Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
MR CHRIS
BANKS, MR
GEOFF RUSSELL
AND MR
DAVID HUGHES
20 MAY 2009
Q160 Mr Marsden: Chris can, I confirm:
you were appointed chairman in 2004, were you not?
Mr Banks: Yes.
Q161 Mr Marsden: The appointment
is a part-time one, approximately two days a week, and the salary
for that is approximately 51,000?
Mr Banks: That is correct.
Q162 Mr Marsden: We know with part-time
appointments of this sort that sometimes chairmen do a lot more
than two days a week. What would you characterise your own weekly
involvement with the LSC, in terms of hours, on an average basis?
Mr Banks: I have deliberately
taken the view that I do not divide it into days and just say
this day and this day are LSC days.
Q163 Mr Marsden: Over a year, is
it two days a week, on average, or not?
Mr Banks: It is more.
Q164 Mr Marsden: So you are actually
being a fairly hands-on chairman. You have not just been there
to titivate?
Mr Banks: No, I am a regular,
engaged chair in daily contact with the business.
Q165 Mr Marsden: That is fine. One
of the things that we found puzzling, not least when we had the
evidence from Mark Haysom, is the disconnect between all these
people doing various things—and the Edwards Report is a
classic example of them—and nobody seeming to communicate.
Mark Haysom told us when he came before us the other week that
he had an open-door policy where various people from senior management
could drift in and tell him whatever problems they were worried
about. Do you have a similar policy?
Mr Banks: I do. It is a different
role.
Q166 Mr Marsden: I am aware of that.
Mr Banks: Yes, I am regularly
in mainly the London office, but I am regularly in the business
and regularly talk, of course, to the chief executive and other
members of his team.
Q167 Mr Marsden: Do you have any
on-going relationship with Phil Head, the Director of Infrastructure
and Projects? How many times would you have met Phil in the course
of the year?
Mr Banks: It would be more infrequent
than frequent directly with Phil.
Q168 Mr Marsden: How often, roughly?
Mr Banks: Quite infrequently.
Mr Marsden: How often?
Q169 Chairman: Did you ever meet
him?
Mr Banks: Yes, I have met Phil.
They are more issues based rather than—
Q170 Mr Marsden: I will tell you
the reason I am pressing you on that point. We have heard in the
previous session about the role of the infrastructure and projects
both nationally and locally in terms of talking up this whole
process, but we have also heard there were concerns expressed,
and when we come on to talk about the Edwards Report we will see
how that came about. No-one anywhere in the organisation came
and talked to you about the Edwards Report from February until
the autumn when it was all out in the open.
Mr Banks: No. To be very explicit
on that, I was unaware of the existence of that report, I am afraid,
but you should know. The earliest I might have known would be
December, it may have been later than that, 2008. So I was not
aware of it. No-one mentioned it or raised it with me. The key
issue that we were looking at within the council actually on an
on-going basis was the in-year expenditure, and that is the thing
that was being reported as the key pressure point.
Q171 Mr Marsden: We are very aware
of that, but the chief executive is the person who is supposedly
looking after all the day-to-day stuff; you have a potential strategic
role to look further. Did you not at any stage ask questions about
the broader issues beyond the day-to-day stuff?
Mr Banks: The time when that happened,
really, was the November period.
Q172 Mr Marsden: So there was no
point between February and November where you took your head away
from the real problems there were on the in-year budget. There
was no time for you to look beyond that.
Mr Banks: Specifically in relation
to the capital programme, no, the focus was trying to deal with
that and, at the same time, and you know because you have heard
it from lots of other people—
Q173 Mr Marsden: Forgive me, you
may think this is unfair, but you founded a company called Big
Thoughts—we have all been told about your broader achievements
in that area—and yet at no time in that period did you appear
to have any big thoughts about where you were going beyond the
in-year.
Mr Banks: I think that is unfair
actually, but, I think, specifically in relation to the capital
programme, one of the main things here, of course, is that this
is an ambitious programme overall, as you know.
Q174 Mr Marsden: Indeed; it is 15%
of your overall budget?
Mr Banks: Absolutely.[1]
Q175 Mr Marsden: But you did not look
beyond the in-house spend?
Mr Banks: No, I and the council
signed off and approved the overall capital strategy, which again
you may have seen, but it is a paper that came to the council
for overall direction, which was to encourage and accelerate the
programme of improving the facilities within FE as part of our
continuing drive towards improving the skills of people in the
country.
Q176 Mr Marsden: Can I ask you a
final question as to your relationship with Mark Haysom. Obviously
you had formal meetings with him as part of the process. Did you
have informal conversations over that period of time at which
there was either an opportunity for you to arrange beyond the
in-year problems or for him to talk to you about them?
Mr Banks: There were lots of times
that we met informally where there would have been that opportunity.
Q177 Mr Marsden: But it never arose?
Mr Banks: No, that is the key
point, it did not arise, and, again, it is just a fact, I am afraid,
that it was in the November period when we put together the in-year
pressure that the council was looking at—
Q178 Mr Marsden: That is when all
was revealed.
Mr Banks: —with the growing
number of proposals that were coming through, and it was at that
point actually that the council and I said, "Hang on, are
we sure?"
Q179 Mr Marsden: We understand that,
but it was not until November?
Mr Banks: No, it was not. You
are right.
1 Note from the witness: Capital programme
expenditure amounted to 4.4% of the LSC's total budget in 2007-08.
This figure is expected to rise to 7.2% in 2008-09 and 9.2% in
2009-10. Back
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