Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-85)
COMPANIES HOUSE,
BERR
26 MARCH 2008
Q80 Chairman: Thank you. I think
we will come back to that at a later date. Just a few wrap up
questions from me to Mr Jones. I said that we had begun to get
evidence coming in rather latterly in this inquiry. It strikes
me that although you are very excited by the challenge of running
your organisation, quite a lot of work done by the staff is extremely
mundane. I do not want to belittle the work, it is important work,
but very mundane, the bureaucratic work of transferring documents
to an electronic system. Is it a very boring job? Do you find
staff retention a challenge, or do they enjoy their work?
Mr Jones: I would agree with you
that some of the tasks might seem a little mundane. Actually,
staff turnover rates are extremely low in Companies House. We
recently recruited a number of staff to help us over the early
stages of CHIPS implementation, where clearly unfamiliarity with
the system will lead to a slight drop in productivity, and we
had no difficulty at all in recruiting very junior staff to come
in and do some of the tasks that you describe. I suppose I put
it down to the working environment and the management there, Chairman!
Q81 Chairman: I thought you might.
I felt that one coming! Excellent. Well, pat yourself on the back,
Mr Jones! Just a few detailed points. ICSA said, "Companies
House does not seem to read the covering letters sent to them.
Why is this? Are the forms sent to the document examination branch
and the letter automatically binned?
Mr Jones: No.
Q82 Chairman: You do read covering
letters? We are reassured on that point. They said, "How
good is the training provided for the call centre staff? They
did not seem to be very good and often gave conflicting advice
if you spoke to more than one person".
Mr Jones: I am very surprised
to hear that. We use a company called Vertex as our providers
of a contact centre. The satisfaction rates with their services
are always extremely high, well up into the 90%, but obviously
if there are individual instances of people not being dealt with
properly then I would want to hear about it.
Q83 Chairman: I have encountered
this problem with the banking community recently myself on my
mortgage: "Their point blank refusal to correct mistakes
that are blatantly their own. I find it really annoying that you
are required to submit a form to correct their mistake".
Mr Jones: I do not recognise that
particular case. I did explain earlier, though, that if somebody
sends in a form with incorrect information on it and it is registered,
I do not have the powers then to take that information off the
register.
Q84 Chairman: Which is an interesting
point, which I think we have noted very carefully. I just leave
you really with the thought—unless there is anything else
you want to say, Mr Jones? If there is anything we have not covered
or you want to say?
Mr Jones: No, just to say that
I have really welcomed the opportunity to tell the Committee something
about what we are doing. It is an extremely exciting customer-focused,
customer-orientated bit of government, most certainly the most
customer-focused bit of government I have ever worked in over
the last 30 years and I always welcome the opportunity to talk
about it.
Q85 Chairman: It is important and
I think the issues have certainly been helpful in clarifying my
thinking. The Finance and Leasing Association sent us a very good
submission in which they said, "Companies House's failure
to vet the details of company directors listed on their website
means that the directors register is currently unreliable. We
stress the potential for the misuse of company information and
director details. Sadly, our members report that such misuse is
now common". I understand the constraints you are labouring
under. It seems it is really important that the phrase I used
earlier, caveat emptor, is in everyone's mind when they
access the data on your site?
Mr Jones: Yes, and we do make
it clear to people that the information which is registered is
information which has been sent to us by the people submitting
the information, but I think it is a fair point that we need to
keep making sure that that message gets across.
Chairman: Unless my colleagues have any
further questions? Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for coming
to give evidence to us. I do not think you promised us anything
substantial in a further follow-up in writing, but if there is
anything which comes to mind after this session then please feel
free to get in touch with us and communicate in any way you want
any further thoughts. Thank you very much indeed for coming all
the way from Cardiff.
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