Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
100-119)
DAME HELEN
GHOSH DCB, MR
MIKE ANDERSON
AND MS
ANNE MARIE
MILLAR
11 NOVEMBER 2009
Q100 David Taylor: So why do employees
rate you less highly on clarity of purpose if this is what you
are doing?
Dame Helen Ghosh: We have just
done the full Civil Service Staff Engagement Survey, it closed
last week, and I very much hope we will have a better rating on
that, and, if we do not, I will come back to the Committee and
explain.
Q101 David Taylor: The one that worried
me most, where the result fell below other departments, was data
handling and security procedure training. It seems to have gone
out of the headlines a bit so far as major departments are concerned.
Is there a higher than average rate of loss of memory sticks,
or things of that nature?
Dame Helen Ghosh: No, absolutely
not. There is absolutely not a higher rate.
Q102 David Taylor: So why do people
report that that is a concern to them? What are you doing about
it?
Dame Helen Ghosh: I think what
we did this year, in following up the Cabinet Office guidance,
was ask everybody in the Department, including all of us, to do
an online training scheme, for which the closing date was 31 October.
This was a Government requirement. We hit 100 per cent across
the Department and the agencies long before that.
Q103 David Taylor: Was this October
2009?
Dame Helen Ghosh: This October
that we have just had.
Q104 David Taylor: It post-dates
the survey?
Dame Helen Ghosh: It post-dates
the survey, yes.
Q105 David Taylor: In a sense you
are responding perhaps to that level of—
Dame Helen Ghosh: Indeed, but,
no, in terms of reportable incidents, we certainly are not among
the departments with a high number of incidents.
Q106 Lynne Jones: Before we move
on to research, the staff survey also said that only 47 per cent
of staff agreed they were proud to work with Defra. Why do you
think that is?
Dame Helen Ghosh: I think this
is a very interesting issue for all government departments, the
extent to which external pressure (the media and external criticism)
makes people feel proud, or not, to work for their department.
What I would hope to see, and I believe when you talk to people
in the Department, particularly in the light of innovation and
the fact that we are at the cutting edge of a lot of what we do,
is that people are prouder and prouder to work for Defra, but
it is rather like the old thing. If you go into a pub and you
say, "I work for the DSS[30]",
do you just keep quiet about it? The kind of criticism that government
departments get in the media—foot and mouth, whatever it
may be—actually there is a limit to how much we as managers
can do about that other than reminding people, celebrating team
awards. I am just judging the team awards at the moment. You can
make people feel that what they do is significant and worthwhile,
but they will still open the newspapers, which for all government
departments are relentlessly negative. So I think there is a limit
to what I, as the CEO, can do about that.
Q107 Lynne Jones: It is the unpopularity
of government, you think.
Dame Helen Ghosh: I think we have
probably suffered from the unpopularity of government.
Q108 Lynne Jones: We had better not
explore that any further or else we will be on to MPs' expenses!
Dame Helen Ghosh: Any government,
I think. Yes, perhaps. It is the departments which have—I
was going to use an adjective, which I will not use. If you take
a department like DFID, DFID is regarded highly by its NGOs[31]
and, on the whole, does not get much criticism in the newspapers,
and it has lots of money, increasing amounts of money, because
that is, very rightly, what the Government has decided to do.
Actually, they are bound to feel prouder of working for a department
where everybody says, "Yeah, great. This is what DFID does",
than a department where one is having to cut one's coat according
to one's cloth, where things that go wrong are picked up very
prominently in the media. It is very difficult to counter that.
Chairman: Before you go on, I think David
had a quick supplementary on the point you just raised.
Q109 Mr Drew: Obviously you know
that I am obsessed with bovine TB, like some other people around
this table, and I am intrigued, being one of the constituencies
that has been impacted on by that research study in terms of the
wildlife vaccination strategy and, I have to say, I have been
under-whelmed by the amount of communication I have received on
that. I have asked to follow it up, because we are doing a further
inquiry. Is one of the criticisms you would accept that Defra
is not the best department when it comes to getting back to people
who you might want to influence and you might want to inform:
because I found it quite difficult both when we were dealing with
MAFF[32],
and also dealing with Defra, to break into what I would call the
"information chain". I do not expect to be given a weekly
update on things, but it is occasionally useful, as a local Member,
to know what is happening on your patch and what the strengths
and weaknesses of a particular study are, and that does not seem
to happen.
Dame Helen Ghosh: I will certainly
take that away, particularly in relation to the TB vaccination
pilots. This is something in which Hilary Benn is passionately
interested in making sure that he serves Parliament appropriately.
If you look at animal disease outbreaks, if you look at the 2007
flooding, we got a lot of very positive praise for the extent
of correspondence and feedback to local Members. We did a stakeholder
survey—I do not think it included MPs, I am afraid—earlier
this year, which is on our website, and that said that, actually,
we are getting better and better at engaging stakeholders. We
have almost endless, to a fault, consultation groups. I only mean
to a fault in that it perhaps means that you do not reach a decision
as quickly as you might. Business was the area for us, where it
is said that actually business does not feel it understands enough
about the various bits of our activity on Business Connect. So
that is something that Mike is taking forward particularly.
Mr Anderson: It is, and if you
look across our whole panoply of activities, and I used to be
in charge of climate change in Defra and then in DECC, they used
to look at who the stakeholders were, and it said, "People,
consumers, business, the public sector and international",
and I used to say, "Well, that is the world, is it not?"
which it broadly is. So I think your point on whether you are
informed is an important one that we need to take away, but actually
what we have to do across this agenda is to say what are the key
stakeholders in particular, and in that one you have identified
where there may be a problem. But it is actually how in each of
these we need a proper engagement approach to who is it we are
trying to get through to. If it is on the marine area, it is clearly
the fishermen and the ports.
Q110 Mr Cox: Did I get my note right
that any problems of morale in the Department are the result of
relentless and unjustified negativity in the press?
Dame Helen Ghosh: No, I was responding
to the point about, "Are you proud to work for Defra?"
and I was saying it is the question: when you go down to the pub
and somebody says, "Who do you work for?" are you happy
to say, "I work for Defra" or "I work for the DSS",
or will you then get a barrage of `Well ... ?'" Morale in
the department relates to a large range of other issues which
are, in a sense, better tested by what we call the "staff
engagement index". Out of these surveys they pick things
like, "How long do you propose to stay in the department?
Do you find what you do interesting and rewarding?"—I
am not getting the questions quite right—and that is about
how engaged the staff feel in what we do. Again, they may be influenced
by the performance management system, by whether their area has
had its resources cut, the visibility of their of senior management—a
whole lot of things—what are the promotion opportunities.
Q111 Mr Cox: Morale and being proud
to work in a department or for somebody are very allied issues,
are they not? If I am proud to work for somebody, I have usually
got good morale in what I am doing. Is the answer to my question,
yes, or, no? Is it the relentless and unjustified negativity in
the press?
Dame Helen Ghosh: Not entirely.
Q112 Mr Cox: What does "not
entirely" mean? To what extent is it simply the unjustified
and relentless negativity in the press and to what extent is it
internal matters peculiar to your Department?
Dame Helen Ghosh: Pride in working
for a department is an outward facing quality. It may reflect
on your belief about whether it is a well-run department or whether
the programmes that the department works on are effective, but
it is, I think, as much, or more, to do with what you think the
external perception of your business is out there. We work very
hard on all the things we described in terms of visibility, engaging
with staff, telling the Defra story, town hall events that Hilary
and other ministers do. That is part of building morale, pride,
making people realise the significance of what they do, which,
I think, is very, very important to people. It is not the only
thing, but I think when it comes to what you say down in the pub,
it is quite a significant thing.
Q113 Lynne Jones: I was pleased that
in this year's report there is quite a bit about the importance
of scientific research—
Dame Helen Ghosh: Yes.
Q114 Lynne Jones: —in developing
evidence-based policies, although, I have to say, it is laid out
rather confusingly and it does not tell a very good narrative.
You have got the departmental research after stuff about social
research, and it does not really flow in very good order, if I
can make that comment, but I am pleased that it is there and it
is highlighted as important to your work.
Dame Helen Ghosh: Indeed.
Q115 Lynne Jones: There was also,
was there not, a science capability review, and that is not mentioned
in here. Is there any reason?
Dame Helen Ghosh: There has been
one, but was it not in the previous year?
Q116 Lynne Jones: It was in the previous
year?
Dame Helen Ghosh: We came out
of it extremely positively. It was good, but I suspect it was
in the previous year.
Q117 Lynne Jones: I do not remember
it. You make a lot about social research and how that has helped
you develop a better understanding of your customers, and I know
from talking to Bob Watson that he thinks that is quite important
and he is probably behind that.
Dame Helen Ghosh: Yes, he does.
Q118 Lynne Jones: But what is the
difference between that and what we were talking about earlier,
which is your Customer Focus and Insight Project? I have to say,
your description of it did not sound to me very scientific.
Dame Helen Ghosh: No.
Q119 Lynne Jones: Just dropping off
in the supermarket. That would not really stand up to scrutiny
if you tried to say that was evidence.
Dame Helen Ghosh: No, that is
definitely not social research, and it would not count as evidence.
30 Department of Social Security Back
31
Non Governmental Organisations Back
32
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Back
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