Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
SIR MICHAEL
JAY, KCMG, MR
RICHARD STAGG,
CMG, MR DAVID
WARREN AND
MR RIC
TODD
26 OCTOBER 2005
Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon. As you are
aware, we are discussing issues related to the FCO's Annual Report
from 1 April 2004 to 31 March 2005. Inevitably, this gives us
the opportunity to raise almost anything. I would be grateful,
Sir Michael, if you could just introduce your colleagues.
Sir Michael Jay: First of all,
it is good to be back. On my far left is Ric Todd, finance director.
On my immediate left is Dickie Stagg, director general of corporate
affairs. On my right is David Warren, the director for human resources.
Q2 Chairman: Can you begin by talking
about the format of the annual report? We as a Committee over
the years have made a number of suggestions about how it might
be improved but for the record do you get suggestions from others
who read it as to its format? What other suggestions do you get
about how it might be presented? What changes have you made as
a result of these representations or suggestions?
Sir Michael Jay: We see the most
important representations that we get as coming from this Committee
and we do try to take those into account when we can. We do go
through it ourselves and try to improve it each time, in particular
to ensure that it is readable, that it follows our evolving priorities,
strategic priorities and objectives. I am not aware myself of
other comments from outside the Foreign Office or the Committee
but if there were any we would certainly take them into account.
Q3 Chairman: You must put an enormous
amount of effort into producing this document. How widely is it
read and do you feel that the effort is worth it?
Sir Michael Jay: It is an effort.
It is also a discipline because it does get us to focus on what
we have done during the course of the year. The way in which it
is now structured, partly as a result of this Committee's suggestion,
based on lessons learned and cost benefit analysis, the fact of
having to do that for the report means, to be honest, that we
tend to do it more in the ordinary course of business. It is not
just a report to read but the production of it is also helpful
in managing the business.
Q4 Chairman: Is it available on the
internet?
Sir Michael Jay: Yes, it is.
Q5 Sir John Stanley: You may recall
that prior to the last state visit by the Chinese President it
transpired that there were, following the questions that were
put by Members of this Committee and indeed on the floor of the
House, a total of eight meetings none of which was minuted between
the Foreign Office and the police dealing with the security arrangements
for the visit and the programme. It was certainly a view which
was shared in all parts of the House that the October 1999 visit
was accompanied by some of the most gross suppressions of the
right of peaceful protest in this country that most of us had
ever seen in our political lifetimes. When this was the subject
of ministerial examination in front of this Committee, the then
Foreign Office Minister of State, Mr Peter Hain, said—I
quote from his evidence on 19 December 2000—"I think
some hard lessons have been learnt. Certainly I would not like
to see anything like a repeat of that unhappy series of events
and that is true for the government as a whole." Can you
assure us that there will be no repeat of those unhappy events
during the forthcoming state visit by the Chinese President next
month?
Sir Michael Jay: It is certainly
our intention that there should not be. We are, as you can imagine,
working very closely with the police over security for the visit.
I know that the police are as well aware as we are of the lessons
that we all need to learn from the 1999 visit. It is always a
difficult balance to get to allow demonstrators to make their
views known within the law, which they must be able to do, and
to preserve the security of the visitor but I think we all learnt
lessons from last time. I hope very much when this visit is over
it will be shown that we have learnt them.
Q6 Sir John Stanley: I do not think
there was very much difficulty experienced by Members in all parts
of the House last time that the balance had been struck profoundly
wrongly. Given that assurance, when the present President came
to this country as vice-president in 2001 the assurance that this
Committee was given by Mr Hain did not appear to have been fulfilled.
As was reported in The Independent on 15 October, when
the then vice-president Hu visited the United Kingdom in 2001,
the Chinese asked that supporters of the Falun Gong and Free Tibet
movements, both of which are banned in China, be kept away from
him. The Metropolitan Police obliged by blocking the demonstrators.
That was a very unhappy experience again in 2001, notwithstanding
the assurance that Mr Hain had given to this Committee. Can I
ask you to give us a very categorical assurance that there has
been no deal done with the security police surrounding the Chinese
State President; that those who wish to demonstrate, including
on behalf of the Falun Gong and on behalf of Tibet and indeed
others who are protesting, with justification, about abuses of
human rights, that their protests are going to remain invisible
from the Chinese State President whilst he is here.
Sir Michael Jay: I am not sufficiently
aware of the detailed negotiations either with the police or with
demonstrators to give you that absolute assurance but I can promise
you that I will look into this after this hearing and inform myself
on where the negotiations have got to. Ultimately, this has to
be a matter for the police but we will work very closely with
them to ensure that we try to get a better balance between the
right to demonstrate and the right to security than was the case
in 1999 or in 2001. I have not, I am afraid, been reminded of
the 2001 events.
Q7 Sir John Stanley: Could I ask
that you report back to this Committee following your inquiries?
I hope that your report back in writing will give us the assurances
which I think, in all parts of the Committee, we are seeking.
Sir Michael Jay: Ministers and
senior officials do regularly raise human rights issues in their
contacts with the Chinese authorities and that is an important
part of our multifaceted relationship with China.[2]
Q8 Chairman: Can I take you onto the
wider issues about access and information from your department?
Do you apply the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act
in practice, in effect, when you make information available to
this Committee and to Parliament?
Sir Michael Jay: I am not sure
I quite understand the question.
Q9 Chairman: I will be specific.
It is a widely held view in this House, not just amongst Members
of this Committee but other select committees, that it is easier
to get information from some government departments by invoking
Freedom of Information provisions than it is from answers to inquiries
by select committees.
Sir Michael Jay: We are increasingly
conscious in everything we do now of the obligations under the
Freedom of Information Act and that would certainly apply to requests
for information from this Committee. I would be surprised if there
was information which could be obtained under the Freedom of Information
Act which we would not, if asked, release to this Committee. We
take our responsibilities to release information to this Committee
extremely seriously.
Q10 Chairman: We will come later
to some questions about the Collinson Grant Report but this Committee
was made aware of that and the Ling Report to do with the Prism
Project after the fact that these committees had been established
for some considerable time, so clearly we were not put in the
loop at an early stage. We found out about these later on and
that is the context in which I ask the question.
Sir Michael Jay: The issue there,
surely, is whether we should send this Committee automatically
anything which we release under the Freedom of Information Act.
Anything we release under the Freedom of Information Act is immediately
put on our website and indeed there is a special part of the website
now which is there just specifically for Freedom of Information
Act requests, so once they are available they are available to
anybody. There will be classes of documents, particularly relating
to our internal management, the day to day management, which would
be releasable under the Freedom of Information Act but which we
would not release unless asked because they are not of any intrinsic
interest. That would explain perhaps why something would be submitted
in response to a Freedom of Information Act request which would
not have been seen previously by the Committee.
Q11 Chairman: Is there not a wider
issue here? It would be a bit bizarre, would it not, if select
committees of this House had to invoke the Freedom of Information
Act to get information when holding government departments to
account?
Sir Michael Jay: Yes.
Q12 Chairman: Surely we ought to
have a better position than would be available to any member of
the public or any journalist invoking freedom of information?
Sir Michael Jay: Over the years
there have been large amounts of information which have been made
available to this Committee which would not have been made available
under the Freedom of Information Act, information that we send
you sometimes in confidence so that you can have a proper understanding
of the way in which we work. I entirely agree with you. I think
it would be bizarre if it was easier to get information from the
public.
Q13 Andrew Mackinlay: Collinson Grant
was received formally in February of this year. At no stage was
the Committee made aware of this comprehensive report which was
looking at savings and management style of the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office. The report castigates the management of the Foreign Office.
It also indicates that there was obstruction in its preparation.
It says that the failure of some people to respond to inquiries
"detracted from the quality analysis, caused severe difficulties
and significant delays." The report goes on to use the National
Audit Office criteria, seven warning signs, and it says, "The
Foreign Office is deficient to some degree at least in many of
these requirements. The Foreign Office is slow to act. There is
lack of delegation, insufficiency of accountability and responsibility,
a failure with regard to middle management decision making."
They say that there is significant redundancy of effort in the
managerial chain that leaves the Foreign Office—which must
mean you and your colleagues—rarely focused on efficient
management of the organisation. The entire organisation needs
to be challenged and reformed. Leadership lacks the skills needed
and the will to upset the status quo. Accountability is poor.
The changes required will cause pain, and it goes on. Surely this
is really a document which the Foreign Office commissioned—I
did not commission it—which really indicates that there
needs to be a root and branch reform of the organisation? It also
goes on to indicate that savings are not going to be made. Human
resources are inflated. They make comparisons with the Ministry
of Defence and the armed forces. What say you to all those charges
which are not mine but Collinson Grant's?
Sir Michael Jay: Let me start
by getting a bit of context. You are right in saying that we commissioned
the report. We commissioned the report because we are very conscious
of the need to change, modernise and reform and have been for
the last two to three years. I can go through some of the changes
that we have made if that would be helpful. We are also conscious
that we have as a result of SR2004 an obligation to further improve
our operations and our systems and to fulfil a demanding efficiency
agenda. We believed that it would help us if we were to have a
hard hitting report from a firm of consultants, pointing up some
of the areas in which there was room for development. That is
why we commissioned the report. The commissioned report is hard
hitting. It concerned much of what we already knew about areas
in which we need to improve. For example, delayering in London
to reduce the number of senior staff, greater focus on risk management
and on delegation of authority. We have learnt and we are implementing
a number of those points. It also focused our attention on some
new areas of work which we had not focused on sufficiently, like
the need for further reform of the finance function, which we
are now carrying out with the Treasury and the NAO. We commissioned
the report. We do not accept all the analysis. We accept many
of the recommendations. A number of them we are implementing;
some of them we were already implementing. There is always a risk.
It would have been easy for us not to commission a report in which
case I would not have to answer this kind of question, but I think
it is better if we do feel we need some support in managing ourselves
to look for some outside help and then take it into account.
Q14 Andrew Mackinlay: I welcome the
fact that you are saying you are going to adopt some of their
recommendations but it condemns hook, line and sinker the culture
in the Foreign Office. It says, "poor leadership; closed
culture; poor information for decision makers; low accountability;
lack of clarity; poor management, poor worker relations."
They are not my words; they are theirs. How are you going to change
the culture because it does confirm what a lot of us knew.
Sir Michael Jay: It confirms what
a lot of you believed, because I do not accept all of that. I
accept some of that. We have changed a lot in the last two or
three years because of a consciousness that we need to reform
and modernise if we are going to be as effective as we need to
be in a pretty complicated world. The Foreign Office has a high
reputation around the world with its peers, deservedly so in my
view, and there are plenty of examples of the way in which we
have been extraordinarily professional in what we have done. To
take some examples recently, the work on Turkey, saving the UN
Millennium Review Summit conclusions document, the work of our
mission in New York. As this Committee knows, we have a large
number of people doing very high grade work in very difficult
and dangerous places such as Baghdad, Basra and Kabul. Let me
start by saying that I am proud to lead this organisation. I believe
we have reformed a lot in the last three or four years. We have
further to go. I think we and our staff do an extraordinarily
good job in very difficult circumstances. I want to get that on
the record because I think it is important to do so. We have always
recognised that there are further changes we need to make. We
have changed a lot. We have, by comparison with what we had three
or four years ago, our strategic priorities. We are focusing our
resources far more around strategic priorities. We are much more
flexible than we were, as we know from the rapid deployment teams
which we can come to if we talk about consular work later on.
We are more adaptable in shifting resources to where they are
needed. We have a much greater focus on service delivery. We are
much more open, working more closely with other government departments
and, in my view, we are increasingly professional, not just in
the traditional forms of regional and linguistic expertise but
also in the new professional expertise we need to run a highly
complex business. There are a lot of changes which have been made.
We need to change further. I accept many of the conclusions but
not the analysis of that report and I do not accept the root and
branch criticism.
Q15 Andrew Mackinlay: For fairness
and for expedition this afternoon, could you give us a note on
those things with which you profoundly disagree—your words,
not mine. For instance, all the things that you think are unfair
criticism. Could you flag them up and rebut them perhaps in a
note?
Sir Michael Jay: I will certainly
do that.[3]
One of them I have already flagged up in response to one of the
57 questions which you asked us a couple of months ago when there
was a suggestion that we did not have professional, diplomatic
skills, which I profoundly reject because it is simply untrue.
There are other areas where we do need to develop further skills
and we are developing them.
Q16 Andrew Mackinlay: Can I go to two
specific charges, though? One suggests there was obstruction by
some of your colleagues. It was also put to me, though I am sure
it is a tissue of atrocious lies, that you yourself did not complete
the questionnaire. That is completely untrue, is it?
Sir Michael Jay: If I did not
complete the questionnaire, I am remiss. I am not conscious of
obstructionism. We discussed the report with Collinson Grant and
they came and gave a very good presentation to the board. After
they had reported we immediately set up a number of focus groups
in the office in order to take forward specifically the individual
work streams. We took this extremely seriously. We would not have
spent that money on it if we had not.
Mr Stagg: On the question of opposition
or resistance, it is inevitable that, if you bring in people who
are clearly seen as being something of a threat to the status
quo, there are people who are unenthusiastic about that process.
I think you would find that anywhere in any organisation. It is
not good but it is a reality. At the end, we got a good return
from staff on the questionnaire. I personally commissioned the
report so I am seen as the person, in some ways, to blame in the
organisation. I think we have since then been able to do quite
a lot in terms of altering some of our structures, reducing some
of the layers. We have downsized quite significantly some of the
departments in London by 20-25% and we have also introduced a
much clearer system of corporate governance at the top which is
now seen as in line with Whitehall best practice, which frankly
the previous system was not.
Q17 Andrew Mackinlay: We were told
that Collinson Grant is engaged in three other strands of work.
Would you be able to supply the Committee with the reports on
these strands and also let us know whether the 2005-06 accounts
are expected to be signed off before next summer's recess. Given
that you have been unable to move the timetable of your accounts
forward this year, how likely is it that the deadline will be
met? What systems are being put in place to improve the situation?
Sir Michael Jay: On that second
point, I have had long discussions with the finance director,
with the board and with the audit and risk committee. I am absolutely
determined to sign off the accounts before the recess in 2006.
This is not going to be straightforward because it is going to
require all our posts around the world to manage their accounts
or at least to get the information in earlier. This is coming
on top of quite a heavy programme of other change, but I am determined
to do that.
Q18 Andrew Mackinlay: I would like
you to respond to the fact that the report castigates the scale,
size and nature of the human resources department but also, when
I drew attention to this in the summer, I was assured by your
office that Collinson Grant would be put on the website. I am
open to correction but I do not think it is there now and certainly
was never volunteered to this Committee. It was never uttered
that such a report was being done. Perhaps taking the last point
first, one, why is it not on the website? Can it be on the website?
Why were we not acquainted with it and, two, if you can come back
to human resources again I would be grateful.
Mr Stagg: It is on our intranet
internally because we view it essentially as a matter of us trying
to improve internally and not something we are—
Q19 Andrew Mackinlay: I was assured
it was going on the internet, on the website, and I cannot see
any logic why it should not be, bearing in mind there is considerable,
legitimate interest in the stewardship of the Foreign Office.
Sir Michael Jay: It should be
if it has been released under the Freedom of Information Act.
It ought to be and I am slightly surprised that it is not on our
website. We will look into that.[4]
2 Please refer to Ev 43. Back
3
Ev 45 Back
4
Ev 45 Back
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