Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 55)
THURSDAY 7 JUNE 2007
LORD ADEBOWALE
AND MS
JOYCE MOSELEY
Q40 Kelvin Hopkins: Essentially,
you are saying what I was saying earlier, that there is a kind
of interface at that point. Say, if a child is being abused, you
have to have a responsible public authority to deal with such
a situation. You cannot have a private company, saying, "That's
a bit difficult. We'll not do that one".
Ms Moseley: No, no.
Q41 Kelvin Hopkins: So there
is an interface between what has to be provided by direct state
provision and what can be done by other organisations.
Ms Moseley: But, as a Director
of Social Services, I could easily have said, "We are responsible
for ensuring that a child who is abused gets a service and, therefore,
I will contract with a private or a voluntary organisation",
and of course the NSPCC has the power to do that, "to investigate
all child abuse inquiries". If that is what the contract
is, it is not about picking and choosing and I would not see it
as picking and choosing either.
Lord Adebowale: I think your question
is almost a general, political question in that there are two
arguments and both arguments equally, if they were to succeed,
would, in my view, distort the reality. One argument says, "Let's
just have a market. Let's not have a government, in a sense, local
or national, to define `commissioning' and let's just leave it
open to the market and every man for himself and the devil take
the hindmost". That is one argument, and I am talking extremes
here. The other argument, which is equally present sometimes in
the room, is that the State should do everything, that the only
provision that charities—Turning Point is a social enterprise,
a particular type of charity, it is worth emphasising—should
be doing should be at the very margins of what the State does,
voluntary, two or three people doing what they can.
Ms Moseley: Out of the goodness
of their hearts.
Lord Adebowale: That kind of thing.
Both of these arguments are extremes. You have suggested that
the third sector or certainly my organisation or Joyce's might
be used in some way. I think we are savvy enough to be able to
argue our case clearly, and I hope we have done, and present our
services in sharp contrast to those extremes because I think the
balance is, as Joyce has quite rightly pointed out, that people
want services that work and that are effective both in terms of
cost and value, that is the end of it. I think we have reached
an interesting point where the debate is sophisticated enough
to allow that to happen. What would worry me is if the debate
became pulled in either direction to the point where it was impossible
to actually get the kind of flexibility that people demand now,
that people demand of their services that meet their needs, not
the needs of the politicians or the Government, but their needs,
and that is what I am here to do really.
Kelvin Hopkins: I would like to pursue
it, but I have had my time.
Q42 Mr Prentice: Kelvin has
stolen my script really! We are where we are because the role
of the third sector is being massively expanded or massively hyped,
and I am still not entirely sure, but the Government tells us
that it wants to open up supply and we talked earlier about what
the Government is doing to open up supply, the training of commissioners
and so on. The Government tells us that it wants to open up direct
support, such as training and professional development, but what
is actually happening on the ground to take that forward?
Ms Moseley: I think the gap between
rhetoric and reality is still there. My communications at central
government level, I think, are very genuine discussions about
how to open up a social market. I think that what I talked about
earlier, the gap then down to the delivery point where most of
the commissioning is either at local authority level, LSC[7]
funding, there is that gap particularly, I would say, at local
government level where I do not think the arguments are as accepted
around the notion of social markets as they are at central government
level.
Lord Adebowale: I think "hype"
might be a good word actually in the sense that I have not noticed
any massive shift in the paradigm.
Ms Moseley: Some of it is going
the other way actually and getting taken back inhouse.
Lord Adebowale: Absolutely, or
local or central government. I will not go into it, but I can
think of instances where large contracts, big money, have gone
to the private sector and it has never touched the sides and there
certainly has not been a debate asking, "Is there is a not-for-profit
way in which we could deliver this service?" It just has
not happened. There has been an assumption, which, you could argue,
is based on hype, that the private sector will do it better, and
I would argue that that is an indication that they are better
lobbyists than we will ever be. I am kind of bemused by the question
in a way because I think the evidence is that on the ground the
public and private sector services are not being swept away in
favour of the third sector, firstly, and, secondly, as I have
said, I personally and my organisation have run alongside a particular
set of values and we are not interested in talk of takeover because
I do not think it helps the debate. When you talk about growth,
the growth in public, government funding over the last year has
been, what, 1.5 %; hardly a revolution.
Ms Moseley: For the last few years
actually.
Lord Adebowale: It has hardly
been a major shift in financing. The PFI, public finance initiative,
and the like were designed for the private sector and no such
government intellectual rigour has been put into the financing
of the third sector.
Q43 Mr Prentice: I was going
to come on to ask you about the voluntary finance initiative that
you tell us about in your memorandum. Have you spoken to the Treasury
about this and what kind of response did you get?
Lord Adebowale: We have put it
to our umbrella bodies. What kind of response did I get? Well,
from some people short, sharp—
Ms Moseley: Shocking.
Lord Adebowale:—and not
repeatable, and from others a considered response. The fact of
the matter is that we have not got VFI. We have got futurebuilders
which is to be noted as a good thing, but it is by no means anywhere
near the financing that the private sector enjoys.
Q44 Mr Prentice: Forgive me,
but the futurebuilders fund, what exactly is that?
Lord Adebowale: It is, in short,
a venture capital fund, I guess, set up by the Government and
I think it was £125 million that the Chancellor set aside
to create a step change in the ability of third sector organisations
to compete in delivering public services and it was designed to
do two things. One is to give grants, which it does not give lots
of because I was involved in the design of it, but largely it
is really about investing, so my organisation has received recently,
after a long and very detailed application process which certainly
would be on a par with any private sector investment approach,
£10 million which we will be investing in services which
will, we and futurebuilders believe, increase the effectiveness
of the public sector spend in a particular area, so it is venture
capital, but it is dwarfed by several orders when it comes to
the VFI and PFI; there just is not a comparison.
Q45 Mr Prentice: That is interesting.
Back on this hype and spin, the Government tells us that a large
number of local government services are still largely provided
inhouse and there is the suggestion that perhaps they could be
floated off to the third sector, foster care and adoption and
so on. I know you do not want to give us lists and I know you
are not interested in poaching, but are there services currently
provided by the State which would be seen as mainstream services
that you think could be better delivered by the third sector over
and above those which you have mentioned already this morning?
Ms Moseley: I would say there
are mainstream services that I think and know Rainer could deliver
better than they are being. It goes back to our very early discussions,
I think you can talk about, "The third sector automatically
delivers things better", but I think it is a particular organisation.
I think there are some services, because of the nature of the
people they are dealing with, where the third sector has the edge
by being the third sector because of the feelings people have
towards the statutory sector.
Q46 Mr Prentice: So I am not
going to get a list for the reasons that you have just explained?
Ms Moseley: Well, I could certainly
give them. There are the care leaving services we run where I
think the young people, by their nature, as older adolescents
are starting to fight against authority anyway and the authority
in their lives is the local authority because they are their parents,
so actually us delivering services often can deal with some of
that in a better way.
Lord Adebowale: As long as what
I am about to say is taken in the context of what I said earlier
which is not about takeover, it is about partnership, I think
there are substance misuse services, some aspects of mental health
services, and it depends again because mental health is a big
service and it can be sub-divided into several different areas,
certain learning disability services, offender management and
employment services, all of which and aspects of which would benefit,
I think, from review and better commissioning. Whether the results
of that commissioning would be that the third sector plays a better
role depends on how good we are at engaging with commissioners
and putting in strong ideas.
Q47 Mr Prentice: I wanted
to go on to this business about how good you are because one of
the criticisms is that in the third sector there are not necessarily
complaints procedures in place, and you talked earlier about all
the regulators that are looking over your shoulder. Do we need
an ombudsman, a kind of third sector ombudsman, a charities ombudsman,
to make sure you do what you are supposed to do?
Lord Adebowale: Well, what can
I say. We are regulated to within an inch of our lives clearly.
Q48 Mr Prentice: You said
that earlier in fact.
Lord Adebowale: Certainly speaking
of Turning Point, I have a whistle-blowing policy which is, I
think, better than any you would find in the statutory sector,
we have internal policies which are transparent and which are
available for people to see and the Charity Commission are very
clear about their role. I am unconvinced basically of the need
for an ombudsman to do what you have suggested any more than I
would have an ombudsman for the private sector in that regard.
We like to think we do what we say on the tin and, if we do not,
then there are many mechanisms by which we can be held to account.
Ms Moseley: If any commissioner
worth their salt was going to put a service which was about young
people, young offenders, employment, with organisations that did
not have those basics around complaints and so on, they should
not be doing it.
Q49 Mr Prentice: One final
question is about the nature of the people that you employ and
who are employed in your organisations. You told us that you have
got the same terms and conditions, or in Turning Point the same
terms and conditions. That is not true across the sector, is it?
Ms Moseley: Probably not.
Q50 Mr Prentice: People are
doing the job on the cheap, volunteers coming in. That is not
the case?
Ms Moseley: I can only talk for
Rainer here.
Q51 Mr Prentice: No, I am
not talking about your two organisations, I am talking about the
sector more generally, that volunteers get involved because they
like the idea of working for a particular organisation and they
may take less than the market rate because they want to be associated
with that organisation.
Lord Adebowale: What can I say.
Again it is one of those questions. I think if you were to compare
the third sector with the private sector, you would find the private
sector more than ready to employ cheap labour under appalling
conditions. Speaking for my own organisation, we do not. My staff
and I have got to look at ourselves in the mirror and we pride
ourselves on good terms and conditions for the work that is done
and I baulk at the critique that the third sector is cheap labour.
Having said that, we have said, I think both of us, that there
are some practices in the statutory sector that expect us to do
that and in fact would want to take advantage of that.
Q52 Mr Prentice: Well, that
is an important point that you have just made, is it not?
Lord Adebowale: Yes, and it is
unacceptable. We ask for full costs recovery not because I want
to drive a Rolls-Royce and buy a private island, but we ask for
it because that is what it costs to provide the service which
includes paying decent salaries and ensuring that the conditions
under which our staff work are good.
Q53 Mr Prentice: I am right
in thinking that the staff in both organisations are unionised
and you encourage people to join the unions?
Lord Adebowale: Yes.
Ms Moseley: Yes, the union is
there at every induction meeting we have, recruiting if they wish.
I just wanted to say that I worry about bringing together, that
volunteers are doing that work and certainly I think in any organisation
which is using volunteers appropriately, then they are very distinct
from staff and are actually adding real and different value and
it is not about doing a job at a cheaper rate.
Q54 Mr Prentice: But volunteers
very often become staff.
Ms Moseley: We have a very clear
process where, if we have a volunteer who has been working with
us and they are trained and they are supported, and we have excellent
training programmes for our volunteers, if they wish then to become
staff, they have to go through the same recruitment process as
anyone else.
Lord Adebowale: We have just under
2,000, I think, 1,800 full-time equivalents, but we employ volunteers
and I use the word "employ" because we expect them to
be police checked, we expect them to be trained, we expect them
to be supervised and we do not play around with the term. I think
most organisations that use volunteers that I am aware of operate
the same methods, but I cannot speak for the whole sector any
more than I could speak for the whole private sector.
Q55 Chairman: We shall have
to end. We have had a really solidly interesting session for which
we are very grateful. I hope you feel that we have covered the
essential territory. I think that what you were saying about commissioning
is what you particularly wanted to leave with us in terms of what
we might say, so I hope you feel that we have gone where we should
have.
Lord Adebowale: Thank you for
the opportunity.
Ms Moseley: Thank you and, if
there is anything, and I am sure I probably speak for Victor here,
our organisations can do in terms of you coming and seeing and
looking and talking to staff on the ground, you are very welcome.
Lord Adebowale: I am more than
happy to second that.
Chairman: We may well do that, so thank
you for that as well. The only alarming thing was when Victor
said that his organisation only criticised when it had a solution.
Now, you realise that would stop politicians in their tracks and
we may have to delete that from the record! Thank you very much
indeed.
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