Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
1-41)
Frances Done, Rona Chester and Nick Gargan
3 November 2010
Q1 Chair:
Welcome to our witnesses for this inquiry into the future of quangos.
I wonder if you could initially just identify yourselves for the
record.
Frances Done: I'm
Frances Done; I'm the Chair of the Youth Justice Board.
Rona Chester: I'm
Rona Chester; I'm the Chief Operating Officer of Sport England.
Nick Gargan: I'm
Nick Gargan; I'm the acting Chief Executive of the National Policing
Improvement Agency.
Chair: Thank you very
much for joining us today. Mr Elphicke is going to ask you a few
opening questions about your activities.
Q2 Charlie Elphicke: I
was wondering if each of you could give a brief description of
your organisation in terms of annual budget, number of employees
and two sentences about your functions.
Frances Done: Shall
I start? Youth Justice Board for England and Wales: we are responsible
for oversight and leadership of the Youth Justice System in England
and Wales, setting a framework for 157 Youth Offending Teams.
We also commission the secure state for young people—that's
for young people in custody—and on a daily basis we place
the young people in custody from court. Our budget is about £480
million for the current year and we have got 310 employees at
the present time.
Q3 Charlie Elphicke:
How much is the budget each year?
Frances Done: £480
million.
Rona Chester: Sport
England is an Executive NonDepartmental Public Body. We're
responsible for a technical function, for the delivery of mass
participation sport, and also we're responsible for the delivery
of a worldclass community sports environment. We're also
a National Lottery distributor as well as receiving grantinaid.
Our combined rough budgets are over £200 million, roughly
£235 million—split between National Lottery and also
Exchequer funding. We fund the 46 national governing bodies and
also the wider sports environment. We have a headcount of roughly
239 people today.
Q4 Charlie Elphicke:
You distribute £235 million a year—that's Exchequer
and Lottery funding—that seems to be your total budget.
How much of that is administration and how much of that goes to
the front line and is distributed?
Rona Chester: Obviously,
it's really important to us that we maximise the amount that's
delivered to the front line. Our Exchequer operating costs, and
that includes building, people, are roughly about £12 million.
Nick Gargan: The
NPIA is an organisation that's reducing in size. This year it
will reduce from around 2,200 to just under 2,000 people. The
budget is also reducing; the resource budget for this year net
of income is £470 million.[1]
We do things like provision of major databases to policing. We
provide national police radios, the Airwave service. We're also
responsible for leadership training, promotion examinations, specialist
training, covert training, forensic training, and all doctrine
and guidance. A lot of that is provided on behalf of ACPO to policing
on subjects as diverse as murder investigation through to kidnap
and child abuse investigation too.
Q5 Charlie Elphicke:
Do you happen to know, leaving aside your own organisation and
Home Office costs, how much the entire policing budget in the
UK is in terms of annual spend?
Nick Gargan: No.
Q6 Charlie Elphicke:
Do you know what each force spends—the total spent on policing
forces in the UK?
Nick Gargan: Overall
policing is around £14 billion, of which around £9 billion
comes from central grant, and the remainder from other sources.
Chair: So it's a relatively
small percentage of the budget.
Q7 Charlie Elphicke:
There has been a lot of interest in organisations such as yours
in terms of lobbying and things like that, and spending on marketing,
public affairs, and PR and all that sort of stuff. I'm sure you
can dispel the myths and each of you can confirm to this Committee
that none of you have ever instructed any public affairs organisation.
If so, can you tell us when and how?
Frances Done: I
think I can say with confidence that we've never instructed a
public affairs organisation to do anything like lobbying or marketing.
We simply subscribe to information services. I'm not quite sure
whether they would count in your category, but nothing of the
area that I think you would be concerned about.
Rona Chester: During
my period I haven't instructed any affairs agencies, and we don't
engage in lobbying. Our marketing budget is minimal. Similarly
information services, it's a very minimal amount of the operating
costs that I described to you.
Nick Gargan: I've
certainly never instructed a company of that sort. Our marketing
and communications spend is around 1%[2]
of the budget. We're bearing down on that with a view to reducing
it substantially. It's inflated by the fact that a lot of what
others might describe as training events are actually conferences
for practitioners, and are classed as part of marketing spend
in the agency. I'd rather see them categorised differently.
Q8 Chair:
£4.7 million on marketing?
Nick Gargan: Yes.[3]
But as I say, a high proportion of that is broader communications
and actually it feels to me more like training. For example, we're
rolling out the Police National Database this year; it's a very
important piece of change for policing. There are three people
involved in ensuring that the service is ready for that. Now they're
categorised as marketing and communications people, but actually
they're involved in effectively training the service and readying
the service for this new piece of equipment. That's not untypical
of what we do.
Q9 Charlie Elphicke:
How much do each of you spend on conferences?
Frances Done: I'm
afraid I can't give you that exact figure; I could certainly provide
that information afterwards. Just to give you an example, the
Annual Youth Justice Convention, which we are involved in ensuring
happens, is actually run by a private company and we share the
profits, so it has no costs to the Youth Justice Board. That is
very important to us because obviously we want to do everything
at minimum cost. That's a very successful conference with 800
delegates across the youth justice system; it's a very useful
vehicle for us but it doesn't actually cost us any money, and
this year we'll make a profit. Other than that, in terms of conferences
we simply have periodic events with, for example, all the youth
justice managers across England and Wales, with the leaders of
secure estate, the directors of secure units with people in custody,
bringing them all together at pretty minimal cost really. I think
that's the sort of thing that you're asking. I can certainly provide
you with that figure but I think you'll—
Q10 Charlie Elphicke:
Also attending other conferences? So conferences you yourselves
sponsor, or attending other conferences.
Frances Done: Well
certainly we don't significantly attend conferences. That's really
not how we spend our time. Our time is spent on things that are
extremely productive; out there getting change and improvement
in the youth justice system.
Rona Chester: We
have certainly during the year borne down on our marketing expenditure
considerably. We don't, similarly, attend conferences, and we
don't sponsor conferences. However, we are a Lottery distributor
and there are certain implications for a Lottery distributor;
although we try to keep those costs to a minimum, we need to make
the public aware of our Lottery funds. So without some expenditure
I think our conference expenditure, communications expenditure
would be primarily on our website. But we need to make that information
available.
Nick Gargan: We
are a conference provider. On behalf of the service, we work with
the Association of Chief Police Officers to put on a number of
conferences for the police service and have sites at Bramshill
in Hampshire, at RytononDunsmore near Coventry, we
have a site near Durham and another site at Wyboston in Bedfordshire,
where we actually put on conferences. We're not particularly big
attenders at other paid-for conferences outside of the service,
but we do have one or two international partnerships that have
conferences associated with them, but they're pretty few in number.
Q11 Charlie Elphicke:
Finally, are each of your organisations subject to Freedom of
Information Act requests?
Frances Done: Yes,
we're subject to Freedom of Information in the same way as any
other public body.
Rona Chester: Absolutely.
We have a resource for Freedom of Information requests and we
believe we're becoming increasingly more transparent and visible.
Nick Gargan: So
are we, and particularly the police press but others too make
good use of that.
Q12 Charlie Elphicke:
But unlike ACPO you don't have hordes of empty properties lurking
around the place? You're running yourselves efficiently?
Nick Gargan: We
think we run ourselves very efficiently, increasingly efficiently,
and I'm unaware of any empty properties.
Q13 Chair:
Do you think the Government is right to propose radical reform
of your organisations?
Frances Done: Sorry,
are you asking about my organisation?
Chair: Yes, each of them.
Frances Done: I
think that's entirely a matter for government really. It was made
clear before the election that this was a possibility if there
was a change of government, so we were well aware that that might
be a possibility. I think the process has perhaps been one that
we would have anticipated might be different, but it's entirely
a matter for government whether it wants to review any or all
of the public bodies it sponsors in different ways.
Rona Chester: In
our case we feel that it was an entirely logical decision, if
you take into account the discussions that had already been happening
about bringing the two organisations under one roof. But there
are going to be a number of challenges and we've made government
aware of those. Timing for us is going to be absolutely critical:
the Olympics in 2012. Sport is a devolved issue for the home countries,
and that's going to be an interesting challenge for the new organisation.
Also, the third thing we made government aware of is that the
two bodies are very distinctly different; they've got different
specialisations, different delivery streams. You've got UK elite
sport and mass participation sport, and I think we've made it
very clear to government that any process we undertake really
needs to take those specialisations into consideration. So yes
it was logical but there are challenges.
Nick Gargan: I
absolutely agree with Frances that it's for governments to decide
what's to be done, and I'm very proud of the way that people in
the NPIA have got on with making it work and supporting government
in making those changes happen.
Q14 Chair:
Do you feel that your organisation is being consulted about the
way this is being done?
Nick Gargan: Yes.
We have reasonable access to ministers, and senior officials in
the Home Office are sounding us out on proposed changes and structures.
While it is clear that the NPIA is to be phased out, it's not
yet clear what set of arrangements will take our place in the
place of SOCA, and I think there is a very healthy and positive
discussion taking place, and our views are being taken very much
into account.
Q15 Chair:
Ms Chester, good dialogue?
Rona Chester: Yes,
dialogue at all levels. We were well aware, while the Government
was in opposition, there had been talk about bringing both organisations
under one roof, and that dialogue has continued over the following
months.
Frances Done: I
think I have a slightly different view in that it's absolutely
for the ministers to decide whether they do this and how they
do it and so on. We're not directly consulted about the element
of the decision about abolishing the YJB; however, all our senior
officials are very involved in discussions about all aspects of
the Justice Green Paper, which is due in December. Obviously there
will be a very important element of that about youth justice.
Our senior officials obviously provide a lot of expertise into
the discussions of MoJ about that. The actual element about whether
the YJB should exist or not was not something we were specifically
consulted about.
The Youth Justice Board was established as part of
a major set of reforms in 1998, under the Crime and Disorder Act.
This set up parallel youth offending teams to provide leadership
to youth justice at local level, while at the same time setting
up the Youth Justice Board, national leadership and coherence
across a very complex system. We would have expected that there
would have been wider consultation, not just with us but with
the youth justice system, about the implications of taking one
element of that system out without considering the impact on the
rest. Given there's a Green Paper coming up we had anticipated
that would be part of the process. However, I think ministers
felt that it was their job to take a decision based on the criteria
set and that's what they've done. Obviously they had a perfect
right to do that. We are now very closely involved with the Ministry
of Justice in working out how to make sure that all the elements
of what the Youth Justice Board does, because they will all be
transferred into the Ministry of Justice apparently, are delivered
effectively. We very much think that that should be through a
dedicated youth justice unit within the Ministry of Justice, so
that there's no loss of focus on youth justice, which has delivered
quite significant success over the last 12 years.
Q16 Chair:
You've all been giving very full answers. I'm very grateful for
that but we have 26 minutes left for this session. We'll try and
make our questions very short, if you could keep your answers
short as well it would be very helpful. The Government have established
these four criteria. Were you consulted about how your organisation
fitted any of these criteria? Were you asked to give your view?
Anybody?
Nick Gargan: We
weren't formally consulted about that.
Rona Chester: We
perform a technical function, but we weren't actually consulted
about the criteria and how they arrived at the decision.
Frances Done: Obviously
we were aware of the criteria.
Q17 Chair:
But you weren't asked?
Frances Done: No.
We did think that there probably could have been some wider considerations
to whether those were comprehensive and we expected that to happen
after the election, but it didn't.
Q18 Chair:
But it would be reasonable, wouldn't it, for the Government to
invite each organisation to make a submission of its own case?
Have you been asked to make any such submission?
Nick Gargan: Well
we had informal opportunities to influence.
Chair: Informal?
Nick Gargan:
We knew the question was being asked when the Government was in
opposition, and of course the sponsor unit and other members of
the Home Office—
Q19 Chair:
So you don't feel that there's a procedure that each public body
has been taken through that involves a formal consultation with
you about your powers, duties and functions, how you deliver them,
and how they fit with the criteria? There hasn't been a procedure
of that nature?
Frances Done: No,
I don't think so. As far as we understand, the guidance, such
as it was from the Cabinet Office, involved informing departments
that these were the criteria.
Q20 Chair:
Were the criteria explained to you?
Frances Done: I
don't think there was anyone able to explain what they all individually
meant.
Q21 Chair:
"No" will do. Do you think there should have been other
criteria applied to the case for maintaining a public body, Ms
Done?
Frances Done: Yes,
I definitely think so because the Youth Justice Board was set
up for a good reason, although that doesn't mean to say it should
exist forever. It was about national leadership and coherence
across a very complex system, and having expertise slightly at
arm's length from government. It was thought at the time that
this was an important thing to do in that way.
Q22 Chair:
So in fact the case for setting up your body does not fit any
of the criteria?
Frances Done: There
is at least a question to ask as to whether that is a category
that should be recognised really, but that wasn't part of the
process obviously.
Nick Gargan: I
think in policing, the broader question was being asked about
the national landscape for policing, and the technical questions
were almost set aside as ministers articulated their desire to
de-clutter the national landscape and raise our game in terms
of combating serious and organised crime. So the technical question
was of a secondary importance.
Q23 Chair:
Any point to add?
Rona Chester: We
feel the criteria were fair. You could have considered other criteria
such as having a body for a short space of time to perform a discrete
delivery function, where you've required specific expertise.
Q24 Lindsay Roy:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Can each of you briefly tell
me in what ways you're accountable at present and to whom?
Frances Done: Accountability?
Lindsay Roy: Yes. To whom
are you accountable?
Frances Done: Yes,
in terms of ministerial accountability and Parliament, very, because
I'm appointed by the Secretary of State: he can end my services
at short notice if he wants under the contract; he sets my target
for performance and the performance targets for the Youth Justice
Board. Ministers sign our corporate plan and our annual review,
which goes to Parliament. We're audited by the NAO. Our Chief
Executive is the Accounting Officer, accountable to the Public
Accounts Committee, and we're obviously very closely working with
the sponsor department and a member of their senior management
attends our board meetings. So we're certainly very accountable
in that direction.
In terms of wider accountabilities, which I think
are really important, we're very accountable to the youth justice
system as a whole—all those people out there working with
young offenders—and that's done through our relationships
at local and national level. We're also accountable to the public
through the information on our website. We have about 6,000 volunteers
working in the system, and of course the Freedom of Information
applies to us just like anybody else. So we feel very accountable.
In fact the prison reform lobby is not unwilling to come forward
and be demanding information at any time or explanations. So very
accountable for what we do.
Rona Chester: I
won't repeat a very long answer, but yes, we're equally accountable.
It's something we take very seriously. In addition we have clarity
of purpose and specific targets, so we're also accountable for
delivery of those specific targets with regular performance reviews
with our sponsoring body. I won't repeat everything that Frances
said but—
Nick Gargan: Pretty
much the same again in terms of appointment, Accounting Officer,
and for the Ministry of Justice read the Home Office. But apart
from that the arrangements are mirrored and in addition we are
accountable to the tripartite: ACPO and to Association of Police
Authorities.
Q25 Lindsay Roy:
Again, very briefly I'm interested in how you monitor progress,
what your key indicators of success are, and have you met them.
Frances Done: Indicators
of success for our organisation?
Lindsay Roy: Yes.
Frances Done: There
are three key ones. The number of young people coming into the
youth justice system, that's measured on a six-monthly basis and
published. The reoffending rate, the frequency of young people
reoffending, that's measured on a regular basis, and the numbers
of young people in custody. In all those the Youth Justice Board
figures are substantially below when we were first brought into
effect. So there are very clear measures which ministers are very
interested in.
Rona Chester: Similarly
we have three very clear measures. Since winning the Olympic bid
there have been 700,000 more people participating in sport. We've
got something called our Active People Survey, where we survey
on a six-monthly basis the number of people performing sport.
We also measure people's satisfaction, their sporting experience,
and we also measure that drop off of people performing sport,
particularly in the 16 to 25 age range.
Nick Gargan: We
have a delivery plan. I'm particularly proud of the way that people
in the NPIA, in spite of what's happening to its status, have
actually rallied and stuck at the task of delivering our targets.
This year we will be rolling out the Police National Database,
doing work to establish radio coverage for the additional demands
of the Olympics. We've rolled out almost 40,000 mobile data devices
to operational police officers. We're helping the service make
substantial savings through improving its cost effectiveness.
We're providing support pretty much to every major crime investigation
that you hear about in the news; there is an NPIA support to that
through our Crime Operational Support Department. We're pretty
much on target to achieve every performance indicator in our delivery
plan.
Q26 Lindsay Roy:
Is your organisation fit for purpose and does it provide value
for money?
Frances Done: Sorry,
could you repeat that? I'm a bit deaf and I didn't quite catch
it.
Lindsay Roy: Is your organisation
fit for purpose and does it provide value for money?
Frances Done: Well
I think you'd expect me to say "yes". The only reason
I can be confident in saying that is we have been through a six-month
review chaired by somebody independent of MoJ and the YJB, Dame
Sue Street. That was published in March and looked very much at
those issues, and we came out with a clean bill of health. That's
something obviously under review all the time by the NAO and other
agencies and the sponsor unit.
Rona Chester: Similarly
we've had recent NAO reports, themed reports. We believe that
we are fit for purpose. Our services are significantly valued
by our customers, and we believe that we perform a service that
gives value for money.
Q27 Lindsay Roy:
Will your organisation be any more accountable under the proposed
reforms?
Rona Chester: We'll
take the accountability and transparency, which we value, into
that new organisation, and we will ensure that that's maintained
and will continue to be accountable and fit for purpose.
Q28 Lindsay Roy:
Again, to Ms Done, do you think your organisation's functions
performed by civil servants responsible to ministers rather than
a named chief executive will lead to greater accountability?
Frances Done: I
don't think it will increase accountability to ministers, because
quite honestly we're very closely working with them already. We
are effectively an arm of government and the reason we're there
is because we can deliver well across the system. I don't actually
think it will improve that. I think there is a risk around our
accountability to the wider youth justice system, because there
will be, inevitably over time, a loss of expertise, and that's
what creates credibility out in the system.
Q29 Chair:
Does that go for all of you? Do you think you're all going to
be less visible to the public?
Nick Gargan: Our
blueprint hasn't been completely decided on yet, so the answer
is "it depends".
Rona Chester: As
I described previously, we have two very distinct delivery streams
and it's really important that we take that into the new organisation.
It's important that we build a structure that maintains the visibility
of those delivery streams. We have very different levers, drivers:
elite performance, mass participation of sport. We're dealing
very much, at Sport England, with local community delivery, and
it's really important that we retain that visibility.
Q30 Chair:
Isn't the named chief executive of a public body more accountable
than a civil servant in a department?
Frances Done: I
think it's arguable. We certainly have absolutely no sense that
we're not accountable to almost everybody. We're certainly accountable
to ministers; certainly we feel accountable to the youth justice
system, and to the public. So I do struggle with the concept that
taking all the functions of the Youth Justice Board into the Ministry
of Justice will increase that accountability, but clearly that's
the view of ministers and they feel that that is the right move.
Q31 Robert Halfon:
Good morning. The Government have talked about the Big Society
and transferring the responsibilities of quangos to charities
and voluntary groups. How difficult do you think that will be—to
transfer the kind of functions that you have to the voluntary
sector, or even the private sector for that matter?
Frances Done: In
our case I think that question really applies to the whole of
the youth justice system, because the services are delivered out
in local areas. For example in prevention services, preventing
young people getting into crime in the first place, about half
of the services are already provided by the third sector; that's
really something that we've encouraged for a long time. I think
that will probably increase with the Government's very close support.
Also, in terms of our own commissioning role, we have private
sector contractors providing custody for young people and we work
very closely with the third sector. So I think in terms of what
we do and the way we do it I think that a direction of travel
will be very easy to take, because it's very well established
in youth justice.
Rona Chester: In
terms of Sport England, I think we'll read our customers, read
the NGBs. It's going to be very important for them that a single
unified cohesive body will deliver more money to frontline sport,
and more money to grassroots sport. Having one entity will make
it easier for other sectors and our customers to deal with us.
It's going to be one location, one place. We hope to be able to
share knowledge and expertise across the different areas of the
organisation. We hope to be able to streamline processes and systems,
which will make it easier for our customers to deal with us, it
will save in terms of time and effort, and we'll start using a
common language. It has all of these additional benefits. However,
our customers have made it really clear to us, in their discussions
with us, that they really value this clarity of performance and
purpose, and we need to take that strength into the new organisation.
They've also made it very clear that we have to solve the issue
of devolved sport. As I mentioned earlier, elite sport is a UK-wide
issue; mass participation sport has been devolved. So our customers
and community have made it really clear that we have to be able
to solve that issue. We're confident that we can but it's going
to be a challenge.
Nick Gargan: The
current debate around quangos would have you believe that organisations
are full of pen-pushers and bean-counters, but the organisation
that I lead is full of detectives, analysts, IT specialists and
experienced leaders in policing. It's very difficult to see how
many of those functions could be fulfilled by the voluntary sector.
There is a role for the private sector and I think you may be
surprised by the extent to which the private sector is already
involved in activities like Airwave, our identification, forensic
databases and other national police databases, although there
is scope for further involvement of that sort.
Q32 Robert Halfon:
How easy would it be for all these quangos to become cooperatives
or mutuals, as a model?
Nick Gargan: We've
explored that expressly and one of the problems with the fate
of our functions is that there are those who think they won't
fit comfortably into a national crime agency that they think should
have its focus exclusively on serious and organised crime. There's
a reticence about putting those functions back into the Home Office
because many of them came out of the Home Office a few years ago,
not in particularly good shape. Handing them to ACPO is not without
problems too. So we're actively proposing what form of co-operative,
community interest vehicle, or some mutually owned delivery vehicle
for the service might be capable of being constructed, to provide
what are pretty vital services to policing.
Frances Done: Our
ministers have decided all of our functions will be transferred
into the Ministry of Justice, so obviously that would be a matter
for further discussion, but at this stage we're working with them
on trying to find the best way of doing that, at this stage that
hasn't really been considered as a—
Q33 Robert Halfon:
But I'm asking if you think mutuals would be a good model for
quangos, cooperatives?
Frances Done: I
suppose my general answer to that would be, it would depend on
what the quango was. Certainly in our case it's not something
that has been very carefully considered because at the moment
we're just dealing with the issue of transferring functions back
to MoJ, and MoJ itself is reviewing its whole structure, so that's
all part of the big discussion as well.
Rona Chester: I
think in your question you're asking about a mutual. You really
need to take into account what the customer wants, the delivery
streams and the accountability. Therefore if you have potentially
a mutual where one is able to crowd out the other, then that might
be a challenge.
Q34 Chair:
In your case in particular—you're a grant giving body—there
are lots of organisations in the sporting world that would be
very competent at handing out grants. The Football Association
could hand out all the grants to do with football. Wouldn't that
be a more efficient way of doing it?
Rona Chester: It
does require a greater level of expertise than just football.
Sport is about very different drivers and behaviour and we have
expertise at many, many different levels. I don't think that necessarily
could be performed by a much larger organisation without those
specialisations.
Q35 Robert Halfon:
But that expertise could easily be transferred. For example, if
you just had the Football Association dealing with football grants,
that expertise could easily be transferred over to them. You don't
need another quango, with respect, to necessarily do that.
Rona Chester: A
significant proportion of our funding, with respect to football,
is actually dealt with by the Football Foundation.
Chair: The Football Foundation?
Rona Chester: Yes,
rather—
Q36 Chair:
Well that rather makes the case, doesn't it?
Rona Chester: Rather
than ourselves.
Q37 Chair:
How many people do you have dealing with football in your organisation?
Rona Chester: Specifically
attached to football, we have a Relationship Manager attached
to football, not a significant proportion of people are dealing
specifically with football.
Q38 Greg Mulholland:
Decisions have largely been taken, with the exception of the National
Policing Improvement Agency, and I think it's interesting that
you're all in different situations. In your case Frances, you're
being absorbed into the department; Rona, you're going through
a merger; and Nick, you still don't know what's happening to your
functions. So the key thing now is the transition to the new structure.
Can you tell me have each of your organisations got a plan for
that transition to make that as successful as it could possibly
be? Has that plan come from you or has that come from the department
or both?
Frances Done: The
transition plan is being worked on jointly between the Ministry
of Justice and the Youth Justice Board. Our Chief Executive and
the relevant director in the Ministry of Justice are jointly chairing
the transition board and putting together that plan. So we're
pretty confident that we will have absolutely the right level
of input into that. The biggest issue for us is about ensuring,
given that this decision has been taken now, that youth justice
retains a separate delivery orientation and focus within the Ministry
of Justice. So there needs to be one youth justice unit, so that
that focus is maintained. That is something that is not necessarily
totally uncontroversial so we're certainly using our involvement
with the Ministry of Justice, which is a very co-operative effort.
Equally I'd like to say that, as Nick said, the staff
of the Youth Justice Board have their heads up and are just keeping
going, because what they do is so important. We want to take the
activity of the Youth Justice Board, all the really important
work we do around safeguarding children and preventing young people
getting into offending, into the Ministry of Justice in a very
orderly fashion. So far so good, I think.
Rona Chester: It's
very early days but we have started to build a merger plan, as
we call it. The chief executives and chairmen have met with ministers.
We're starting to build what the organisation structure will look
like, and from that we'll start building what the significant
work streams will be. It's likely that DCMS, our sponsoring body,
will have a place on the project board.
Nick Gargan: I've
been chairing a weekly transition steering group meeting since
the announcement was made. In fact, because of inyear savings,
we already had the weekly structure that has become the transition
steering group from beforehand. That looks after questions like
the budget trajectory, communication with our staff, relationships
with the service and with the stakeholders, and it also contributes
into the programme arrangements that have been put in place by
the Home Office around National Crime Agency and other elements
of the Government's reforms. We still have some work to do around
the formal programme management structures, and they will be determined
finally once we actually know what's going where. But we think
we have it as boxed off as we can at this early stage, with so
much remaining unclear.
Q39 Greg Mulholland:
Do you all feel that you've had adequate discussions with sponsoring
departments about the transition specifically, and do you feel
that you're getting and will get the support that your organisations
need to make sure that those functions are still carried through
and effectively delivered when the new structures are in place?
Frances Done: I
don't think we need support because obviously it's just a joint
effort between ourselves and MoJ, and we'll identify whatever
resources are needed to support the whole process. I think that
will go reasonably well. I think there are still discussions to
be had about how to make sure the functions of the Youth Justice
Board, which have been successfully carried out in a slightly
arm's length way, can be continued with continued success in the
quite different environment of the Civil Service. For example,
I'm thinking of the fact that in the last two years the custody
population of young people has gone down by about a third, saving
about £34 million a year, very opposite to the way that the
adult justice system has gone. There is a big issue for anyone
who's interested in youth justice about how, when moving into
a very big department like the Ministry of Justice—which
has got a huge focus on adults—the five per cent that is
the youth justice system gets the attention it needs. I think
that's the challenge for the next 12 months as we make the transition.
Rona Chester: Yes,
we have a good working relationship with our sponsoring department
and support. If I could make a suggestion, many of these bodies
are going to be going through similar challenges and it might
be helpful for government to think about some sort of consistent
framework, particularly where you have common issues and challenges,
for a merger. Many organisations have gone through this before
and there's a real danger, if there isn't that consistency, that
each body reinvents the wheel.
Nick Gargan: I
think there was less consultation and contact than would have
been ideal in the runup to an announcement, but post the
announcement of the policing changes, which was 26 July, relationships
with both ministers and senior officials at the Home Office have
been very good. The Home Secretary came to the agency within a
matter of days of the announcement, and staff were grateful for
that visit, and I think she was impressed with what she saw. Subsequently,
senior officials at the Home Office have been very open and very
ready to consult, and the relationship's very positive.
Q40 Greg Mulholland:
A final question, if I may, Chair. Once the transition has been
completed and the new structures, whatever they are, are in place,
what if the functions that you're currently responsible for do
appear to not be getting the attention and the focus that you
need? Obviously that's the widest concern about the overall reforms—that
we'll lose focus on wider participation sport, or on youth justice,
or on police improvement. So what then? What would you do and
what would you suggest that we do, and other organisations do,
to raise those concerns if that happens six months, a year, two
years down the line?
Frances Done: Speaking
about youth justice, the reason that the Youth Justice Board was
set up in the first place was concern about the way things were
not being co-ordinated and led within seven departments of government—it's
still seven departments now but they've all got different names—plus
a whole range of agencies. If the lack of focus we are concerned
about starts to have bad effects on progress in youth justice,
I think there are several constituencies out there who will make
it well known to government, namely parliamentarians, who are
very interested in youth justice. The reform groups are very interested
in youth justice and are on top of everything that happens every
day; they look to see our custody figures every day, they want
to know the reoffending rates, they want to know the numbers coming
into the system. I think there are organisations and agencies
out there, both in the voluntary sector and obviously parliamentarywise,
that will be drawing that to the attention of government, and
I very much hope that is the case. We'll be working very hard
to try and make sure that focus is maintained within the Ministry
of Justice. But it will be a challenge because it didn't work
before and it may well be possible to make it work now, but everyone's
going to have to work very hard to make that happen.
Rona Chester: In
the merged organisation, similarly our customers are going to
make government well aware if the specific focus isn't applied
appropriately. We do also have an independent board that's accountable
for the organisation, and they'll be taking that into consideration
and making that visible—those performance targets etc.
Nick Gargan: I
think we have to accept that there will be less activity at the
centre of policing. Money is coming out of policing and so there
will be a reduced degree of activity. Our shared responsibility
between the department, ACPO and the agency and its successor
bodies is just to make sure that the money comes out of it in
a sensible way and we take away the waste, the bureaucracy, the
duplication and that type of thing, rather than reducing those
resources that protect people in communities.
Q41 Chair:
So in summary, do you think that this reorganisation of your particular
organisation will save money unless there is just less done than
was being done before?
Frances Done: In
terms of the Youth Justice Board, ministers have not indicated
that the decision was done to save money, because actually our
spending review plans involved very substantial savings anyway,
which we're on track to deliver because of reductions in custody.
So that hasn't been the issue.
Chair: So the answer's
"no"?
Frances Done: No.
Rona Chester: Similarly,
again it's not about saving money and not about performance; it's
about simplifying the landscape for our partners. However, by
moving into one location, that will cost less, and we will be
able to do that post-Olympics and post the breaks for our current
leases.
Nick Gargan: Depending
on the structures that are ultimately decided on, there will be
opportunities to save money through economies of scale, and there
are also opportunities to save money through the savings that
we're already making.
Chair: I think you've
all been extremely helpful to us. Thank you very, very much, and
may I say thank you for your public service. It must be a difficult
time for your organisations and we're grateful for the work that
you do and your organisations do all the same. Thank you very
much indeed.
1 Note from witness: Correction - NPIA resource budget
for this year is £368million net of income (£473million
before income) Back
2
Note from witness: Correction - NPIA marketing and communications
spend is 0.68% of this years budget before income Back
3
Note from witness: Correction - NPIA marketing and communications
spend is £3.2m Back
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