Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
CABINET OFFICE
AND OFFICE
OF GOVERNMENT
COMMERCE
27 NOVEMBER 2006
Q20 Mr. Touhig: So there is a skills
gap?
Mr. Watmore: There definitely
was, but that gap is closing.
Q21 Mr. Touhig: On page 37, paragraph
3.25 refers to the inexperience of many senior responsible owners.
Do you find that you are able to learn lessons—people are
able to learn from one another? Very often, I find at these sessions
and in reports that come to us that Departments do not look at
the lessons learned. Is there a lessons-learned culture?
Mr. Watmore: Again, I would say
that historically the Government were siloed in this across their
different Departments, whereas we are trying to create a culture
of sharing and learning across. One of the first things we did
was to create what we call the Chief Information Officer Council.
That is the heads of IT of all the major Government Departments,
meeting regularly, commissioning work offline to—
Q22 Mr. Touhig: So trying to get
them out of the bunker?
Mr. Watmore: And get them out
of the silos.
Q23 Mr. Touhig: It is not only politicians
who suffer from departmentalitis, then?
Mr. Watmore: It is just to get
the lessons learned across Whitehall as well as deeply within
the Department.
Q24 Mr. Touhig: The preface says
on page 4, "We do not in this Report consider the issue of
the different types of contracting arrangement, whether highly
legalistic with exacting penalty clauses for non-performance,
or ones based more upon partnership." Given your background,
do you think one size fits all here and it is better to have a
partnership approach to solving IT issues, or a very heavy contract
from which there are very severe penalties?
Mr. Watmore: I am always cautious
about saying one size fits all for any problem, but in this particular
space I very much lean towards the partnership end of the spectrum.
In my experience, adversarial contracting ends in a lose-lose
situation—both sides lose. We can look at all the best successful
projects, and the Report draws this point out. To go back to the
Pension Credit example, one of the reasons why success appeared
there was that there was a co-operative relationship between the
buyer and the supplier.
Q25 Mr. Touhig: Yes, that is interesting.
The preface says on page 5, "This Report should act as an
encouragement to those in Government responsible for IT-enabled
business change to believe that success is entirely possible."
Self-belief is the first one we must all have, of course. The
preface then says, "But from the outset such change requires
clarity of purpose, clear leadership and commitment from the very
top—including Ministers". The Chairman introduced the
subject of Ministers earlier. Ministers enter the equation at
last in this respect.
Let us look at page 31. The Chairman touched
on some of the points in paragraph 2.11 about the lack of contact
Ministers have with SROs. Mr. Oughton, I think you made the point
that there had been changes and that now every Department has
an assigned Minister when you have an IT project, but what is
the point if they do not meet those who are carrying out the work?
Mr. Oughton: Well, not all of
them do as frequently as perhaps is necessary, but I think—
Q26 Mr. Touhig: 20% have never met
their Minister at all, it appears.
Mr. Oughton: Yes, and my personal
view is that the Minister should expect to receive information
on programmes and projects frequently enough to discharge their
responsibilities.
Q27 Mr. Touhig: I am sure. Who is
responsible for that? Is it the civil service or the Minister?
Mr. Oughton: It is a combination,
clearly. The Minister has to discharge his or her responsibilities.
The Accounting Officer has to do the same. Both should have a
shared interest in wanting to ensure that everybody is aware of
the issues on a programming project as it proceeds.
Q28 Mr. Touhig: When I was a Minister
and I was charged by my Secretary of State to try to solve a problem
we had in the Department, we decided on a course of action, but
I was actively discouraged from meeting the people responsible
for it day to day. First, I was told they are of a salary grade
that should not be brought into the presence of a Minister. Secondly,
I was told that they would be overawed to be brought into the
presence of a Minister. But when I got the people in, they would
have frightened Rommel—they would have put anybody off.
Do you think that that is widespread? Senior civil servants sometimes
discourage their consultants from coming in and having face-to-face
contact with Ministers.
Mr. Oughton: I certainly have
not run into a problem of gradeism in making the connection between
Ministers and civil servants, so I am surprised by your experience.
Q29 Mr. Touhig: It comes down to
priorities. Ministers have to decide their priorities, of which
they sometimes have so many. Do you find that Ministers are being
given the information to understand that IT projects are a major
priority for them?
Mr. Oughton: My experience with
those programmes with which I have had the closest connections
suggests to me that, yes, Ministers are. Let us consider the Connecting
for Health programme, on which the National Audit Office reported
earlier this year and the Committee took evidence in the summer.
The Secretary of State and Health Ministers are involved very
closely, with regular stock takes on a monthly and, in the case
of Lord Warner, weekly basis to ensure that they are absolutely
up to date with the progress of the programme. I think that that
is a very good model.
Q30 Mr. Touhig: But is there a format
for a standard letter or a routine whereby a new Minister is briefed
by his officials and told: "Minister, you are responsible
for IT projects."? Is it made absolutely clear that that
is a priority?
Mr. Oughton: That is not standard
across Government as a whole.
Q31 Mr. Touhig: Should it be? Mr.
Watmore, you are one of the Prime Minister's top advisers on delivering
public service priorities. Should that not be a priority?
Mr. Watmore: The phrase that you
used in the question—IT projects—needs to be developed.
I do not perceive there to be such a thing as an IT project. There
are only business projects that happen to have IT at their heart.
If those are described and presented as IT projects, that does
not connect to the ministerial agenda. However, if they are described—appropriately—as
business projects for which the Minister is primarily responsible,
it goes hand in glove that he or she should be made aware of the
current status, should seek regular updates and should be able
to act when necessary.
Q32 Mr. Touhig: I certainly found
in my experience as a Minister serving in the present Government
that if the Prime Minister was engaged on an issue and convinced
that a certain course of action was needed, and if an instruction
came from No. 10, there was a response from the civil service
and the Minister. Perhaps you might continue the success by suggesting
that.
Mr. Watmore: That certainly helps.
Mr. Oughton: Mr. Touhig, keep
in mind that that process works already in major mission-critical
programmes. I report to the Prime Minister periodically—quarterly—on
the key, mission-critical projects. I would expect him and his
office to follow up with individual Departments where he found
issues that warranted that. So that system works now.
Q33 Mr. Touhig: I, too, have had
experience of that, but I am saying that it should be fairly standard
if IT projects are vital to the core business of what the Government
want to do. The Report highlights successes; we want to underpin
those successes. If, from the top, Ministers who are charged with
that responsibility are told quite clearly, "This is what
you have to take on board", it will be on their agenda every
day.
Mr. Oughton: I think that we are
in agreement on that.
Mr. Touhig: Progress indeed.
Q34 Chairman: You say that you report
to the Prime Minister quarterly. Is that personally?
Mr. Oughton: Yes, that is correct,
although of course my report draws heavily on the advice of my
own staff in the Office of Government Commerce and on Mr. Watmore's
and Mr. Suffolk's staff in what was formerly the e-Government
Unit.
Q35 Chairman: Is the Prime Minister
personally committed totally to computer technology?
Mr. Oughton: You would have to
ask him that question.
Chairman: He is notoriously not.
Mr. Oughton: He is certainly committed,
as I think is clear in all his statements, to a major modernisation
programme, and many of the changes that he is pursuing of course
require IT enablement to make them happen.
Chairman: Thank you for that answer.
Dr Pugh.
Q36 Dr. Pugh: I think that you have
put on record your opposition to the publication of gateway reviews,
but you will be aware that the magazine Computer Weekly
has campaigned in favour of US-style legislation that would compel
the public sector to police good practice and publish the results.
I think that you are familiar with that proposal, but presumably
demur from it. Can you explain what you understand by that proposal
and your objections to it?
Mr. Oughton: My objection, if
I may start there, is that the gateway review process, when it
was first established, drawing on examples of similar techniques
used in the private sector, was designed to be an independent
peer review process of major programmes and projects done for
the project and senior responsible owner, and conducted confidentially
to encourage those involved in the project to speak their minds
and to speak frankly about the challenges and the difficulties
that they saw. The review was to take place in what we call a
safe space so that people could speak frankly. We believe very
strongly that, in that way, problems can be identified sooner
than would be the case if the process were conducted in the public
spotlight.
Q37 Dr. Pugh: But America has different
legislation. What is going wrong in America as a result that leads
you to think that this legislation has no place in the UK?
Mr. Oughton: My view is that legislation
would not be appropriate here.
Q38 Dr. Pugh: Would it be detrimental?
Mr. Oughton: I think it would
make our job more difficult because the gateway review process,
as I said, is conducted in a private fashion. Now of course, as
you probably know, Dr. Pugh, we are currently engaged in an appeal
against a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for
release of gateway Reports relating to the Government's identity
card programme. With the agreement of Ministers we are pursuing
that appeal. It is extremely difficult for me while that appeal
is under way and before it comes to the Information Tribunal in
March to comment in substance on what we might say in that appeal
process, so if you will forgive me I cannot go down that road.
Q39 Dr. Pugh: But I am asking you
what is going wrong in the USA, which has this legislation.
Mr. Oughton: I do not think there
is anything going wrong in the USA. I think our models and our
approaches are fundamentally different. In the United States system
much of what is achieved in government is necessarily done through
legislation. In the British system much of that can be achieved
through administrative action without the need for legislation.
This is one of those cases where I believe the benefits of a thoroughgoing
review of a programme and a project can be achieved without the
need for legislation to mandate it.
Dr. Pugh: It is a question of
different cultures.
Mr. Oughton: I think so. Ours
is a very different approach, based on administrative action,
in the UK.
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