Examination of Witness (Questions 1100-1107)
SIR BRIAN
BENDER, KCB, CB
6 DECEMBER 2006
Q1100 David Taylor: But you were
surrounded by very highly paid consultants and IT specialists.
Are you disappointed that they did not alert you to one of the
implications of the de-scoping that has caused such a problem?
Sir Brian Bender: I am disappointed
that we did not get the right management information. De-scoping
contributed to it, but I think there was more to it than that.
Q1101 Chairman: Were you disappointed
that Accenture, which would have understood how the system worked,
did not say, "We are a bit disappointed that you have taken
out the management information system because how will you know
what is going on?" We have the benefit of hindsight, but
the reason that we are paying people a lot of money to give quality
advice is to flag up some of the practical implications. Given
that you were going into new territory, a new way of working,
a new organisation with fewer people and a brand new policy I
would have thought it would be rather good to know that you would
get some accurate feedback about what was going on to measure
progress because it was fairly key to the advice that you would
be able to give to ministers to guide them on what to say. The
fact is that they ended up by saying things and had to eat a great
deal of humble pie at the end because basically the RPA was flying
blind.
Sir Brian Bender: I might not
have chosen those words, but I do not argue with the general sense
of what you say; that is to say, when you are trying to set up
a programme and trying to monitor it you need to have reliable
management information. It turned out not to be reliable enough.
Q1102 Chairman: Let us draw matters
to a conclusion. With the benefit of hindsight, we now have a
situation in which this arm's length agency managed to lose £21.5
million worth of its customers' money; it caused endless problems
for the cash flow of the rural economy in England; it put Defra
in line with a possible disallowance of up to £131 million;
and it blew a gigantic hole in the cost-saving programme, to which
you personally were committed. I think the latest estimate indicates
that you might be lucky to get a saving of £7.5 million.
The department in which you used to be in charge is now committed
possibly to two further years of difficulty with the RPA and having
to spend more money on the staff than it set out to do. With all
of that and the benefit of hindsight, who should accept the blame
for what happened?
Sir Brian Bender: If you set up
an executive agency to implement things ultimately the chief executive
of that agency is the accountable person. I certainly felt a sense
of responsibility as well as deep dismay when I heard Margaret
Beckett's statement in March, but it seems to me that if you set
up a structure where there is a body responsible for implementation
and is accountable for it, whatever shortcomings there might have
been in the oversight arrangements with hindsight—I believe
that there are a number of lessons to be learned in all of that,
some of which will come out in the NAO report and some of which
in due course will come out in the report of the OGC—ultimately
it comes down to the RPA leadership.
Q1103 Chairman: That is where the
buck stops?
Sir Brian Bender: I do not know
whether you will find this helpful or not. Before this hearing
I gave thought to what I believed went wrong. What do I think
of the lessons of this? I think that the Sub-Committee has discussed
and know what went wrong. I think that there are a number of lessons.
First, there is the lesson referred to by Helen Ghosh, with which
I agree, that with the benefit of hindsight we should have pressed
ahead sooner with interim payments. Second, with hindsight I would
have done more to satisfy myself about the corporate leadership
capability of the RPA's top team for the very reasons that Sir
Peter asked me about earlier, and in particular within that what
was going on when I thought I was giving signals in the department.
Third, to pick up Mr Taylor's line of questioning, I would want
to ensure that more was done to be clear that the RPA understood
fully the task it had taken on and keep checking that it was providing
as frank and open an assessment as possible and not a misleadingly
rosy picture. Plainly, that is linked to the quality of the management
information. Fourth, there are plainly questions arising on the
quality of the independent processes, including the Gateway review
process, in helping us spot these issues. But ultimately I return
to the point that if you set up arrangements in which there is
an arm's length body that has accountability then to blur that
accountability by backseat driving or saying someone else is responsible
is the wrong answer. That is not to say there is no responsibility
anywhere in the headquarters department, including the Permanent
Secretary on whose watch a lot of this happened. I share in that
and do not shuffle off that responsibility.
Q1104 David Taylor: But the feelings
of deep dismay never developed into regret and resignation?
Sir Brian Bender: There is a lot
of regret and heart-searching about what I would have done differently.
I have had a lot of conversations with people currently in Defra
and the independent quality assurance person about what she felt.
Her very clear view—I checked with her last week—is
that there were senior management failings in RPA. There was discussion
with one or two people still in RPA just after the disaster in
March. Therefore, there is a lot of regret about what happened
and a number of things I would have done differently with hindsight.
Q1105 Sir Peter Soulsby: You have
talked about this as being an arm's length organisation, but it
was one with which, quite understandably, you were actively engaged
on a monthly, weekly and perhaps daily basis at some stages. This
was a structure that you had set up; these were people you had
appointed and you were actively engaged with them. You have given
us no suggestion that ministers did anything other than act according
to your advice. You made the appointments and set up the management
and reporting structures. All of the crucial decisions were taken
on your advice. Frankly, if you were not responsible who was?
Sir Brian Bender: First, the advice
to ministers on these issues usually went from the joint chairs
of the CAPRI board. Again, that is not my shuffling off responsibility,
but that advice went directly from Johnston McNeill and Andy Lebrecht.
Particularly in the course of 2005 ministers had very regular
discussions with RPA and the department and were able to challenge,
ask questions and form their own views. This was not a question
of the Permanent Secretary holding his arms around all of it and
saying, "Come on, minister, take my advice", in the
best Sir Humphrey sense; it was an attempt to set up a set of
governance arrangements with accountability for policy in the
department and delivery in the agency. As I have said several
times, this was governance that the OGC and others certainly during
my time were praising, but the question we have discussed is:
why did it go wrong? In terms of who is personally responsible
certainly a lot did happen on my watch, but I come back to the
point that as late as January the agency did say that this would
be done.
Q1106 Chairman: Did Mr Lebrecht not
have some responsibility in this because he was jointly sending
out signals from the RPA and seemingly swallowing hook, line and
sinker that it would all be all right on the night and it was
not?
Sir Brian Bender: I think I remember
your asking Mark Addison and various people what sense of responsibility
they felt. I would be surprised if any Defra member of the Executive
Review Group did not feel some sense of shared responsibility
in all this, because we were part of a process that led to this
situation with all the features you described a few minutes ago.
Q1107 Chairman: Thank you very much
for subjecting yourself to a further line of questioning. I think
we are better advised on some of the factors. The reason we have
asked you to come back is that clearly we keep findings things
out as we go along. Because various key people have been removed
or have moved on from their posts it has been quite difficult
to move our inquiry forward at the speed we would have liked.
Certain matters have come up subsequently that it is important
to review, and you have been very helpful in that context. I thank
you for the obvious time and trouble you have taken to prepare
thoroughly for our inquisition and for coming back once again
to answer our questions.
Sir Brian Bender: Thank you, Chairman.
I will look at the transcript with the department to see whether
there are points on which I can help the Sub-Committee further
in the light of the questions.
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