Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 179)
WEDNESDAY 16 DECEMBER 2009
MR MIKE
FOSTER MP AND
MR CHRIS
AUSTIN
Q160 Mr Singh: Then I do apologise
and I will take you up on that offer.
Mr Foster: The other issue about
contacting Bangladesh and DFID, and Chris will speak in detail,
is that I do know that, in terms of field visits from DFID staff,
200 field visits (and that means outside Dhaka) have taken place
in 2009.
Q161 Chairman: It is a popular criticism
of DFID country programmes that you are all stuck in the capital
city and do not get out. We know that is not true, although partly
that is because we go as a committee and we know that is not true
when we go, but the serious point behind it rather than the malicious
one is that your staffing levels are not very high. Is it a constraint?
It takes time to get to places, so is there a constraint about
how much your staff can get out and about in the country?
Mr Austin: It is an explicit objective
for everybody working on the programme to undertake some kind
of field visit and it is also a development opportunity for our
staff who work in human resources and managing the finances to
participate in reviews and field visits. Some of our Bangladeshi
staff find it very uplifting personally, certainly one or two
who have visited humanitarian relief operations had not seen that
kind of thing up close and personal. As the Minister said, we
did about 200 days of visits outside Dhaka during 2009. An awful
lot of the engagement outside our office actually happens in Dhaka
and bits of programmes happen in Dhaka. In addition to the ones
that the Minister mentioned in response to Mr Battle's questions,
the health programme through the government, the education programme
through the government, the education programme through BRAC,
the business support programme that you visited, are all operating
in Dhaka. In terms of access to communities in Bangladesh, we
have now got nine Bangladeshi senior advisers, who are obviously
all fluent, also two out of our four programme managers are Bangladeshis,
so we think we have got quite a good mix and we have deliberately
increased that Bangladeshi advisory capacity in response to the
2006 Country Programme Evaluation to enable us to do the reality
testing of the things that we are funding through third parties.
Q162 Andrew Stunell: I think we have
all got experience of how much you consult but you still at the
review meeting meet the one person that you never spoke to; that
is how it happens. It was quite striking at the two meetings we
had with the diaspora that, as we know, the majority of the diaspora
community comes from Sylhet and that is not an area where DFID
is particularly active. There was an almost complete lack of awareness
of the fact that DFID was doing work in Bangladesh and so there
clearly is scope for more engagement at one level or another,
perhaps taking account of the fact that something I had thought
would be true, that they would have feedback from Bangladesh about
the work that was being supported by DFID, is absolutely absent
because they come from a different part of Bangladesh.
Mr Foster: That is why all these
newsletters were produced, in the hope of reaching all parts of
Bangladesh, not just those who receive UK aid but also those who
can pass the message on from the UK back to Bangladesh about the
nature of the work and the support that goes on, and in terms
of the particular issue of Sylhet, we are looking at doing some
work on vocational training for would-be chefs in the Sylhet area
for their potential employment within Bangladesh. Again, that
is where DFID can come into play, but part of the challenge of
our work generally, not just in Bangladesh, is that we do not
get recognised for what we do. The rollout of the UKaid logo is
part of that communication exercise so that we get the logo out
there and people can make the connection more easily if they have
got a UKaid logo, and Bangladesh has been a pilot country for
the rollout of the logo. Chris, as Head of DFID Bangladesh, sees
it as an important area as a channel of communication.
Q163 Andrew Stunell: We come to the
whole governance issue. We have had plenty of evidence that you
provided for us when we visited and also from the witnesses that
the political culture in Bangladesh is quite different from the
UK in that kinship and patronage and ethnicity and a wide variety
of factors come into play. What are the implications for DFID's
programme and how are you protecting it? If I can just point to
that, is that not made more difficult with the Challenge Fund
mechanism which means you are at least one step removed from a
decision about who gets the help and who takes the decision about
the delivery of that patronage?
Mr Foster: Without doubt, Mr Stunell,
you are right to point out that Bangladesh is a difficult country
to work with. The political systems are not as mature as others
that we work with and that is why there is this emphasis on building
up democracy and dealing with accountability. It is central to
a range of programmes that we have. In terms of the Challenge
Fund approach, I mentioned the portfolio scores that we have in
terms of the quality and impact of our programmes and the fact
that portfolio scores have been rising. Again, I would use that
as evidence to suggest that what we are doing in terms of impact
on the ground is coming through. I do not know if there is anything
in particular on Challenge Funds and governance that Chris can
say.
Mr Austin: On the overall implications
of governance to start with, our country governance assessment
identified all of the issues that you refer to and the conclusion
for our current phase of the country programme was that we needed
to step up our efforts to support Bangladesh in order to improve
the institutions of democracy, particularly parliament and the
Elections Commission, and that we should even tread into the sensitive
area of working with the political parties in Bangladesh, so with
our American and UNDP colleagues we are developing a package of
support for those institutions based on what Bangladesh is asking
us for. That is building on work that we have been involved with
for the past several years to improve state capability in managing
the public finances and support for the police, and we will continue
to support supply side efforts to improve the accountability of
government, transparency of our own operations but also government
spending. On the Challenge Funds, I think we have to recognise
that it is a challenge, if you will forgive me, to ensure that
patronage does not creep into allocations. The criteria for the
kinds of activities are published, the results of funding rounds
are published, so there is a clear and transparent process for
the decisions that are taken and we have an ombudsman mechanism
built into the Challenge Funds that will independently test the
results. One of our other Challenge Funds, for example, supporting
activities to improve household incomes, includes international
people on the selection board to give it independent verification.
As we discussed during your visit, where we find information that
comes anecdotally about awards being made with some favouritism
attached, we investigate them. The issue that was mentioned to
some of you during the visit we have looked at and we are satisfied
that there have not been any inappropriate decisions made under
the Rights and Governance Challenge Fund but we will continue
to monitor its performance and look very carefully at the breakdown
of which organisations receive their grants.
Q164 Andrew Stunell: The UK Ombudsman
publishes a report saying what has been upheld and what has been
dismissed. Has your ombudsman process upheld any complaints or
has it always confirmed that you have made the right decision?
Mr Austin: I would need to check
that and let you know. I am not aware of any that have been upheld.
I do know that for the Rights and Governance Challenge Fund there
is an awful lot of applications, so not all of them can be satisfied
and I know that the Manusher Jonno Foundation has cancelled grants
where they have found evidence of financial mismanagement or poor
implementation.
Q165 Andrew Stunell: Could we perhaps
have a piece of paper which sets out some of that?
Mr Austin: Yes.
Q166 Andrew Stunell: That would be
useful. Can I just pick up one of the points you raised? You mentioned
a programme that you have with the police. We took evidence this
week that the police programme had been good but did not appear
to have had a long term focus. Would you think that was a fair
criticism?
Mr Austin: I am not familiar with
the criticisms. Is this one of your other witnesses?
Q167 Andrew Stunell: I will just
park that for the moment. Maybe I am on the wrong track there.
Mr Austin: It has a long term
focus because the programme that we are supporting with UNDP and
the European Commission has been running for four years, I think,
and we are just starting with the government a further five-year
phase. The ambition to help the police develop from what is seen
as a force for pressure into a public service will take quite
a bit of time. There has been some tangible progress in getting
a police ordinance drafted but not yet passed, and in getting
a police strategic plan prepared providing new police stations
which are more welcoming for people to report crimes or suspected
crimes. The most recent survey I have seen suggested that there
had been an increase in general public confidence in reporting
to the police. That may be out of date. It may have declined a
little bit in recent months. We would need to continue checking
that. That is one of the output indicators, if you like, of confidence
in the police force.
Q168 Mr Hendrick: Just staying on
the question of governance, we met the prime minister who I though
was very impressive. The government party seemed to be wanting
to do things. The opposition seemed to be living in some sort
of post-colonial age as if they have replaced the British colonial
masters that were there in the past and wanted to keep that type
of society albeit governed by themselves. They were not taking
part in any meaningful way in holding the government to account
or scrutiny of government because they were not attending parliament
and it was almost as if the political and governmental aspects
of it were something totally separate from what we saw with BRAC
and civil society generally, who were trying to improve people's
lives. Obviously, in this country and in more mature democracies
civil society and charities, NGOs, are quite happy about working
hand in hand with government and vice versa, and we spoke to Fazle
Abed[3]
who was not keen to get involved with the government of either
political party. But what is it in particular in Bangladesh that
is stopping that meaningful interaction because it seems that
BRAC and other organisations are doing a lot of things government
should be doing and government almost seems to be washing it hands
of?
Mr Foster: I think you are right,
Mr Hendrick, in identifying that there is a very confrontational
nature to politics in Bangladesh. The line that we have adopted
in terms of improving governance and strengthening politics as
a body has been two-fold. First, we are looking at the parliamentary
side, so in terms of our support through improving the work of
standing committees within the parliament and the financial management
issues of public accounts committees we are looking to strengthen
those. We are also doing work with party politicians within Bangladesh
and looking at the party structures, dealing with basically the
demand side, so strengthening organisations like Transparency
International and the work that they do at the grass roots level
to bring demand for political change at the same time as trying
to facilitate the parliament in Bangladesh to bring about change
in how it holds a government to account in a manner that perhaps
more mature parliamentary democracies do and to try and move away
from the very blunt confrontational aspect of politics in Bangladesh.
Q169 Mr Singh: That leads me into
my next question about what you are doing to try to increase accountability.
I know for this Committee and for DFID that we want to do everything
and it is impossible to do, but local government in the history
of the UK seems to be a great service provider and tackles many
of the problems that we have in our urban society. We know that
local government is not accountable in Bangladesh. Is DFID paying
any attention to that or doing anything in particular to try and
strengthen local government structures and accountability?
Mr Foster: We are certainly working
with Transparency International in their grass roots campaign
and we are extending the number of districts that Transparency
International work with as a way of strengthening the democratic
functions at a lower level. Obviously, we were involved in the
production of the photo ID electoral roll for the last set of
general elections, but that again gave people confidence that
there was a proper route of accountability through the ballot
box which had not always been the case in the past, and that clearly
helps build confidence at the grass roots that there is another
route by which we can do good work. We support the Bangladesh
Electoral Commission as well in the work that they do, and that
is working with political parties on their structures, on their
accountability and transparency and performing the same function
as they do in the UK as a watchdog of electoral activity.
Q170 Mr Singh: But people's access
is at local level and not at national government level, so how
do people at local level feel? What are we doing at the local
level to empower them to affect their local politicians, if we
are?
Mr Austin: On the overall local
government model, the Bangladesh government has not asked development
partners for substantive support in this area but we know the
adviser to the prime minister has been thinking about what strengthening
of local government systems and staffing they would like to do.
I am hopeful that we will have some substantive discussion about
that issue early in the new year and we will consider then what
role DFID bilaterally might play in that. There are a number of
other development partners, including UNDP, who might be even
better placed than we are to have a lead role. Through a number
of the programmes that we are operating there is work being done
to strengthen demand for accountability at local level through
the communities that some of you saw with the water and sanitation
programme. There are similar activities through the education
programme that are supporting school committees where parents
get to know how much money should be spent on extending classrooms
in their schools and where the teachers should be coming from.
Some of you visited a district hospital where under the health
programme we have got the beginnings of some delegation of authority
so that the civil surgeon can do some recruitment direct instead
of having to go more or less to the minister level at headquarters
to recruit cleaners. So the kinds of checks and balances that
may seem to outsiders excessive are slowly being broken down,
but, for the reasons that Mr Hendrick was talking about, the confrontational
nature of politics, governments have tended to be reluctant to
let go in practice.
Q171 Mr Singh: The point is then
that DFID is just trying to work a way through it rather than
being able to do anything at the moment?
Mr Austin: Yes. There could be
a top-down brilliantly planned approach to develop local government
capacities, increase their revenue raising powers and give them
clear responsibilities as distinct from government. The system
is more of a de-concentrated rather than a decentralised system,
but in terms of the programmes that we are working with in poor
urban and rural communities the model that we follow and the model
that other development partners follow tends to be forming community
groups so there is quite a groundswell of demand. It is just not
yet connected in the way that we might recognise in the UK with
services that government is providing. If I could add one word
on why government is not providing more services, as we discussed
during your visit, the government is only getting 11% of GDP in
tax revenue and for a population of now 160 million, which is
the most recent estimate, that is not enough for the government
alone to deliver the services that it would like to.
Q172 Chairman: Your programme involves
strengthening and training the civil service. We had some discussion
of that at one of the round tables and we heard that you have
got £2.5 million going into that aspect and £15 million
over five years into the Management at the Top (MATT) programme,
but there were a couple of issues raised with us. You say that
UK support has helped to train 800 out of 4,100 civil servants
and the overall objective is 2,000, but it has been pointed out
to us by witnesses that there is a bit of a turnover, particularly
when there is a change of government, so first of all the ones
we are training, the ones who stay there, are only the ones that
are there at the time, that are available for training and they
may be removed if there is a change of government. That was one
point. What else can you do to ensure that you have a trained
civil service that understands that their job is, and I put it
crudely, to deliver rather than act as gatekeepers to all those
barriers to delivery?
Mr Foster: There is recognition
that civil service reform is a long-term project, partly because
of the nature of what you have just described, Chairman, civil
service staff turnover. We are also looking, not just in terms
of working with the ministry of establishment and recruitment
of civil servants but also through the public sector financial
management, at the allegations of corruption that I know have
harmed Bangladesh and the government system, so a lot of our effort
is also going into making the system more accountable, more transparent,
computerising budgetary systems, for example, strengthening external
audit functions. All of that brings a form of discipline within
government departments that will add to and support the type of
direct civil service training that you mentioned our programme
was delivering.
Mr Austin: If I may add something,
Chairman, just on your specific question about the senior civil
service trained under MATT2, I am pretty confident that they will
have moved jobs since they did their training. I would like to
check how many of them are still in the civil service.[4]
The fact that they have moved jobs does not undermine the value
of the generic leadership and strategic planning training that
the MATT programme is designed to deliver, and some MATT graduates
are now in influential positions, such as the Prime Minister's
private secretary or the Director for Bangladesh at the World
Bank. On the rotation point, we secured agreement from the Adviser
on establishment to the prime minister that no project managers
in the civil service would be rotated to take up their promotions;
they would be allowed to take up their promotion and carry on
their responsibilities in their current ministries, which is something
that all of the development partners were concerned about when
there was a vast wave of promotions. We have made a small step
in constraining the rotation machine.
Q173 Chairman: The other respect
was where some of the training was taking place which is obviously
not on the job or in-post training. One suggestion was that maybe
we should run courses in the UK that they should come to. The
second was that, no, we should not do that; we should be encouraging
the development of tertiary training capacity within country.
But we also had an engagement with the diaspora who were saying
that there is a huge number of UK resident Bangladeshis, some
of whom may be first and second generation British citizens, who
could possibly play a role in transferring experience, knowledge
and skills but only if it was done on a significant basis; in
other words, if they were seconded for a year or two years to
do a job rather than just going for short postings where they
would not really have a lot of influence. On both of those where
should they be trained and is there a role for the diaspora?
Mr Foster: At a principle level
I agree with your comments about the role of the diaspora and
certainly at the Country Plan launch there were some very senior
UK civil servants who were Bangladeshi and so in theory would
fit the bill that you have just described, Chairman, who clearly
have got strong links with Bangladesh, to be engaged in seeing
the country develop, so that might be a route. I am certainly
willing to look at and explore ideas with the government of Bangladesh
on taking that forward as an issue. In terms of where people do
their training, it is a classic dilemma that we face. There is
the Chevening Scholarship route which is a tried and tested route
for bright people getting qualifications here in the UK and then
going back to work in country. I have certainly had requests,
not in Bangladesh but in other developing countries, for people
to do specific higher education training courses in the UK because
that is what their government's department would most benefit
from and those particular courses and those particular disciplines
just were not capable of being delivered in country. Again, we
are rewriting the department's education strategy at the moment
and one of the areas I am looking at is the role of scholarship
programmes that deliver real development gains but without bringing
about any sort of brain drain of bright graduates within developing
countries.
Q174 Chairman: The other argument
that is put is that it is a kind of perk for civil servants to
be told, "You are going to go and get a training course in
the UK", which is probably quite expensive, and where the
money could usefully build up the capacity in country if it was
not spent here. It might deprive some of our colleges of income
but that should not surely be a legitimate reason for doing it.
Mr Austin: On the Management at
the Top programme, some of the civil servants have come to the
UK to do part of their study tours and the purpose is to expose
them to different ways of working and thinking which are not available
in Bangladesh. Some of the training of that nature is also done
in Singapore, which is easier and cheaper to access than coming
to the UK. It is an interesting concept to look at, inward secondments
from the diaspora to Bangladesh to help strengthen capacity in
government. We would certainly like to follow that up with the
government authorities and see whether that could be entertained
as part of this programme. We would need to get the government
of Bangladesh's agreement to adjust the terms of the programme,
and I hope they would be receptive as well.
Chairman: We did not get large crowds
at our meeting with the diaspora but they were reasonably influential,
some of them, and they were quite keen on this idea, so if the
department was going to explore it I think you would get a ready
response. You mentioned the tax base, Chris, and John Battle has
a question about that.
Q175 John Battle: I think you said
the government only get 11% of GDP from tax revenue for a population
of 160 million.
Mr Austin: Yes.
Q176 John Battle: That is a low tax
base, is it not? I think you are engaged with a number of programmes
to strengthen the tax base, as it were, and to increase the number
of registered taxpayers from £3 million to £5 million
over five years. Given the culture of Bangladesh, the prospects
of that do not look so good, and we were told when we were there
that the National Board of Revenue is still unable to hire people
because of a local dispute which makes the job almost impossible.
First of all, is that dispute still going on? Where is that programme
up to?
Mr Austin: We have been providing
support to the National Board of Revenue, or had, for five years
until summer 2008 and had hoped to have a seamless continuation
for a new programme. For various reasons we were not able to agree
with the Bangladesh authorities on the new programme until early
this year. The tendering for that technical assistance contract
is now at quite an advanced stage. I think the short list has
just been drawn up. I think the challenges of getting more staff
employed in the National Board of Revenue may still be an issue.
I would need to check and let you know. Although there are 3 million
registered taxpayers, as the finance minister informed you during
your visit, only 700,000 actually paid tax last year and that
is a reflection of avoidance, it is an indication of the inequality
in distribution of wealth in Bangladesh; 80 million people at
the other end are living on less than two dollars a day, and it
is also evidence of the weak administration, although we would
say that our support over the previous five years has helped the
National Board of Revenue establish a large taxpayer unit and
an information cell that has led to a very modest increase in
the tax take.
Q177 Chairman: It is not unique to
Bangladesh that institutional structural reform could take 10
to 20 years, so your tax reform programme is a long haul yet.
But what would worry me slightly is when we had the Permanent
Secretary before us, she suggested that the department is taking
an aggressive stand on poorly performing projects, and she said
that if your project is scoring badly for 6 months you are basically
sent off to restructure and do something about it. If after 6
months you cannot restructure and start to deliver better results
they are actively managing those projects out of the portfolio
and saying, "Look: if it is not working call it a day and
move on".[5]
What is the chance of survival of the tax reform programme under
that kind of edict, I am tempted to ask?
Mr Foster: At a broader level
the type of programme that we are working in has got to be the
basis of sound sustainable development. There is no way Bangladesh
can deliver itself out of poverty and deliver high quality public
services unless the tax base is expanded and unless the tax take
does increase. It has got enormous challenges ahead of it, not
just dealing with one that we have identified already but also
a future potential one is climate change, and so the government
systems will have to be strengthened. However, central to the
whole argument about the tax take is back to the governance issue
on accountability. The one way in which we in the UK have a real
vested interest in holding government to account is because of
the taxpayers' cash that we give to government.
Q178 John Battle: If you do a micromanagement
on that programme it is not going to stand up. I am merely asking,
will you be sticking with it? I think it is an important programme
in saying that but, given the strictures of the Permanent Secretary,
will you be able to stick with it?
Mr Austin: The key part of Minouche
Shafik's evidence was that if we have a poorly performing programme
we need to do something about it. In Bangladesh we have, I think,
only one programme currently live in the portfolio that scores
a 4 and it is being ended for that reason. The challenge with
something like capacity building over the long term is to design
the programme such that there will be benchmarks along the way
to an ambitious purpose. You keep testing the benchmarks and you
could make a judgment that a 3 might be satisfactory but there
are some really killer things that need to be fixed, for example,
a constraint on recruitment to the National Board of Revenue.
Chairman: Parliamentary strengthening
is something this Committee is extremely interested in always,
but Hugh Bayley has, through the Westminster Foundation for Democracy
(WFD), particularly long term experience and commitment to it.
Hugh Bayley: I do not think I need to
declare an interest—
Chairman: No; I was really asserting
your expertise.
John Battle: He did a good job.
Q179 Hugh Bayley: I would just like
to put on the record that I am no longer the Chairman of the Foundation
but nevertheless I wanted to ask some questions about it. To begin
with more generally though, it is absolutely clear to me that
the quality of governance and of politics (and they are not the
same thing) in Bangladesh both act as substantial impediments
to the successful implementation of development partnerships,
so I applaud the fact that DFID is putting quite large sums of
money into both improving governance and improving parliamentary
and political systems. Could you give us a brief description of
what conversations you have had with the Westminster Foundation
in this regard and what work they are doing or that you are in
negotiations with them about what they might do and what other
partners are providing services of these kinds funded by DFID
to players in Bangladesh?
Mr Foster: Chris will talk about
the detailed conversations in Bangladesh. In terms of conversations
I have had and am having in the present and future sense, I think
in early January I have a meeting with your colleague, Meg Munn,
who takes on the role that I think you used to have, Mr Bayley,
and that is part of a discussion with the Foundation about how
DFID and they can work more closely together, but, in terms of
the discussions about the Bangladesh programme with the Westminster
Foundation, perhaps Chris could deal with that.
Mr Austin: Thank you, Minister.
The Westminster Foundation has not had any engagement in Bangladesh
until now, but with a little bit of prompting from DFID and the
Foreign Office they agreed to send a scoping mission to Bangladesh
which visited about two months ago and had meetings with colleagues
in our team but particularly with parliament, with the Speaker
and representatives of the main parties. They only last week sent
us their report which confirms our own analysis very much as you
described, that there is quite a bit of strengthening that needs
to be done to standing committees and briefing of MPs about their
roles. We see the Westminster Foundation, because of its role
and unique characteristics, as a very valuable way for us to support
political party reform in Bangladesh or support the political
parties in Bangladesh to reform and strengthen themselves. As
you will recall hearing from the honourable prime minister, she
has got a lot of affection and respect for the Westminster model
and is keen to give the highest political backing to this relationship.
We will flesh out with the Westminster Foundation in early 2010
precisely what their programme will look like. It is part of the
strengthening political participation programme that we are providing
almost £20 million to over five years. The other two major
development partners involved in that are UNDP, doing separate
activities to support parliament and the Election Commission and
the Human Rights Commission, and USAID and we are in rather an
unusual arrangement; we are transferring funds to be managed by
USAID on behalf of themselves and us to support some of the institutional
strengthening. The Westminster Foundation relationship will be
direct between ourselves and them, and we would hope that it will
develop over time.
3 The Director of the BRAC Organisation. Back
4
Supplementary written evidence submitted by DFID, Ev . Back
5
See evidence taken on 24 November 2009 from the DFID Permanent
Secretary, Q41. Back
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