Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 45)
TUESDAY 31 OCTOBER 2006
MR RICHARD
CAIRNS, MR
LAURIE RUSSELL,
MS KATE
STILL AND
MR DAVID
COYNE
Q40 Mrs Humble: Now on to the question
I am meant to be asking you. Clearly there is an awful lot of
work that is taking place in Glasgow at the moment and we have
seen a lot of that in our short visit. Moving on to the City Strategy,
what sort of difference will that make to what you are already
heavily involved in? How are things going to be different when
you do the City Strategy from what you are already planning to
do at the moment?
Mr Cairns: There are a number
of things that one would expect to see from it. Having said that,
before we start, if I have a criticism of the City Strategy in
its current incarnation, developmental though it is, it is that
the time horizon for this is not realistic. If you think about
the nature of the people we are dealing with, if you think about
the fact that we do not really think they are in a sustainable
job until they have been in that job for 52 weeks and we have
a time horizon for the City Strategy of some two years then it
does not take someone a lot smarter than me to work out that this
is not really the appropriate time horizon for this and it is
not long enough to design interventions, carry out interventions,
measure the effectiveness of the interventions, modify and improve
them. I think that is stating the obvious. In terms of what we
would expect to see different, there are a couple of things. One,
we have set ourselves more stretching targets as a consequence
of the introduction of the City Strategy. We have pushed the target
up and we have brought the time window closer, not by huge amounts
but by significant and stretching amounts. The existence of the
City Strategy offers us the potential to do things more efficiently.
In fact, there is an expectation that we will do things more efficiently
and that is one of the things we have to do. Although Glasgow
has had the whole question of social renewal and addressing worklessness
at the heart of its strategies for some time, and it is a fundamental
pillar of the economic strategy of the city, the very fact that
the DWP, as it were, are now officially on-side on the same agenda
and the budgets associated with that are officially on-side on
the same agenda gives us a stronger and greater number of shoulders
behind the wheel. Where the difference will come is around the
alignment of intent, assuming we can find a way of doing it. Great
if we do not physically pool the resources, at the very least
we can share information and attempt to integrate effort. We have
anticipated that we will do that by making the target more stretching
than it was previously.
Mr Russell: As Richard said it
is emerging but from the delivery agencies' point of view what
we would be keen to do, firstly, is to be involved in that discussion
because it is important we learn the lessons from how we have
been delivering projects in the past. It gives us the opportunity
to work on our strengths so that we work together better to deliver
the targets that the strategy is going to emerge with. Potentially
it allows us to take some of the pilot ideas that we discussed
earlier and replicate them in other parts of the city. All the
agencies that are here today, and others that are not here today,
find one of the most frustrating things we have is when we do
something in a pilot scheme that works well but then the funding
stops and you are not able to say how we can replicate that. It
is relatively easy to take the model but sometimes it has got
to have the right people in the right places and everything else.
What the City Strategy does is it gives us another bit of that
jigsaw to help replicate projects that we know are working in
one area or with one organisation and spread them to other parts
of the city.
Q41 Justine Greening: Aside from
the time stretch that you have talked about, what are the other
barriers that you think might get in the way of this strategy
being successful?
Ms Still: I suppose it is the
flexibilities that come with it. I do not get the impression there
is a huge amount of resource coming with it. It is about making
sure that we marshal the resources that we have but it is also
about the flexibilities within the benefit system that might come
with it that would make a huge difference.
Q42 Greg Mulholland: Following on
from that, do you think there will be advantages in involving
the Jobcentre Plus procurement to allow City Strategy partnerships
to contract provision locally?
Mr Cairns: Yes. If you think of
all the discussion we have had around what local agencies know
about this, and assuming that one can design that procurement
process so that it has a quite clear best value discipline attached
to it then absolutely. These are City Strategies. At what point
do we abandon the principle of the City Strategy and leave it
to the mercies of some other process? If we are serious about
it then we need as many of the tools in the toolbox at our disposal
as possible and that would be one of them.
Q43 Greg Mulholland: Do you think
that is likely to happen or do you think there are conflicting
dangers? For example, you have got the employment priorities of
the Scottish Executive as well as the DWP, do you think there
are issues there that could cause problems?
Mr Cairns: Not with that. The
design of the City Strategy in this city incorporates our Workforce
Plus bid and the response to the Scottish Executive's strategy.
We have seen people in the same room working on all three concurrently,
so I am much less concerned about that.
Q44 Greg Mulholland: My other question
is Katie mentioned the resources, which is always a key issue.
First of all, what funding stream resources can be pooled as part
of the City Strategy? Do you think they will be sufficient to
deliver the objectives?
Mr Cairns: We are working on this.
The biggest question would be around the extent to which any benefits
or savings of the kind that accrue from this could be brought
forward and rolled into the pot in addition to what the DWP currently
spends on employment initiatives. Why are we not looking seriously
at speculating on some of this, setting ourselves targets, bringing
some of that saving forward in the expectation we will deliver
it and using some of that now? Why is some of that potential saving
not being placed at the disposal of the people who are attempting
to make the change?
Mr Coyne: In addition to that,
if we could look at the interaction between Housing Benefit, Working
Tax Credits and Childcare Tax Credits we could use the transition
into work and make it a more rewarding experience.
Q45 Chairman: Thank you very much,
it has been very interesting. Good luck, I think you will need
it!
Mr Cairns: We will be busy.
Chairman: Thank you.
| 
