Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360
- 365)
TUESDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2007
RT HON
ED MILIBAND
MP AND PHIL
HOPE MP
Q360 Paul Flynn: We all accept
what you say, that there are third sector organisations that are
nimble, innovative, supply new ideas and create great services
that the local authorities have not supplied. My local authority
in 1979 was providing universal nurseries, state nurseries for
all the children and also selling council houses in 1968. There
are authorities that do things you do not expect them to do under
Labour controlled authorities. There are other third sector organisations
that are bureaucratic, empire building and have all kinds of weaknesses.
What happens is there is an evolution that takes place and generally
the effective third sector organisations come to the top anyway.
What you seem to be doing with this transformation is trying to
get a revolution in the system which is introducing the bureaucracy
of 2,000 extra commissioners and everything else trying to achieve
a whole metamorphosis of the system when, in fact, it would probably
evolve in very much the same way if you left it alone. Is this
not a question of Government interfering in something that is
doing pretty well anyway and what you are doing will have only
a marginal effect at most?
Phil Hope: They are not 2,000
extra commissioners. The aim is to target 2,000 existing commissioners
in local government, in Health, in DWP and elsewhere. These are
not extra people, these are people who are doing the job of commissioning
services anyway and to train those so they understand the added
value that third sector organisations bring to potential service
delivery. That is a point of detail there. In general terms, if
we look around there are still problems to be solved where we
have not reached the Nirvana that we in the Labour movement would
like to see.
Q361 Paul Flynn: We never
will though.
Phil Hope: I do think that because
that Nirvana is not quite there yet, there are jobs to be done
and public services to meet the needs of people in our communities.
The continuous challenge for us in Government, and I would argue
on the left but I guess my Conservative and Liberal colleagues
might argue it is their ambition too, is to ensure that the needs
of all people in the community are met and we start with those
needs and put the user at the centre of service design and delivery
and those people who have a particular ability, third sector organisations,
to reach out, particularly to those individuals who perhaps have
reasons to mistrust or fear the state in all its forms, to find
ways of working with them in particular, innovative ways to deliver
new ways of working that change and develop their lives and give
them the kind of aspirations and future that we would all like
them to experience and enjoy. I call that transformation because
I am an aspirational politician and I hope we all would be aspirational
in seeking to provide the very best and to change lives for the
better.
Paul Flynn: Bon chance!
Chairman: We are almost done; at least
that is my aspiration.
Q362 Mr Prentice: I go through
life trying to unpack the hype from the reality and the whole
third sector was really cranked up a few years ago, the Office
of the Third Sector, transformational change, and Ed told us earlier
on it is about transforming the public services, not about transferring
out, but there was a time not so very long ago when you picked
up a newspaper and it was all about transferring out public services
into a new third sector. I do not think the reality is like that
having listened to you for the past two hours. Two final questions.
What guidance do you give local authorities to transfer assets
that they control to the third sector? You touched on this when
you were speaking in the chamber on the third sector debate. What
inducements are they given to transfer assets? Are the assets
ever transferred at below value? What is the case with central
Government? Have central Government assets been transferred out
to the third sector and, again, have they been done below value?
Ed Miliband: I am glad you have
asked about this. The motivation for this is all of us, at least
in my experience in my community, know of assets that are at the
heart of the community that local authorities no longer need and
have not got a use for or are not being properly used and there
are often community organisations that want to be able to run
them. Why does that make a difference? It gives the community
a real direct stake in an area, it can provide facilities for
community organisations and it can empower local people to try
and shape an area in the way that they want. In terms of what
inducements there are, we have set up a £30 million Community
Assets Fund which is being run by the Big Lottery Fund precisely
to test out new experiments in this area. If you talk to someone
like the Development Trust Association you will see what their
members are doing up and down the country. If you are looking
for a visit I would urge you to go to the Goodwin Centre in Hull
which has transformed a particular area of Hull in the last five
or six years, starting off with a community asset and eight of
the 11 people on the local board there are elected by the local
community, there is a real sense of devolution of power and it
works very well with the local authority.
Q363 Mr Prentice: What if
they do not want to transfer the asset, that is the key point?
Ed Miliband: It is their choice.
What we are looking for in this area is culture change.
Q364 Mr Prentice: Fair enough.
Ed Miliband: It is a tough sell
to some local authorities, we should be honest about that. On
the point about central Government, I think central Government
could do more in this area, particularly if we are encouraging
local authorities to do it, and that is something we are talking
to Hazel Blears and others about.
Q365 Chairman: I have just
got one question that takes us back to where we started. I have
still got a problem with this proposition that if the third sector
can have a transforming effect on public services, and that is
what is being said, then presumably you want it to do an awful
lot more. If it does an awful lot more, somebody has to do an
awful lot less by definition, either the state does less or the
private sector does less, and yet that does not seem to be the
follow-through. We have got the proposition, transforming effect,
but we have not yet got the transforming intervention or even
the argument that says we have to make sure that it does more
and others do less. The Opposition at the moment seem to be suggesting
that they want to turn most of the state over to social enterprise
or the third sector, they think it is the remedy for every social
ill. It is quite hard to pin this down. The question we have not
asked is one I ask right at the end, and we have been asking it
along the way: what is the evidence base for saying that there
is this transforming effect in using the third sector to deliver
public services? We have had Martin Narey who says there is not
such an effect, all we want the third sector to be is part of
the competitive market, it is the competition we want, it is not
the third sector particularly, anybody can do it as well as anybody
else. The question is, what is the evidence base for the transforming
effect of third sector delivery of public services?
Ed Miliband: There are a number
of questions in that question. The evidence base is weak in general
terms for the third sector. When I came into this job I thought
across the piece we needed a far better evidence base for what
the third sector does, not just in public services but elsewhere.
That is why we are investing money with the ESRC[15]
and others precisely in improving the evidence base, which was
one of the conclusions from the Third Sector Review. If what you
are looking for with the evidence base is that in all circumstances
the third sector will always be better than the private sector
or the public sector, that is not our claim and I do not think
we are going to find that evidence and I agree with Martin Narey
and the other people who have come before you. I think the evidence
we are looking for, and it is there, is in various areas of public
services which sometimes are not open to the third sector for
a range of reasons or the third sector does not get a fair look-in,
they can make a contribution. What is the evidence for it? Because
in your communities and mine they are showing that they can do
it. All around the country and people who come before your Committee,
whether it is Victor Adebowale or Joyce Moseley from Rainer, are
showing that they can do it. Public services need to be open to
those skills and expertise and over time I think we will see them
playing a broader role. I come back to a theme of some of the
things both of us have been saying, which is Government needs
to be open to that, and that is what the action plan is about
doing, but it is also crucially about convincing the people on
the ground that the third sector can do more. I see them doing
more over time and making a difference to public services.
Chairman: I think we have had a good
run for our money. Thank you very much indeed to both of you for
a very interesting session which pretty much concludes this inquiry
that we have been doing. We shall draw upon what you have told
us in trying to produce a report about it. Thank you very much
indeed.
15 The Economic and Social Research Council Back
|
