Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-130)
SIR IAN
ANDREWS, MS
HELEN GHOSH
AND MR
NIGEL SMITH
29 APRIL 2008
Q120 Joan Walley: The concern we
have is that more and more contracts are being transferred, outsourced,
privatised, and whether or not it is in the central government
estate or under the government umbrella but nonetheless provided
by a local agency, we are losing a lot of scope to be able to—
Ms Ghosh: For all the reasons
which Ian and Nigel have described, as long as it is being occupied
by the central government department, the central government department
is responsible for making sure it delivers its overall targets
as set out in our SOGE targets, and we can use the contracts,
the leases, all of that, to ensure we are achieving our targets.
Q121 Joan Walley: But would you not
agree that there is a large number of operations which are outside
that definition which are still funded by central government?
Ms Ghosh: Indeed. The wider public
sector—local government, schools, the NHS—is explicitly
not covered by the SOGE targets but there are all sorts of other
mechanisms which other departments will be able to answer for
on how they are, nonetheless, really driving through sustainability.
Sir Ian Andrews: My understanding
is that those are consistent with SOGE targets but they are not
within the remit of the estate.
Joan Walley: Okay, thank you.
Q122 Mr Stuart: The Report on page
9 in its commentary says that in comparison with companies like
Marks & Spencer the Government's own record looks particularly
weak. Do you accept that?
Ms Ghosh: I think there are a
number of parts of the private sector which in terms of the commitments
they have made are ahead of us. Clearly we will be interested
to see the outcomes. But, as I always say, this is not a competition.
It is great that the big companies are setting a lead and achieving
what they are achieving.
Q123 Mr Stuart: But is the performance
of Government particularly weak? Your Department, which is supposed
to be the lead department, is more than half way down the performance
table.
Ms Ghosh: But improving. I come
back to what Nigel said at the beginning, there are some very
positive things coming out of the SDC Report and our response
and some things on which we are conscious we have to work. I think
the key point is that the whole of society and the economy is
really getting engaged in this.
Q124 Mr Stuart: Are you particularly
weak or not?
Mr Smith: Can I help? I will give
you my observation. I think Government is weak against best in
class performance in private industry, I do not believe that Government
is weak across private industry. The issue is, what should we
be actually trying to change? Why are we doing this? Is it to
save 100,000 tonnes of carbon? No. It is to show leadership. The
actual carbon emissions which come from central government as
a percentage of the economy is relatively low—I cannot remember
exactly.
Ms Ghosh: It is 8%. The 8% is
from the public sector as a whole, and 36% of that comes from
central government.
Q125 Mr Stuart: The point is that
that leadership has not been shown and it has been a particularly
weak performance to date. Can I move on to action to do something
about it? The Prime Minister's Delivery Unit last year said that
swift and decisive action needed to be taken. Can you tell us
which of the urgent recommendations from that Report have not
been taken up, whether they are going to be and, if not, why not?
Mr Smith: I believe all of them
are and that was certainly one of the things I looked at very
closely when I was recommending what we should do about where
we are now and how are we going to achieve our targets. The PMDU
talks about two fundamental things—the issue I have been
talking about, perhaps the unsexy bit, which is the performance
management and trajectories and it talks about personal accountability
and permanent secretaries. Both of those things are fundamental
to the Government response which was issued in March of this year.
Q126 Mr Stuart: So this is Gus O'Donnell
reporting directly to the Defra Minister on performance?
Ms Ghosh: That was the point we
were discussing earlier, Gus is discussing this with the Prime
Minister and others, who is the appropriate minister for that
report.
Q127 Mr Stuart: So "swift and
decisive action required" came out in July last year, it
is from the Prime Minister's own Delivery Unit and here we are,
nearly in May the following year, and so urgent and important
is this you cannot even sort out by now which minister Sir Gus
O'Donnell should speak to. That does not sound like Government
is taking this matter very seriously.
Ms Ghosh: I hesitate to say this
in front of a group of politicians, but the fact that we have
set up all the delivery mechanisms, the targets, the objectives,
and Nigel's team, is a very significant part of delivering what
we need to deliver. It is a question of getting the machine moving
and the machine is certainly moving, I can assure you. Gus has
had discussions with Hilary on a number of occasions, the question
is, who is the best person to report back to you on behalf of
the Government as a whole. That is the only issue that remains.
Q128 Joan Walley: On that point I
am afraid time has run out for us. I would like to thank all three
of you for coming along and giving evidence. Just one thing we
did not have a chance to cover was the issue of whether or not
there could be an ACAS code of practice which could extend environmental
duties into the opportunity for time off for workers; education
and environmental training. I would be grateful if you could give
a note to the Committee on that issue. 22
Ms Ghosh: Is that explicitly around
the departmental trade union side?
Q129 Joan Walley: Yes. Time off for
trade union activities.
Ms Ghosh: Specifically time for
trade union representatives?
Q130 Joan Walley: For environmental
issues to be included.
Ms Ghosh: Yes.
Mr Smith: I will reply to the
Committee in respect of the data but can I say that if you look
at pages 23 to 26 of the Government's reply, actually all the
data and the re-base-lining of the data is shown in our Government
reply. 23
Joan Walley: Okay. Thank you very much.
22 See Ev 33.
23 http:/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/reports/sustainable_development.aspx
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