Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
DEPARTMENT FOR
ENVIRONMENT, FOOD
AND RURAL
AFFAIRS
19 MARCH 2008
Q60 Nigel Griffiths: The real question,
and a note may help on this, is: does something like the National
Forest Company with 18 employees have to spend a disproportionate
amount of management time or expense on those 18 employees that
would be better pooled? In other words, if they could draw on
a larger HR resource, would their £4.5 million go further?
Mrs Ghosh: As I said earlier,
we have a shared services organisation and we are gradually drawing
more of our delivery bodies into it where it represents good value
for money. I can certainly take away the question of whether or
not we have specifically had that discussion.[3]
Q61 Nigel Griffiths: Just to probe you
further on that, where somebody has 2,323 employees I might not
be asking this question—
Mrs Ghosh: And indeed they are
part of the shared services organisation—Natural England.
The question is: is it worth bringing on board into a shared services
organisation—I would put the private sector organisations
to one side—the 15 members of the Horticultural Development
Council? It may or may not be. They might have satisfactory arrangements
themselves, possibly outsourced.
Q62 Nigel Griffiths: It would be
helpful to know. I interrupted you. To return to paragraph 15
on page 7, I think you had covered (v) and you were going to cover
(vi).
Mrs Ghosh: I think we have covered
(v) through the discussion of how the sponsorship role works.
As the Report says, the Financial Management Improvement Programme
has a project board on which the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee
and myself sit with two DGs and non-executives. They are intimately
involved in the financial management improvement. We will obviously
be taking forward the recommendation here, and set out in more
detail in the annex, on how we can make sure that the committee
as a whole is receiving regular Reports.
Q63 Nigel Griffiths: How often does
the management board meet?
Mrs Ghosh: The management board
meets monthly.
Q64 Nigel Griffiths: Are these six
items in front of them on a permanent basis?
Mrs Ghosh: All of the management
board are aware of these recommendations and two of my DG colleagues
on the management board are also on the Board of the Financial
Management Improvement Programme and so, yes, there is very good
visibility of these recommendations.
Chairman: Thank you, Mrs Ghosh, that
concludes our inquiry. Thank you for your typically, from you,
competent and confident way you have dealt with our questions.
This was not your fault but clearly good financial management
is essential in government and the Department failed to balance
its books. We expect you to perform a lot better in the future
and we have confidence in you.
3 Ev 9 Back
| 
