Examination of Witnesses (Question 119)
RT HON
HAZEL BLEARS
MP, RT HON
YVETTE COOPER
MP AND JOHN
HEALEY MP
29 OCTOBER 2007
Q119 Chair: Ministers, can I welcome
you? Can I start by asking some questions about departmental delivery?
The Committee itself expressed some concern last time about the
difficulty for the Department in delivering where it is not actually
the Department that does the delivery and the Department's role
is strategic overview. You will be aware of the fact that the
NAO and the Cabinet Office capability review have likewise raised
concerns about the DCLG having sufficient strategic influence
to deliver where it requires departments across Whitehall to co-operate.
I just wanted to ask you if you could briefly outline what has
happened since you took over to try and improve the Department's
performance on this front and whether you have any specific examples
which would demonstrate somewhat better performance on strategic
influence.
Hazel Blears: Good afternoon,
everybody. I am absolutely delighted to be able to address this
particular issue since I became Secretary of State just about
four months ago now. I am also delighted to be joined by my two
Ministers, John Healey on my right and Yvette Cooper on my left.
When I first came to the Department I took a close look at the
capability review that had been done, and indeed the Department's
response to that capability review. I was particularly struck
by four areas that were highlighted as areas of weakness that
needed to be addressed in the Department, but overarching this
it seems to me that the Department is one that does not have the
traditional levers in many cases of regulation and funding and
direct delivery as you get in health or in education. Our Department
is very much about influence, about brokering, about negotiation,
and that is a very different skill set in many ways from a traditional
government delivery department. Clearly we have housing as our
big delivery challenge, and that is very much direct delivery,
but the first area that was highlighted in the capability review
was whether or not we had the skills and capacity to lead and
enthuse partners across government to achieve the strategic things
that you have just outlined. Since the report and the capability
assessment were done I think there are a number of specific examples
which indicate that our capacity has improved really quite markedly.
There was a lot of scepticism in the local government world as
to whether or not we would be able to deliver on our promise in
the White Paper to get the indicators set down from 1,200 to round
about 200. I think very few people believed it could be done and
we could not do that on our own; we had to go out to other government
departments—the Department for Children, Schools and Families
(DCSF), the Home Office, the Department for Transport—the
whole range of government departments and seek to negotiate with
them what were their top priorities, because in the past virtually
everything had been a priority and it was very difficult for local
government to see the wood for the trees and get through that.
I am delighted that in the local government performance framework
we have now got down to 198 indicators. We also have no mandatory
targets other than the education ones which are set out in statute.
Again, my sense was, certainly in the local government world,
that they did not believe that government as a whole was capable
of achieving an indicator set without mandatory targets. A couple
of other examples I will highlight are around the local area agreements.
Again, that is partnership working beyond central government,
drawing in not just health and the police service but also going
wider into foundation trusts, looking at Jobcentre Plus, that
whole range of public service partners. When we get the statutory
duty to co-operate, together with the duty to involve, you can
start to see an architecture that says that DCLG at the heart
of that, working with partners, is able to enthuse and lead the
strategic work across government. The final example I would give
is our contribution to the PSAs. We used to—and I am looking
at the annual report—have ten PSAs which were our very own,
for good or ill. We have now got two cross-cutting PSAs, again,
right across government, but our Department contributes to 20
of the remaining PSAs and that says to me again that DCLG is about
negotiating, brokering, bringing other people to the table, and
I think our skills have increased in that regard. I still think
we have more to do, at officer level but also at ministerial level.
I think our skills are very much now about trying to talk to colleagues,
get agreement, negotiate, push that little bit harder and bring
people to the table, so it is a new skill set.
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