Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
SIR BOB
KERSLAKE
18 FEBRUARY 2008
Q20 Sir Paul Beresford: So you are
taking the whole lot?
Sir Bob Kerslake: We are taking
all the staff in. The scale of staffing you will have moving forward
clearly will need to be reviewed and assessed but I am giving
you the number based on the current calculation of staff, and
it is an approximate number, in the existing bodies.
Q21 Chair: What about the £5
billion budget then? Is that just an aggregation of existing budgets?
Sir Bob Kerslake: That is an aggregation
of existing budgets across the functions that are transferring
into the agency.
Q22 Chair: Before moving on to staffing
issues, can I just pick you up on paragraph 14 of your supplementary
memorandum, which I had a bit of difficulty in understanding,
to be truthful, in particular, the bit about "To deliver
better outcomes, we need to harness the flexibility that combining
these activities and functions can bring. We can make significant
headway in this Spending Review period, but I believe there will
be even greater opportunities in future spending rounds."
Would you like to unpick that and explain what it means? Are you
meaning that you are going to make some savings in future spending
rounds, or you are going to ask for more spending in future spending
rounds?
Sir Bob Kerslake: What I am saying
in that paragraph is that clearly, moving forward in the current
CSR round, there are already commitments made, quite rightly so,
into next year and potentially into the years beyond that on existing
funding streams, so some of your flexibility is clearly not there
in the current CSR round. When you move forward to subsequent
rounds, clearly, you will have the potential to have more flexibility
across the resources available to the agency. So what I am saying
is we will make as much use as we can of the flexibilities in
the next round but would hope that there could be more in subsequent
rounds.
Q23 Chair: But you should be able
to get some advantages both in delivery and use of resources,
presumably, by bringing the agencies together so that where there
is overlap you can economise and you can then do things elsewhere
that you were not—
Sir Bob Kerslake: That is entirely
right. I think there is a distinction here between two types of
efficiencies, if you like. There is the efficiency by being able
to use the investment resources of the new agency more flexibly
and respond more directly to the needs of particular places, and
there is obviously an efficiency that would come from creating
a single agency that would have one set of support services, for
example. I was in this paragraph particularly referring to the
flexibility around investment programmes as opposed to the efficiencies
that you might make from unifying the organisation. There will
be savings from both and both have been built into the business
case for the new agency but, clearly, the big money, as you have
got from the numbers I referred to, is in the investment programme
so that is where you would want to focus your efforts to get greater
value out of the resources you have.
Q24 Sir Paul Beresford: If I were
highly suspicious, you say in that paragraph "This is something
that will grow over time." Do you mean the activities and
functions will grow over time?
Sir Bob Kerslake: No, what I am
saying is the ability to use the money flexibly and therefore
create savings will grow over time. It is not a hidden bid for
extra money, if I can put it that way.
Q25 Sir Paul Beresford: I was not
thinking of money. I was thinking of functions.
Sir Bob Kerslake: Nor is it a
hidden bid for extra functions. What it is saying is that existing
programmes have already committed moving forward, whereas, as
you move forward over time beyond that, they will not be committed
and you will get more flexibility out of it.
Q26 Jim Dobbin: Sir Bob, the strongest
resource you probably have is the staff and the quality and skills
that those staff bring from wherever they are coming from. Always
when you get change like this you get insecurities. People start
to feel insecure when change is taking place. How are you going
to convince those employees who will be transferring, one, that
this is not going to take a long time and two, that their conditions
of employment may continue or may improve but will not deteriorate?
Sir Bob Kerslake: I think that
is a very powerful question and something I have given a lot of
thought to. Your first point about moving with some speed and
pace on it is absolutely right. The debate on bringing together
the two agencies goes back quite a few years now and staff have
had to live with that uncertainty, so one of the factors that
is influencing me on seeing if I can bring forward the date is
the fact that it will help end the uncertainty for staff more
quickly than it might otherwise do. That is the first thing to
say. I think the second thing with staff is a very clear programme
of action that you stick to. The third issue I have given a lot
of thought to is only going for change on things where it makes
sense to change, if you see what I mean. We will make a virtue
of using existing accommodation where that fits the bill. We are
not in the business of looking immediately for brand spanking
new offices; we will use the resources that are there. I think
communication is absolutely critical in this process with staff.
I have already instituted a monthly newsletter to staff. I have
met all of the English Partnerships staff through their annual
conference and I want to do the same for the Housing Corporation.
So it is all of those things coming together that make the difference
but probably the most important thing we will have to invest in
is bringing together two quite different cultures, two different
organisations, coupled with the CLG staff as well, and creating
a new culture for this organisation that builds on the best but
brings something of its own as well. Those are the things I will
put time and effort into and it is a high priority for me.
Q27 Jim Dobbin: What about retention?
We understand that a couple of employees, because they were feeling
insecure, have already left the Housing Corporation. How are you
going to retain?
Sir Bob Kerslake: I think you
will see some staff turnover in the period of change, you cannot
avoid that. You reduce that to the minimum necessary by being
very open and direct with people about what you are doing. I think
people can live with change if you are very clear and honest about
what you are planning and what you are not planning and moving,
as I said earlier, with some pace and direction to what you are
doing. Inevitably, with this period of change, uncertainties creep
in. People form their own views about what is happening and, in
the absence of clarity, they fill the vacuum. I think you deal
with retention by being very clear what you want to do, what kind
of agency you are trying to create and then moving forward in
a clear and focused way.
Q28 Jim Dobbin: During this transitional
period you are building a new organisation, a new agency, but
at the same time, you are having an effect on the organisations
that employees are leaving. How can you retain the stability of
those organisations and not be the cause of too much disruption
for them?
Sir Bob Kerslake: It is a balance
here. If you say the absolute priority is not impacting on the
existing organisations, then you are likely to take too long on
the new one and the uncertainty that causes will disrupt the existing
organisations. If you see the only thing that matters is creating
the new organisation, then you are going to damage the existing
organisation so there is a balance to be struck here. One of the
reasons I moved to create the dedicated team was to give some
clear resources to the process of change. They will not do all
the work. They will need to draw others into the process but we
are negotiating that with each of the existing agencies in order
to ensure that it does the minimum harmful impact on their existing
programmes. So we are very alert to the issue. There is not one
quick answer to that but it is about a constant conversation between
those who currently manage the existing organisations and the
set-up team to get the balance right and, again, moving relatively
quickly on it helps. I think avoiding big uncertainties and energies
being focused on new locations for headquarters, et cetera,
also helps.
Q29 Jim Dobbin: Those questions were
just about efficient transition.
Sir Bob Kerslake: Absolutely right.
Q30 Mr Betts: Bob, I think we have
probably met somewhere before! Certainly the LGA welcomed your
employment personally because of your background in local government
and the feeling that you probably would want to be sympathetically
engaged with local authorities but there must be some slight concern
amongst individual authorities that, when an agency like yours
is established, with a wide national remit, with a very clear
goal—the 3 million homes, the Prime Minister has said that
is what is going to happen and it is your job to deliver it—if
local authorities are not very clever at making their bit happen,
are you not just going to come in and steamroller them? That must
be a worry.
Sir Bob Kerslake: Yes, I can see
why that might be a concern but actually, having worked in local
government, local government is pretty hard to steamroller, to
be honest with you. It has its own strong view about its place
and what it is trying to achieve and how it should achieve it,
and you work much better if you go with the grain of local intentions.
That does not mean to say you do not have a strong conversation
about how things can happen but very often my experience of local
authorities—and as well as being Chief Executive of a local
authority I have also done a lot of peer reviews of other local
authorities, i have been out and about across the country doing
corporate inspections and peer reviews—is that they are
all very passionate about their places. They have big ambitions
for their places and I think the trick here is to create an agency
that can be a bridge between, if you like, national ambitions
and local ambitions.
Q31 John Cummings: You could also
be accused of being poacher turned gamekeeper.
Sir Bob Kerslake: That is a possibility.
What I do not want to get into is the situation where we are in
a sense going to places and saying "You must do X, Y and
Z." What I think works best is if we understand what their
ambitions are and we find the balance there about how they can
deliver the things they want to do and also help us achieve the
national targets, and every place will be a mix of growth and
renewal in some way or another and it is finding the right combination.
That is why I have talked about this single conversation with
individual places. I think that is how we make this work and how
we avoid me being seen as a poacher turned gamekeeper.
Q32 Mr Betts: Is that not a view
really of an ideal world? If in the end your success is going
to be delivering a headline figure and if the sum total of the
ambitions of local authorities does not add up to that headline
figure, you are going to have to take some action, are you not,
and that is not going to make you terribly popular in some places?
Sir Bob Kerslake: I think we have
to seek first of all to try and achieve this through collaboration,
conversation, challenge, and, as I said at the beginning really,
it is very hard, even if you wanted to, to compel local authorities
to do things. That should only ever be absolutely the last resort
in your options. You get much better results if you can find the
right conversation with a local authority that helps you deliver
what you want and what they want. I genuinely believe that it
is possible to do.
Q33 Sir Paul Beresford: Would you
accept the last resort might be something you would have to reach
for?
Sir Bob Kerslake: It would have
to be after exploring every other option, I think is what I would
say, and I would actually say I think it is unlikely I can envisage
circumstances where you would reach that point.
Q34 Sir Paul Beresford: You were
working for an elected local authority and your main experience
is working for elected councillors. You are not working for anybody
that is elected, except diktats of Ministers.
Sir Bob Kerslake: I am working
within the framework of ministerial direction on policy, yes.
Q35 Sir Paul Beresford: But you are
still answerable to them and have to meet them and come up with
your targets.
Sir Bob Kerslake: Absolutely right,
and I am quite comfortable with that. What I am saying though
is I think we will achieve most, if not all of what we want to
achieve through constructive and positive conversation and dialogue
with local authorities. That is likely to produce the results
we want, it seems to me.
Q36 Mr Betts: There is a feeling
coming out of this that if that approach were taken to the Thames
Gateway, we might be having an awful lot of parallel conversations
for an awful long time in the future without any houses getting
built, because there are so many individual authorities, groups
of authorities, agencies, involved in that. Does it not actually
need someone to come and grab hold of it and make it happen?
Sir Bob Kerslake: That is a different
thing. I think you do need to have clear leadership, clear delivery
arrangements, put the expertise in the right places; all of that
is needed. You need to have strong conversations with individual
local authorities but that is not the same as saying the only
way you can achieve results is to coerce worse local authorities
to do what you want to do. They are two very different things.
I have, in my view, pretty strong experience of being able to
enable things to happen through strong leadership rather than
through coercion.
Q37 Mr Betts: In terms of the other
extreme, smaller local authorities, one of the things that has
come up to the Committee on a number of occasions which we are
going to have a look at is that regeneration schemes in particular
can be quite complicated, and sometimes small authorities do not
necessarily, when they have one scheme every so often, have the
range of skills necessary to get on and make that happen, do all
the complicated deals with the private sector. Are you going to
be offering an open door for assistance in those sorts of situations?
Sir Bob Kerslake: Absolutely,
giving support, and your point is very well made. Indeed, resources
already exist with things like the Atlas team to give support
to local authorities who need it. What we can say, and indeed
it is one of the reasons why you need the agency, is sometimes
the scale of the task and the ambition in some places is disproportionate
to the capacity and size of the local authority in that area.
That is not a criticism of the local authority; it is just a fact
of life, and I think the agency will succeed if it can give them
that practical support, professional resources and support, to
enable them to succeed on what they are trying to achieve and
what we are trying to achieve. So absolutely, the agency is not
just about money; it is about expertise and people.
Q38 Chair: Can I just press you slightly
on the Thames Gateway example? What do you mean by strong leadership?
What strong leadership has not been provided thus far and how
are you going to make it stronger?
Sir Bob Kerslake: I was not for
a moment suggesting it has not had strong leadership. That will
be for others to judge. The point I am making is that you would
not see the natural response to making progress on the Thames
Gateway simply to go in and tell London boroughs what to do. They
have a great deal of knowledge and expertise about what works
in their area. What I am saying is that the overall programme
of the Thames Gateway needs to have strong leadership and I was
distinguishing that from a situation where you were suggesting
that the only way you could make progress was through coercion.
I do not think the two things follow at all.
Q39 Chair: So who would be providing
strong leadership on the Thames Gateway?
Sir Bob Kerslake: In relation
to the overall delivery of the regeneration and housing, the HCA
has a key role in providing leadership. That is where their function
transfers but it is going to do that through partnership; it is
going to work collaboratively with other bodies because, in the
end, very few, if any, public bodies can deliver what they have
to deliver through coercion. They have to work collaboratively.
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