Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
IAN WATMORE,
BILL DICKINSON
AND ZINA
ETHERIDGE
13 OCTOBER 2008
Q40 Chairman: This is an £18
billion business.
Mr Watmore: I realise that. So
on day one we put up a simple web page and referred people to
the relevant bits of the former departments' web pages which happened
to be DTI and DfES where they still held the information about
science and higher and further education. Then over time we have
built the website up and we have regular programmes of releasing
new websites on the Department. I am trying to remember the timeframes.
We have one coming imminently.
Ms Etheridge: We are working to
have a completely new, revised website by January-ish, early next
year, which takes on all of the information and data which was
previously on both the DTI and DfES websites but also quite a
lot of separate sites that had been set up by those previous departments
holding information about our Department.
Q41 Chairman: So if I was one of
your customers and I want to interrogate this Annual Report, can
I do it on your website?
Ms Etheridge: I believe so, yes.
Q42 Chairman: No, you cannot because
you cannot get past the first chapter.
Ms Etheridge: Okay.
Q43 Chairman: Or you could not. You
might be able to do it today, but when I tried to do it you could
not.
Ms Etheridge: I am sorry, I will
go back and make sure that is fixed.
Mr Watmore: There is nothing that
we have done with our websites that is designed to inhibit people
from getting information, so if that was the case that is an error.
The intent is to make this sort of information publicly available.
Q44 Chairman: The point I am making
to you, and I do not mean this to be unkind, is that your report
is full of jargon, and my colleague, Graham Stringer, has pointed
that out, yet the fundamental route of communication, which is
your website, does not seem to be the innovative website you would
expect from your Department. Is that a fair criticism?
Mr Watmore: I will take the wording
point from my previous answer, but in terms of getting this document
done, and let us be clear this was done very quickly in a very
short space of time and for the people who put it together in
that space of time, I am okay with it, we want to improve it next
year and we want to improve it again.
Q45 Chairman: Let us come to the
website.
Mr Watmore: For the website it
is the same again, it is work in progress. There is no way that
I would sit here today and say our website is synonymous with
the Department that we want it to be, but we have built it up
progressively and when we bring out the next release that will
be further innovative, and when we bring it again after that it
will be edging towards where I would like it to be.
Q46 Chairman: Could I just ask whether
you consult with your customers in terms of the improvements you
are going to make to your website?
Mr Watmore: We normally do that.
I do not know precisely off the top of my head the mechanism by
which we consult but I know our website team does take external
opinion into the design for producing the new website.
Chairman: Thanks very much.
Q47 Mr Marsden: Mr Watmore, can I
ask you one or two questions about your co-ordination with DCSF.
At the end of July the THES did a one year on review of DIUS and
under the headline, "Shows willing but could do better",
they said as follows: "One year on there is still concern
that the creation of two education departments has left gaps that
have yet to be bridged". The quote is specifically from Steve
Smith, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter, who is
saying: "I am centrally involved in the links with schools
and universities and with the best will in the world there is
just a bit more co-ordination to do". In general, but perhaps
specifically on that very important issue of links between schools
and universities, how would you assess the co-operation?
Mr Watmore: Just before I lose
the thought, Steve Smith is actually one of our capability reviewers,
so he will have his chance to put his own opinions on that particular
topic into the Capability Review when it is published, so we shall
see what he says on that. My view on the general point about co-operating
between two departments and then the specific between us is I
think, as I said at the beginning, one of the challenges that
Whitehall has is that almost every problem is bigger than one
department, therefore co-ordination and co-operation and collaboration
between Whitehall departments is essential in order to be able
to solve any of modern day life's problems. Sir Gus O'Donnell,
as Head of the Civil Service, continues to make that a big theme
in the agenda. In the generality, we recognise there are issues
across Whitehall but there is a lot of work going on to try and
join those particular collaborations up. In the specific, we have
key relationships with about four or five different departments.
Clearly we have it with DCSF. We also have it with BERR, from
where we came. We also have it with DWP particularly around the
skills and employment agenda. We also have it with groups like
the Foreign Office on international affairs. We have very close
co-operation with all of those and I think we work pretty well
with all of those departments. I am not going to suggest they
are perfect but I think we work as well with DCSF as any of the
others.
Q48 Mr Marsden: Chairman, with your
indulgence. With respect, Mr Watmore, that is a bit of a Cook's
Tour which conceals rather than reveals. You are a department
that has been cloven, along with DCSF, from one Education and
Skills Department. I know you have taken on board other responsibilities
elsewhere, but the fact of the matter is for most of your clients,
consumers, customers, call them whatever you want, the key question
is there used to be one education department, there are now two
education departments, are they working well together and are
they adding value. If you could focus on the specifics of your
relationships with DCSF that would be useful.
Ian Watmore: I would be very happy
to do that. First of all, the relationship between the two Secretaries
of State is very close; they work a lot together; they meet regularly;
and they discuss all matters of mutual policy on a regular basis.
Secondly, the same is true of my Permanent Secretary colleague,
David Bell, and I. We meet often. We speak several times a week
when it matters and there is very close co-operation. We have
formal structures in place; we share boards together. We have
joint boards, as it happens, with DWP as well to give us the tripartite
relationship. We also have specific boards to deliver on key programmes;
for example, in the restructuring of the Learning and Skills Council
into the different agencies that will be made. That is a board
that is jointly chaired between one of my Directors General and
one of David's Directors General. We have a joint unit on apprenticeships
because apprenticeships straddle the age range that we recognise
and apprenticeships start at 16 obviously and go through in theory
until retirement date. So we have a joint interest in that. On
each of the programmes where we have a shared interest we have
a joint structure to oversee it, which is driving progress.
Q49 Mr Marsden: It is helpful to
put on record the specifics of the structures, but of course structures
are only the start of the process. What comes out of those structures
is what is important. Taking up the specific reference that you
made to apprenticeships, apprenticeships, as you rightly say,
potentially go through from 16-19 all the way through. We know
in demographic terms, and the whole argument is about re-skilling,
that adult apprenticeships are going to be an absolutely key issue
for the future. But are you worried that if you look, for instance,
at the draft Bill, it is focused on those under 19 and there are
differences, in any case, between what is being offered to those
under 19 and those over 19. I mean, those under 19 we are told
will have, by 2013, the right to two apprenticeships, and those
above it will not. Are you worried that DIUS will end up as the
poor relation in things like apprenticeship policy precisely at
a time when demography and other things suggest that it ought
to be even more important for adults?
Mr Watmore: At the beginning of
your question you said how important it was for adults, and I
one hundred per cent agree with you. My personal view is that
the workforce of the future, apprenticeships, will become an increasingly
important way for adults to improve themselves and/or change their
careers, as much as it is for people to enter the workforce for
the first time. So, I am one hundred per cent with you that it
is an element. In terms of the way we have set it up, I think
part of the reason for having the Joint Apprenticeship Unit is
precisely so that we do not get into the position where one person
rules over the other, and that both of the important groups of
citizens that we have discussed in that question get the service
that they want. In fact, the Joint Apprenticeship Unit happens
to be predominantly in my department and the primary relationship,
at the end of the day, to the National Apprenticeship Service
effectively is with the Skills Funding Agency, which will be sponsored
by our department. So, certainly sitting where I am today, I think
it is unlikely that we will end up as the poor relation.
Q50 Mr Marsden: Fair enough. Let
me take you on to another area where there is overlap and possible
tension—I will not say any more than that—and that
is the funding of 16-19 year olds, and indeed FE funding in general.
Again, one principal in an FE college has recently has been quoted
as saying, "It can be difficult to budget because DIUS does
not want money for adult learning to go to 16-19 year olds and
DCSF does not want money for 16-19 year olds to go to adult learning".
I wonder, first of all, if you recognise that that is a problem
and, secondly, whether you have had concerns expressed about the
potential problems of overlap in funding from organisations at
either end of the spectrum, whether we are talking about the Association
of Colleges or we are talking about an organisation like NIAS?
Mr Watmore: Maybe at the risk
of re-opening the customer discussion, the point at issue here
is that the money that DCSF has is intended to be spent upon people
16-18 in age and the money that we have is intended to be spent
on the 19 and overs. So at one level I do not think it is necessarily
a good idea to mix and match those funds. When they get to the
individual college level, we recognise that individual colleges
are dealing with both communities, most of them are anyway, not
all of them. Obviously some will just go to the 6th form college
and some major on adults. The ones we are talking about are the
ones that do both. Then we want them to serve both communities
properly, but we do not particularly want them to mix funding
that was target at over 19s at the local level.
Q51 Mr Marsden: I accept that from
what I might call, and I do not mean this pejoratively, an instrumentalist
point of view in the sense that that chunk of money goes to that
and that chunk goes to the other. There is a rather more concerning
issue. Money is spent, or money should be spent, at the end of
the day because there is a meeting of minds and a follow-through
between the two departments in terms of where the priorities lie.
There again I suppose I am concerned about whether that is there.
One other point because I mentioned schools and universities before:
what has the specific co-operation been between your department
and DCSF on the development of the 14-19 programme of diplomas?
Although that is an area for them, what happens as a result of
that and the way in which vocational education is regarded is
crucially important for the success in your department.
Mr Watmore: Yes, and I could add
things like the STEM agenda to that as well, where if we do not
get the teaching right and the inspiration right in schools on
STEM subjects, then we do not get the follow-through to university
and research institutions. I agree with that. All I can say is
that each of the issues you have highlighted is an area of mutual
interest in the policy and when there is a mutual interest in
the policy, we have worked jointly together right from the Secretary
of State through the officials. The Spending Review then determines
where the money goes and when the Spending Review has determined
that money is for this sector or that sector, if it then goes
to one department or another, then that is the basis on which
we pursue it.
Q52 Mr Marsden: I will move on now,
Chairman, but I just want to ask Ian, and we have asked about
specific co-operation in specific areas, whether his department
would be good enough to give us a note on the particular areas,
the level at which and how they actually co-operate?
Mr Watmore: I would be happy to
do that.
Chairman: This is about staff time and
the costs of resources going into that liaison because clearly,
if it is a very expensive business, you will then question why
you actually split the Department.
Q53 Mr Wilson: In this report in
Chapter 2 it says, and I quote: "Our vision is to be able
to demonstrate innovation across every aspect of our organisation."
Bearing that in mind, what are the things you would point to as
world class examples of innovation by your department?
Mr Watmore: I might ask Zina to
come in with one or two of the uses of the new media that we have
been exploring and the ways of reaching people who are quite difficult
to reach. Let me give you just a few practical things. Inside
the Department we have enabled people to work as effectively as
we possibly can, given Government security. People can work where
they need to work; they do not have to be chained to their desk
in a Whitehall office. Quite often I visit a place like a university
or a college and I might go for a specific visit and then I am
working from there for the rest of the day, very much leading
the way, whereas a lot of people would not be able to do that;
they would be chained to their desk. Secondly, we have made sure
that we are spending as little money on our own internal infrastructure
and getting the most of the front line. We have a very efficient
use of space in our department in the sense that we hot desk—by
which I mean nobody, including myself, is allocated a desk. So
when we come in in the morning, we go and find a desk to work
from and we sit down and work from there through the day. I do
that and so do all the rest of the staff. That makes for a definite
Whitehall first. It also makes for efficient use of space and
it breaks down barriers and silos amongst staff in the Department.
Those are two internal examples that I would allude to. Perhaps
Zina could add a couple of external examples.
Ms Etheridge: One of the things
that we have been really keen to do is make sure that we use new
communications technologies, like social media, in the most effective
way to engage with stakeholders, for instance, better than we
might do if we just stood and interacted in traditional ways through
sending out consultation documents and getting their comments
in or having meetings with them. So on the Innovation White Paper,
for instance, one of the things that we did was set up an interactive
version where people could break it down chapter by chapter; they
could put comments on to the website chapter by chapter, so that
different consultees could respond to other people's views on
it rather them just all sending it in to Whitehall. We had to
get a much more interactive debate going, which was creating a
domain within the community rather than just having a White Paper
on which we then said, "Go out and tell us what you think
of it, and then we will tell you what we think of your replies
in several months' time".
Q54 Mr Wilson: May I say, Chairman,
that although that might be leading edge around Whitehall, I would
not say that any of those three examples were particularly leading
edge out there in the marketplace. I would not say I am overly
impressed with those.
Mr Watmore: Maybe I could give
you one other example then, which is I do believe is different
and that is working with the National Physics Laboratory. There
is now a part of the website Second Life which people will be
familiar with perhaps, which is one of those newer style social
media and interactive sites based on the computer gaming industry
originally where they have joined forces with NASA and other big
scientific organisations in the United States and created a region
of Second Life called Science Islands or SciLands. That allows
collaborative working by scientists across the globe without people
having to fly half-way round the world in order to see it.
Q55 Chairman: This is not the Department
doing this.
Mr Watmore: We have done that
in conjunction with them. We are now looking—
Q56 Chairman: Are you actually saying
that you are taking credit for that?
Mr Watmore: I am saying that in
our wider departmental footprint where we are reaching out to
do things, the National Physics Lab has set up—
Q57 Chairman: But they did it; it
is the Physics Lab that did it.
Mr Watmore: No, I understand that,
but we sponsor them and they did it with us and I have worked
with them on it. We are looking to see how we can introduce departmental
things into that.
Q58 Chairman: On that ground you
could claim every university innovation as yours.
Mr Watmore: It is not quite the
same because universities are not directly sponsored by us and
the NPL are. I am just giving you examples of things that impact
real people, real world experiences that are different.
Q59 Mr Wilson: Can I ask you about
one of the things that I did notice you had launched as a pilot
scheme, and that is this £50 gift vouchers for further education.
Is that a matter of pride and innovation for the Department?
Mr Watmore: The particular scheme
in question is something that was one of our policy ideas. I do
not see that as more broad than just a number of innovative or
new ideas for trying to stimulate better improved outcomes. Another
example that we have done, which I think is in the same vein,
is using the innovation vouchers as part of our Innovation Nation
White Paper, which was to try to get money to the people who otherwise
are not normally reached, the smaller companies for the smaller
and medium sized ideas.
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