will
find that all their work is done elsewhere. That is when we think
there will be a problem which the DWP has not fully taken into
account.
Q99 Mr Prentice: So morale has obviously
been hit in the Civil Service. Are people leaving? What evidence
is there that people are leaving the Civil Service because of
this agenda that you are describing?
Mr Cochrane: In the major conurbations
there are some fairly damning figures about Civil Service turnover;
certainly in central London there are.
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