Examination of Witnesses (Questions 520-539)
MR PETER
WILKINSON AND
MR DAVID
BELL
22 MAY 2007
Q520 David Heyes: Can you give us
some flavour of where your consultations have resulted in a significant
change in the original policy?
Mr Bell: The student finance one
is a good example of that. Some of the activities we were planning
on the youth side, we had assumed that just putting more funding
directly to the local authority in terms of specifying the structure
of youth services might have been the most opportune way of a
very strong opinion coming back from young people saying, "We
want some control over this", and actually what we have tried
to do is to put some of the choice, in certain local authorities
saying, "Some of your choices have to be informed by direct
consultation with young people"—that had been our original
intention. Another example on the adult learning side: we have
increasingly gone towards what we are calling a demand-led system
where employers are able to specify the kind of training that
they want for their employees. Under the old system we sent the
money directly to the colleges, the college would put out an offer,
the employer would choose whether he wants it or not. Actually
that was not driving change in the system. By putting the spending
power in the hands of employers and allowing them to determine
the nature of the training that they required for the employees,
you were more likely to bring about change. Again, that was something
that came back to us very strongly through consultation and it
raises the more interesting question, does it not, of how do people
have faith in consultation? I think they only have faith in consultation,
if you demonstrate, not that you can always do what people want
(because you cannot, for everyone), but you actually go back and
explain where you have changed what your original intentions were
and in those areas you have not changed your intentions you explain
why. So, I think it is really important that you demonstrate what
you have done on the back of consultation.
Q521 David Heyes: I saw a potential
tension in one of the examples you gave about young people influencing
their spending themselves rather than doing that through the local
authorities?
Mr Bell: Yes.
Q522 David Heyes: What about the
legitimacy of the role of democratically elected representatives
who have got a much broader view of the whole question of local
authority spending and priorities within that, which you would
assume that most young people would not have, not having that
broader view. How do you reconcile that tension?
Mr Bell: Peter may want to comment
on this as well, but I do not see any necessary contradiction.
Clearly you have got a democratically elected authority that will
have responsibility, amongst other things, for deciding the structure
of the youth service but, it seems to me, alongside that you can
quite legitimately say, in coming to your decisions about the
services for youth, you have to take account of what young people
say, and that is what we have said within our schemes. You have
to have mechanisms for taking account, a certain proportion of
what you are going to be doing has got to be informed by young
people's choice, and I think that is entirely manageable within
a system. The more general point I would make, for local and for
central government, I do not think we can just rely on the legitimacy
of the democratic process if we assume by that that citizens have
no engagement between elections. I think what we are all trying
to do is to carry on that engagement at a local level and national
level so that citizens do feel, yes, they do exercise the very
significant power they have by voting, but at the same time they
also influence the shape of services between the times when you
can vote for this or vote for that.
Q523 Chairman: On the consultation
point, you have got a dedicated unit. Would it be worthwhile having,
do you think, a dedicated unit within government as a whole, people
who know about consultation to do it on behalf of the Government,
or would it be better still to contract the activity out to somebody
who knows about it?
Mr Bell: On both of those points
I have no particularly strong views. I think I would be slightly
nervous if we went to a system where you completely centralised
the consultation. I think if you are going to tailor your consultation
to the particular needs of users, the users of services might
have slightly different needs in different parts of government
and, if you tried to centralise all the consultation in one place,
would you lose some of the flavour of that? What you can, of course,
I think draw upon is the knowledge that exists around government
departments. For example, we listened and were very interested
in what are called the deliberative consultation methods, where
you take a group of people and then you work through a set of
problems. The health department have done this. You work them
through choices and you give them options and they have to make
trade-offs. I think that is quite an interesting way of making
decisions, because, if nothing else, it faces people up to the
really difficult choices that politicians ultimately have to make
but also officials have to make at local and central government
in advising them. So, that kind of knowledge about how you carry
out that kind of activity can be centralised, but I think how
you carry it out is probably still best left within individual
departments.
Q524 Kelvin Hopkins: I have a great
deal of sympathy with what Charles was saying. When I read the
papers on co-production and personalisation I only vaguely understand
what it is about. There are lots of words but nothing very concrete.
Personalisation in education sounds to me like a fast-track route
back to the policies that have failed in the past, namely child-centred
education and informal methods which have led to two generations
of desperate failure amongst people who are now adults. Do we
not really want the opposite: rigour, formality, discipline, setting?
Is that not the route we want to go down?
Mr Bell: Again, I think you are
right. We had a view of the world which was, at its worst, a child-centered
perspective, which was like "anything goes"—that
is a caricature to an extent—but what we did not have underpinning
it was much more rigorous methodology about teaching. We did not
have the same sort of national expectations of what children would
attain by particular levels or particular stages in their life,
we did not have any of that accountability that we have through
the system now for inspection, through performance tables and
so on. I think we have put into place a lot of the architecture
that you need to get the rigour that you have described. If, however,
we think that that is sufficient, then I think we are wrong. I
do not think that is sufficient. We have made all the improvements
that we have made over recent years, but I think what we are trying
to do now is to say: how do you take that next step, particularly
to capture those youngsters who are not necessarily caught up
in that general tide of improvement? How do you tailor the services?
How do you personalise the learning: the catch-up classes that
are offered, the home activities, the out of school activities
which are designed to try to support those youngsters who do not
make it? Please be reassured, Mr Hopkins, this is not a return
to an "anything goes" kind of system of education, but
it is trying to ask ourselves the question: how do we ensure that
particularly those youngsters who do not get what they want, get
it? The other thing I would say quickly on that: even if you are
a high attaining youngster and you are gliding through the education
system, I think we know from our research that youngsters want
more control over the things that go on in their lives, and actually
that includes some of the things that go on in school. It is not
about "anything goes", it is not a student who is having
everything, but that is the world in which we live. It is combining
that rigour with an expectation that young people increasingly
have that they are going to help to shape what goes on in their
education.
Q525 Kelvin Hopkins: Is not the reality,
in education in particular, that life for young children, particularly
those who are less able, is very hard?
Mr Bell: Yes.
Q526 Kelvin Hopkins: If allowed to
do what they liked---. My wife used to be a reception class teacher
and she said, given the choice, the boys in her class, the lower
achievers, would go and play in the sand and the water rather
than do any kind of constructive learning?
Mr Bell: I agree, if personalisation
meant doing your own thing, whatever you like, I would not be
saying that there is any mileage in pursuing it. What I am saying
is that we have a rigorous approach to how children are taught,
and they can have standards we expect them to attain, the extent
to which we hold schools to account, but alongside that we have
to talk about how children best learn: because the reality is
that, despite these very significant improvements that we have
seen, a lot of our youngsters are not quite attaining it, and
we have to think more about how we structure learning for them
to give them a better chance to succeed, and I think a number
of things that we are doing are beginning to make a difference,
and that is not about saying, "Just do your own thing."
Q527 Kelvin Hopkins: Is not the whole
choice agenda geared to two strands of our middle class? I am
very familiar with both: those who want to get their children
into the best schools, and are even prepared to pay to make sure
their kids get one up on everyone else and go on to success as
lawyers, doctors and even civil servants, and another kind of
middle class, the rather whimsical anarcho-leftists who read books
by A S Neill and Rudolf Steiner and who think that the freedom
agenda is a wonderful thing. Of course, they will have private
tuition to make sure that their children learn things as well!
Mr Bell: It is a very interesting
typology that you have offered, and I would not presume to comment
on it. What we should not underestimate, and our research demonstrates
this, is that wanting to exercise some choice, wanting your child
to get into a school which is likely to maximise their success
is not confined to the middle class, and, frankly, often people
who feel that they have got less choice and have got nothing other
than a choice of a poor school feel even stronger about the need
to exercise choice. I think it is the case that expectations are
rising, and it does not matter if you are a member of the middle
class or the working class or whatever, people do have that expectation,
and I think it is right that we have raised that expectation,
that we do not just say to certain sections of society, "Your
lot is a particular kind of school and happens to be a poor school."
I think our ambition has got to be much higher than that.
Q528 Kelvin Hopkins: Do you have
any statistics on how the social classes, in terms of educational
achievement and in other ways as well, have actually been levered
further apart by the freedom of choice in education that has been
engendered over the last two or three decades?
Mr Bell: Perhaps I can come back
to you on that, but if you take an example which is worth commenting
on, if you look at what people were saying about the move towards
city academies, people were saying this is just going to be a
way of siphoning-off more middle class children from local communities,
but the reality is if you look at the entrance backgrounds of
children going into the academies, they are actually slightly
below the socio-economic backgrounds of those going into community
schools in their area. So, I do not think it is the case that
changes, where you offer more options of choice, will lead to
that kind of social division, but I will have to come back to
you with some more data on that, if it may help.
Q529 Kelvin Hopkins: A question for
Peter Wilkinson now. I read the memorandum by the Audit Commission,
which we had circulated, and you said in two or three places that
you do not believe that we should emphasise minimum standards
too strongly, we should not insist upon the minimum standards
agenda, if you like, which in the past was something that applied
to local authorities in particular. Is not that just the sort
of thing that will lead to a postcode lottery and just the sort
of thing that will lead to lack of equity across the country in
public provision?
Mr Wilkinson: Yes, I think we
have to understand that selecting standards is effectively a political
choice and to set a standard or entitlement brings with it a range
of implications, and it is perfectly legitimate for government
to choose do that, that is a choice, and certainly where there
is a desire for national consistency, perhaps in certain forms
of personal services as well, that will be something that the
government does and legitimately does choose to do. However, I
think from where we come from we recognise that the country is
very diverse, there are lots of differences across the country,
and although policies are set nationally, services are typically
delivered locally close to where people live and, therefore, the
balance between what you specify at a national level and the consequences
that flow from that needs to be aligned with how you actually
then deliver services at a local level to match the particular
needs of local populations or the particular forms of geography
or whatever else is applying there.
Q530 Kelvin Hopkins: I was slightly
surprised reading your paper because I have to admit it was very
political. It has a slight subtext of ideology running through
it. I always thought the essence of auditing was checking what
other people did to make sure it measured up to the standards
they set, accounting or whatever. But this paper seems to be shot
through with a kind of political thrust. Is that the result of
the Government appointing certain sorts of people to the Audit
Commission ? Is that a fair criticism?
Mr Wilkinson: I am disappointed
if that is the way you read it. I certainly would not choose us
to have any form of political colouring at all in what we say.
We are very clear in respect of standards though. We encourage
public bodies to set them for the services they provide and we
believe that a strong link between setting standards and explaining
to your local population what you are proposing to provide is
something that local public bodies should do, and that, again,
is one of the themes within the Comprehensive Performance Assessment.
So, I am sorry if you read it in a political guise; it certainly
was not so intended. For us it is about being clear and having
a proper engagement and dialogue with local people.
Q531 Kelvin Hopkins: So, if a pet
scheme emanating from, shall we say, Downing Street or, shall
we say, Lord Adonis, is nonsense, you are quite prepared to say
it is nonsense in bold terms?
Mr Wilkinson: We have a statutory
duty under section 34 of our Act to make comment about the impact
of central government legislation, regulation and direction on
the ability of local authorities to deliver services that are
economic, efficient and effective. So, absolutely, we would make
commentary upon the impact at a local level of the framework which
government establishes—that is one of our statutory duties—and
we do.
Q532 Chairman: On this minimum standards
point, I would like perhaps to tease it out and see what we think
a minimum standard is and how we arrive at it. Can you give us
an example of what might be a minimum standard and what would
not be? I have never had anybody come to me and say they would
like services to be different from the way in which they are somewhere
else. They come all the time to demand the services be the same
as they are somewhere else, which usually means as good as, and
now we have to add Scotland and Wales into this as well. So, although
it seems a nice formulation to say, "Oh, well, we will have
minimum standards and then we will have lots of nice diversity",
just tell us how this might work? What would a minimum standard
look like in some of the areas, a concrete minimum?
Mr Wilkinson: I think when you
look back at the way in which the Citizen's Charter set out expectations
on local public bodies to set standards, what they asked them
to do is be very clear about what sort of standard of service
somebody could expect. It is currently rather topical in terms
of refuse collection. It would be quite possible to set out what
a local authority expected in terms of the service it would provide
but also the expectation on members of the public in terms of
separating refuse into recyclable containers and doing that. So,
that would be a sort of standard that you could legitimately set,
but it may well be different across the country because of the
way in which waste is disposed of, the way in which it is collected,
the geography of different areas varies markedly, and I think
that would be an example of where I would say a local authority
should be explicit to its public but at the same time it would
not be appropriate for all local authorities to have the same
standard.
Mr Bell: May I comment on this,
because it reminds me in a sense of my previous life at Ofsted.
Some people would say, "Is it not terrible that you are only
focusing on minimum standards?" My initial reaction to that
was, "It would be nice, would it not, if every institution
met those minimum standards because, where they fail to do that,
actually youngsters are not getting a decent education",
but the minimum standards are not the maximum standards. What
you are saying is: this is what you consider to be an acceptable
floor. However, beyond that we would like to see schools move
towards or geared up to be excellent or whatever, and within that
context of minimum standards schools can offer a whole range of
different alternatives and options. Your point about somebody
coming along and saying, "I would like my school to be as
good as the one next door", may be right, or is right, but
maybe it is not the same as the person who says, "I want
my school to be the same as the one next door." So I think
you have minimum standards that guarantee that floor but beyond
that you can have a diversity of approach, styles and so on.
Q533 Chairman: Has the Audit Commission
done any work meeting some of the consultation techniques that
we have been hearing about to try to find out what people think
would be useful to specify as minimum, core common standards and
the areas where they are prepared to see difference and diversity?
Mr Wilkinson: We have not done
research that I can recall that specifically addresses that question,
but the concept in terms of the extent to which a local authority
addresses the issue of the standards locally is very much enshrined
within the way we score people in the Comprehensive Performance
Assessment, in that you can get a Level Two for reaching a reasonable
minimum but we encourage people to aspire beyond that, to get
a three or a four if that is where their local aspirations take
them. In terms of specifying what a standard would look like for
a particular service, that has not been an approach we have taken
that, I can think of.
Q534 Chairman: The British Medical
Association is saying that in the Health Service we ought to try
and specify what we think the core provision is and what can be
supplementary to that. The Government has a view, as you know,
that by the end of next year nobody will wait longer than 18 weeks,
wherever they live, from referral to treatment, a hard national
standard. I suspect most people think that is a jolly good thing.
I do not think people go round saying, "I want more diversity.
I want far more variability. I want local clinical decisions about
these things", do they?
Mr Bell: That would certainly
be our experience. If we look at, for example, children in social
care and specified minimum standards about allocating cases to
social workers and dealing with emergency referrals and so on,
again I think it is quite legitimate to say nationally that is
what we expect in every local authority area, and we also expect
certain other standards in terms of schools or whatever. But that
still leaves a lot of head room for local services to do things
that are quite different and, to pick up Peter's theme, to reflect
the circumstances of the locality. So, I think it can be something
of a sterile debate to say, national minimum standards, they take
out the diversity of choice, because I think actually the vast
majority of citizens see some things as non-negotiable, "They
should be what I expect as a citizen wherever I live in the country",
and beyond that, fine, develop different approaches.
Q535 Mr Prentice: These national
minimum standards, they are not placed by the Audit Commission.
Let me give a concrete example. We have got national minimum standards
for ambulance response times in urban areas and in rural areas
and the Government is closing or downgrading lots of Accident
and Emergency departments, so the Ambulance Service will become
ever more critical. Are you telling me that no-one polices the
system at the moment to ensure that these minimum standards for
rural areas are actually being adhered to?
Mr Wilkinson: Ensuring their standards
are met is a management function and, therefore, the responsibility
of the Strategic Health Authority and the Department of Health.
The system needs to ensure that standards, once set, can be and
are achieved.
Mr Bell: My hunch on that one
is that that could be within the orbit of the Healthcare Commission,
because they would be the inspector, the regulator responsible
for the Health Service. I am not absolutely certain but, I believe
that would be within their area.
Mr Wilkinson: The independent
assessment of whether or not that is being met and all the rest
of that would lie within the ambit of the Healthcare Commission.
The responsibility for delivering it and making sure that it happens
is a management function and responsibility. The balance between
those two is one that we can explain.
Q536 Mr Prentice: Commonsense tells
me, when I look at Cumbria, just north of Lancashire, the Lake
district, there is just no way that people suffering from a stroke,
a heart attack, a child who has swallowed some poison, is going
to be taken to a fully functioning, state of the art Accident
and Emergency department within the national minimum standard
response times that are published, but anyway you do not know
about that. Let me move on to something else. It is the consultation
unit in the DfES. How many people work in the unit?
Mr Bell: Eleven.
Q537 Mr Prentice: Eleven. How much
does it cost to run?
Mr Bell: If you assume that we
average £25,000 to £30,000, so 11 times that and you
are about £500,000 that we are working out in terms of all
the on-costs and we are working out at £5,000 or thereabouts
per consultation we have carried out. In a sense, that is the
equation that we are doing, are we saving money on the consultation
exercise by having the dedicated unit?
Q538 Mr Prentice: Is that good value
for money?
Mr Bell: Are you asking me that,
Mr Prentice?
Q539 Mr Prentice: No, I am asking
Mr Wilkinson; he knows about these things.
Mr Wilkinson: I do not have a
remit to comment on central government.
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