House of Commons Procedure Committee
Monitoring written Parliamentary questions
Seventh Report of Session 2012–13
Report, together with formal minutes and oral evidence
Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 17 April 2013
HC 1095 Published on 8 May 2013 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £11.00
Procedure Committee
The Procedure Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to consider the practice and procedure of the House in the conduct of public business, and to make recommendations.
Current membership Mr Charles Walker MP (Conservative, Broxbourne) (Chair) Jenny Chapman MP (Labour, Darlington) Nic Dakin MP (Labour, Scunthorpe) Thomas Docherty MP (Labour, Dunfermline and West Fife) Sir Roger Gale MP (Conservative, North Thanet) Helen Goodman MP (Labour, Bishop Auckland) Mr James Gray MP (Conservative, North Wiltshire) Tom Greatrex MP (Lab/Co-op, Rutherglen and Hamilton West) John Hemming MP (Liberal Democrat, Birmingham Yardley) Mr David Nuttall MP (Conservative, Bury North) Jacob Rees-Mogg MP (Conservative, North East Somerset) Martin Vickers MP (Conservative, Cleethorpes)
The following Members were also members of the Committee during the Parliament: Rt Hon Greg Knight MP (Conservative, Yorkshire East) (Chair until 6 September 2012) Karen Bradley MP (Conservative, Staffordshire Moorlands) Andrew Percy MP (Conservative, Brigg and Goole) Bridget Phillipson MP (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South) Angela Smith MP (Labour, Penistone and Stocksbridge) Sir Peter Soulsby MP (Labour, Leicester South) Mike Wood MP (Labour, Batley and Spen)
Powers The powers of the Committee are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 147. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk.
Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at http://www.parliament.uk/proccom.
Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Huw Yardley (Clerk), Lloyd Owen (Second Clerk) and Jim Camp (Committee Assistant).
Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Procedure Committee, Journal Office, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 3318; the Committee’s email address is [email protected].
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Contents
Report Page
Summary 3
1 Introduction 5
2 Unsatisfactory answers 5 Trial exercise in monitoring unsatisfactory answers 5 Rejected complaints 6 Complaints followed up 6 Result of trial exercise 8
3 Timeliness of answering 8 Provision of statistics on timeliness of answering 8 Performance of Government departments 10 Correspondence with poorly-performing departments 10 Department for Education 10
4 Conclusion 11
Recommendations 12
Formal Minutes 13
Witnesses 14
List of written evidence 14
List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 15
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Summary
In October 2010, in response to a report by our predecessor committee in the last Parliament, we began a trial exercise in monitoring unsatisfactory and late answers to written Parliamentary questions. We have received just over 50 complaints from Members in response to the exercise, of which we have followed up around half. As a result we have obtained answers for Members on a number of occasions in circumstances where they would otherwise have found it difficult or impossible to follow up on an inadequate response, and we have been able to use the opportunity to emphasise to Ministers the importance and value of engaging adequately and appropriately with this particular form of Parliamentary scrutiny. We now intend to bring this trial period to an end and put the exercise on a more permanent footing.
We have also considered a memorandum from the Leader of the House providing statistics in a standard format on the time taken to respond to WPQs in 2010–12. We have sought from the Ministers in charge of poorly-performing departments an explanation of the reasons for the level of performance recorded in the memorandum, and of what steps their department is taking to improve. We have also followed up in appropriate cases questions remaining unanswered at the end of the 2010–12 session. We have published the answers we have received on our website and will be looking for Ministers to make good on the assurances of improved performance which they have given.
In the case of the Department for Education, whose performance was especially poor, we have taken oral evidence from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary and a senior official in the Department, and followed that up with a session with the Permanent Secretary and Secretary of State when we were dissatisfied with the evidence given at the first session. We cannot be sure that the actions which the Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary set out in response to our concerns will be sufficient until we see performance actually improving. We will continue to take a close interest in the answering performance of the Department for Education, and will demand further account from the Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary if performance does not improve markedly.
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1 Introduction
1. In July 2009, our predecessor Committee published a report on written Parliamentary questions. The report considered concerns about the rising number of questions and the pressure which was thereby being created both on the House authorities and on Government, and made a number of recommendations designed to address the issues arising. The report also considered concerns about the quality and timeliness of answers.
2. In response to those concerns about quality and timeliness, our predecessors proposed that the Procedure Committee assume a role in monitoring the answering of written Parliamentary questions. The role proposed would take two forms: firstly, investigating complaints from Members about answers which they considered unsatisfactory; and second, receiving and evaluating (1) a list of questions unanswered at the end of each session of Parliament, and (2) sessional statistics in a standard format on the time taken by departments to respond to WPQs, accompanied by an explanatory memorandum setting out any factors affecting their performance. Announcing its intention to undertake this role, our predecessor Committee said
It is in order to uphold [the] system of WPQs and reiterate the responsibilities of those involved in it that we have put our Committee forward to act as a monitoring body. Not only will this allow us to gauge the extent of any problem, it will also send a clear signal to Government that apparently inadequate answers to questions will not go uninvestigated. […] We are determined to ensure that the WPQs system is treated with due respect by Government departments and that the questions asked by the public’s elected representatives receive the answers they deserve.1 2 Unsatisfactory answers
Trial exercise in monitoring unsatisfactory answers
3. We accordingly launched an exercise in monitoring unsatisfactory answers to written Parliamentary questions in October 2010. We did so by writing to all Members, inviting them
to refer to us specific instances where you are dissatisfied with the answer received to a question tabled by yourself. This could be, for example, where an answer clearly does not address the question or where information is refused when requested through a WPQ but is made available by other means. It does not include cases where the dissatisfaction is with the policy expressed in the answer. The Committee will examine every submission and in cases of particular concern we will refer questions to Ministers for comment and review. We will also inform the Leader of the House if we identify broader concerns, in particular weaknesses in answers on a particular topic or from a particular department, and will produce Reports from time to time on trends in unsatisfactory or inadequate written answers and departmental performance.
1 HC (2008–09) 859, paras 104, 103.
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Members are also invited to refer to the Committee complaints about late answers which will be processed in a similar way.
4. We added
It is important for us to stress that what makes an answer unsatisfactory may well be a subjective judgement and the Committee does not undertake to investigate every answer referred to it. Members should also be aware that this is initially a monitoring exercise and that the Committee at present has no power to impose sanctions on the Government for unsatisfactory answers. Nevertheless, we hope that Members will find this a useful facility for addressing inadequate and late answers, that the data gathered will give us a clearer picture of the extent of the problem and that Government departments will improve their performance as a result.
5. Since the launch of the exercise in October 2010, we have received just over 50 complaints from Members about answers to written Parliamentary questions. Around half of these complaints have warranted further investigation or action by means of correspondence with the relevant Secretary of State.
Rejected complaints
6. The most common reason for rejecting a complaint has been that we considered there was scope for following up an inadequate answer by means of further written questions. As the guidelines which we issued when we started this exercise make clear, “Members should note that they will be expected to have sought advice from the Table Office on what further action is possible to obtain the information they require before the Committee will usually consider a specific answer”.2 We have also occasionally rejected a complaint because it amounted to disagreement with the policy contained in the answer received, rather than being the result of an unsatisfactory answer; we reiterate that “disagreement with the policy stated in an answer will not be accepted as a basis for deeming the answer to be inadequate”.3
Complaints followed up
7. The complaints we have followed up, and the responses we have received, have taken a variety of forms. Cases we have pursued have included:
• Failures by the department concerned to answer questions fully. For example, Mike Weir asked a series of questions about a new Treasury post in Scotland, which were grouped together and only partially answered.4 We were successful in obtaining for him full answers to all his questions.5
2 See www.parliament.uk/proccom > WPQ monitoring 3 ibid 4 HC Deb, 10 Sep 2012, col 102W. 5 www.parliament.uk/ proccom > Publications > Session 2012-13 publications > Monitoring Written Parliamentary Questions - written evidence > Letter from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Rt Hon Danny Alexander MP, concerning Parliamentary questions asked by Mr Mike Weir MP (dated 20 December 2012)
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• Failures by the department concerned to provide the information requested because the question has been misinterpreted. For example, Alison Seabeck asked two questions of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government requesting information about social and market rents, which received an answer relating instead to the Government’s affordable rent policy.6 Following our intervention, a full answer providing the information requested was provided.7
• Inadequate information provided in response to questions, particularly when answers refer to websites. For example, Tom Greatrex was directed by the Cabinet Office to the Government’s “Contracts Finder” website in answer to a pair of questions about that department’s contracts with Atos.8 It being impossible to find any such contracts using the website, we obtained not only a clear reply for Mr Greatrex to his request for information, but also an acknowledgment that “there is scope for improving the search facilities” and an assurance that officials were scoping this work.9
• Inappropriate content in answers. Gordon Marsden referred to us a complaint about an answer containing what he referred to as “a tendentious, partial and lengthy attack on the previous Government”.10 The Secretary of State’s response to this complaint referred to a press release issued by Mr Marsden; in our reply, we made clear that written parliamentary questions are not an appropriate vehicle for responses to press releases, and noted that we shared the view taken by the Speaker that “Ministers should avoid putting in their written answers to written parliamentary questions any polemical matter that would not be allowed in the questions themselves.”11
• Late answers. This was a particular concern of our predecessors in their 2009 report and evidently continues to be a problem today. We obtained answers, and apologies, for Members on a number of occasions where a response had been unreasonably delayed. We have more to say about timeliness of answers below.12
8. We are very pleased that, where we have followed up a complaint, the result has almost always been the provision of a more satisfactory answer—or at least, an explanation of why it was not possible to provide one. Ministers have, as should be expected, been courteous and cooperative in responding to our request for further information and explanation in following up Members’ complaints. There has been no suggestion that our assumption of this role has placed an unreasonable burden on Government or been anything other than helpful to the task of ensuring that, as our predecessors desired, “the WPQ system is
6 HC Deb, 3 Nov 2010, col 817W. 7 HC Deb, 13 Dec 2010, col 488W. 8 HC Deb, 14 Jun 2012, col 578W. 9 www.parliament.uk/ proccom > Publications > Session 2012-13 publications > Monitoring Written Parliamentary Questions - written evidence > Letter submitted by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, Rt Hon Francis Maude MP (dated 21 December 2012) 10 HC Deb, 23 Jan 2012, col 50W. 11 HC Deb, 24 January 2012, c183. 12 Chapter 3.
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treated with due respect by Government departments and that the questions asked by the public’s elected representatives receive the answers they deserve”.
Result of trial exercise
9. We consider our exercise in monitoring unsatisfactory answers to have been a success. We have obtained answers for Members on a number of occasions in circumstances where other means of following up on an inadequate response may have proved either ineffective or disproportionate, and we have been able to use the opportunity to emphasise to Ministers the importance and value of engaging adequately and appropriately with this particular form of Parliamentary scrutiny. It is, therefore, time to end the experimental period and put the exercise on a more permanent footing. We intend to continue to receive and, as appropriate, pursue Members’ complaints about unsatisfactory responses; and we expect Ministers to continue to engage with the process in the constructive manner which they have demonstrated so far. 3 Timeliness of answering
Provision of statistics on timeliness of answering
10. The first memorandum from the Government providing sessional statistics in a standard format on the time taken to respond to WPQs, relating to the 2009–10 session, was submitted to us in February 2011; we reported on it in our Second Report of 2010– 12.13 In that report we deprecated the length of time which it had taken to provide those statistics. We are pleased that the statistics for the 2010–12 session were provided by the Leader of the House, as promised, within three months of the start of the following session. They were published on our website in October 2012.14 We have also published a summary of departmental performance in 2010–12, giving percentage figures for timeliness of answering of both ordinary written and “named day” PQs.15 That summary is reproduced here as table 1.
13 www.parliament.uk/ proccom > Publications > Session 2010-12 publications > 2nd Report - Improving the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny: (a) Select committee amendments (b) Explanatory statements on amendments (c) Written parliamentary questions (HC 800, 2010-12) 14 www.parliament.uk/ proccom > Publications > Session 2012-13 publications > Monitoring Written Parliamentary Questions - written evidence > Memorandum submitted by the Leader of the House of Commons, Rt Hon Sir George Young MP (P35, 2012–13) 15 www.parliament.uk/ proccom > Publications > Session 2012-13 publications > Monitoring Written Parliamentary Questions - written evidence > Departmental performance on Parliamentary questions in 2010–12 (summary table) (P 41, 2012–13)
9 Ordinary written questions: On time=answered within five sitting days of tabling (see first page of Leader of the House’s memorandum for further details of how this period is calculated) Late=answered between five and 10 working days after tabling Very late=answered more than 10 working days after tabling Named day questions: On time=answered substantively on day named Late=not answered substantively on day named Procedure Committee 51% 33% 3% 7% 25% 0.40% 3% 7% 31% % late 55% 31% 11% 83% 15% 15% 7% 63% 7% 48% 56% 20% 34% 8% 27% % on time 48% 99.60% 67% 93% 97% 75% 97% 93% 100% 69% 89% 45% 17% 37% 93% 85% 93% 52% 85% 69% 80% 44% 66% 73% 92% No.
1966 2269 1927 109 1365 1024 77 Named day questions 1340 49 1945 869 24171 1679 1856 84 2217 229 1601 219 167 823 923 108 660 665 0.20% 8% 12% 7% % v late 6% 1% 2% N/A 13% 5% 0.30% N/A 17% 8% 50% 11% 2% 4% 2% 1% N/A 0.60% 14% 1% 3% 19% 30% 20% 6% 9% % late 4% 17% 66% 7% 16% 12% 26% 22% 32% 10% 44% 24% 26% 9% 12% 28% 25% 5% questions written 97% 74% % on time 58% 73% 88% 90% 94% 78% 34% 100% 92% 63% 18% 88% 70% 69% 88% 39% 74% 74% 91% 86% 69% 61% 94% Ordinary No. 7644 4788 4474 3822 610 423 5097 3350 3908 4497 613 93 4980 4398 644 510 71177 299 5241 2244 5201 2401 3604 287 2049 ment Affairs Office Office Department Attorney General & Skills Business, Innovation Cabinet Office Govern and Local Communities Culture, Media and Sport Defence Deputy Prime Minister Education Energy and Climate Change Rural Food and Environment, Commonwealth Foreign and Health Home Office International Development Justice Leader of the House Northern Ireland Prime Minister’s Office Scotland Transport HM Treasury Wales Women and Equalities Work and Pensions Total Government Departments 10 Procedure Committee
Performance of Government departments
11. The statistics provided by the Leader of the House show wide variations in the performance of different Government departments. The Department of Health, despite handling by some margin the greatest number of PQs in the session, answered 97% of ordinary written questions within a working week of tabling, and replied substantively to 99.6% of named day questions on the day named. The Department for Work and Pensions, on the other hand, answered only 39% of ordinary written questions in timely fashion (although it replied substantively to 97% of named day questions on the day named); and the equivalent figures for the Department for Transport were just 34% of ordinary written questions and 52% of named day questions. Worst of all was the Department for Education, about which we have more to say below.
Correspondence with poorly-performing departments
12. We wrote to the Minister in charge of each department whose answering performance fell below 80% of questions answered within accepted the timescale. Our correspondence invited them to account for the reasons for the level of performance recorded in the Leader’s memorandum, and to let us know what steps their department was taking to improve its performance in the timeliness of answering of written Parliamentary questions. We excluded from this exercise both HM Treasury and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, both of whom included along with the performance statistics provided in the Leader’s memorandum comments on the reasons for their performance in 2010–12, and assurances about what they were doing to tackle the issue. At the same time, we invited Ministers in relevant departments to comment on a list of outstanding questions which had not been answered at the end of the 2010–12 session.
13. We have received replies to all this correspondence, and have published them on our website.16 We are pleased to see that in all cases the Ministers concerned have recognised the importance of the issue, and have committed themselves to securing improvements in the timeliness of answering. Assurances have also been given about questions left unanswered at the end of a session. We shall be reviewing progress when we receive the memorandum from the Leader on performance in the 2012–13 session, and will be looking for Ministers to make good on the assurances of improved performance which they have given. Where performance falls short of acceptable standards, or the improvement which might reasonably be expected is not made, we shall consider inviting the Minister concerned to account in person, as was the case this year with the Department for Education.
Department for Education
14. The further exception from the exercise in seeking written assurances about future PQ answering performance was the Department for Education. DfE answered only 18% of ordinary written questions, and just 17% of questions for named day answer, within acceptable timescales. Unsurprisingly, given these figures, the department was the subject
16 www.parliament.uk/ proccom > Publications > Session 2012-13 publications > Monitoring Written Parliamentary Questions - written evidence
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of a large proportion of the complaints we received from individual Members about the late answering of their PQs.
15. These figures suggested to us that there may be a serious problem in the Department for Education which merited closer investigation. Consequently we invited the Secretary of State to send the appropriate Minister and officials to give evidence to us in person. Accordingly Elizabeth Truss MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, and Hilary Spencer, Director of Strategy, Performance and Private Office Group, gave evidence to us on Wednesday 12 December 2012.17
16. Regrettably, that session raised for us more questions than it provided answers about the reasons for the department’s poor performance. In particular, we were very concerned about the role which special advisers appeared to be playing in the answering process. We were also unconvinced that the department was on top of the problems or that any improvements could be expected. We therefore invited the Secretary of State and the Permanent Secretary for a follow-up session.
17. That session took place on Wednesday 23 January.18 In the intervening period, the Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary sent out a circular to the department. The circular set out a “comprehensive action plan to transform the way we deal with PQs in 2013”. We questioned both our witnesses on this “action plan”, as well as on other aspects of the PQ answering process in the department which concerned us. While we were reassured to some degree by the answers we received, clearly we will not be able to be sure that the actions which the Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary have set out will be sufficient until we see performance actually improving. We will continue to take a close interest in the answering performance of the Department for Education, and we will demand further account from the Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary if performance does not improve markedly. 4 Conclusion
18. Written Parliamentary questions are a vital tool for the accountability of Government. The effectiveness of this form of accountability depends on Members receiving answers which are both timely and which respond adequately and appropriately to the question which has been asked. As the committee charged with considering the practice and procedure of the House in the conduct of public business, we have a central role in ensuring the continued accountability of Government to this House. The task which we have taken on as the recipients of complaints about inadequate and late answers, and in assessing the performance of departments in the timeliness of answering PQs, is an important addition to our role in ensuring accountability. We will continue to discharge it rigorously and in full acknowledgement that good scrutiny contributes to good government. We look forward to making further reports to the House on the discharge of this aspect of our responsibilities.
17 Qq 1–150 18 Qq 151–211
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Recommendations
1. We intend to continue to receive and, as appropriate, pursue Members’ complaints about unsatisfactory responses; and we expect Ministers to continue to engage with the process in the constructive manner which they have demonstrated so far. (Paragraph 10)
2. We shall be reviewing progress when we receive the memorandum from the Leader on performance in the 2012–13 session, and will be looking for Ministers to make good on the assurances of improved performance which they have given. Where performance falls short of acceptable standards, or the improvement which might reasonably be expected is not made, we shall consider inviting the Minister concerned to account in person, as was the case this year with the Department for Education. (Paragraph 14)
3. We will continue to take a close interest in the answering performance of the Department for Education, and we will demand further account from the Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary if performance does not improve markedly. (Paragraph 18)
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Formal Minutes
Wednesday 17 April 2013
Members present:
Mr Charles Walker, in the Chair
Mrs Jenny Chapman Tom Greatrex Nic Dakin John Hemming Thomas Docherty Mr David Nuttall Sir Roger Gale Jacob Rees-Mogg Helen Goodman Martin Vickers
Draft Report (Monitoring written Parliamentary questions), proposed by the Chair, brought up and read.
Ordered, That the draft Report be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph.
Paragraphs 1 to 18 read and agreed to.
Summary agreed to.
Resolved, That the Report be the Seventh Report of the Committee to the House.
Ordered, That the Chair make the Report to the House.
[Adjourned till Wednesday 24 April at 3.00 pm
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Witnesses
Wednesday 12 December 2012 Page
Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer, Department for Education (previously published as HC 817-i) Ev 1
Wednesday 23 January 2013
Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman, Department for Education (previously published as HC 817-ii) Ev 16
List of written evidence
(published on the Committee’s website www.parliament.uk/proccom > Publications > Monitoring Written Parliamentary Questions – written evidence)
1 Rt Hon Sir George Young MP 2 Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin MP 3 Rt Hon Vince Cable MP 4 Nicholas Howard 5 Mr Mark Harper MP 6 Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP 7 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP 8 Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP 9 Rt Hon Maria Miller MP 10 Rt Hon Owen Paterson MP 11 Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP 12 Rt Hon Francis Maude MP 13 Further letter from Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP 14 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP 15 Further letter from Rt Hon Michael Gove MP 16 Rt Hon Danny Alexander MP 17 Further letter from Rt Hon Francis Maude MP
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List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament
Session 2012–13 First Report Sitting hours and the Parliamentary calendar HC 330 First Special Report Reasoned opinions on subsidiarity under the Lisbon HC 712 Treaty: Government Response to the Committee’s Fourth Report of Session 2010–12 Second Report Review of the Backbench Business Committee HC 168 Second Special Report Sitting hours and the Parliamentary calendar: HC 790 Government Response to the Committee’s Fourth Report of Session 2010–12 Third Report E-tabling of written questions HC 775 Third Special Report Review of the Backbench Business Committee– HC 978 Government Response to the Committee’s Second Report of Session 2012–13 Fourth Report Explanatory statements on amendments HC 979 Fifth Report Statements by Members who answer on behalf of HC 1017 statutory bodies Sixth Report Debates on Government e-Petitions in Westminster HC 1094 Hall
Session 2010–12 First Report Ministerial Statements HC 602 First Special Report Ministerial Statements: Government Response to the HC 1062 Committee’s First Report of Session 2010–12 Second Report Improving the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny: HC 800 (a) Select committee amendments (b) Explanatory statements on amendments (c) Written parliamentary questions Second Special Report Improving the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny: HC 1063 (a) Select committee amendments (b) Explanatory statements on amendments (c) Written parliamentary questions: Government Response to the Committee’s Second Report of Session 2010–11 Third Report Use of hand-held electronic devices in the Chamber HC 889 and committees Fourth Report Reasoned opinions on subsidiarity under the Lisbon HC 1440 Treaty Fifth Report 2010 elections for positions in the House HC 1573 Sixth Report Lay membership of the Committee on Standards and HC 1606 Privileges Third Special Report Lay membership of the Committee on Standards and HC 1869 Privileges: Government Response to the Committee’s Sixth Report of Session 2010–12 Seventh Report Debates on Government e-Petitions HC 1706
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Fourth Special Report Debates on Government e-Petitions: Government HC 1902 Response to the Committee’s Sixth Report of Session 2010–12 Eighth Report E-tabling of parliamentary questions for written HC 1823 answer
Ninth Report 2010 elections for positions in the House: HC 1824 Government Response to the Committee’s Fifth Report of Session 2010–12
cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [SO] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 1
Oral evidence
Taken before the Procedure Committee on Wednesday 12 December 2012
Members present: Mr Charles Walker (Chair)
Nic Dakin John Hemming Helen Goodman Mr David Nuttall Mr James Gray Jacob Rees-Mogg Tom Greatrex Martin Vickers ______
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Elizabeth Truss MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education, and Hilary Spencer, Director of Strategy, Performance and Private Office Group, Department for Education, gave evidence.
Q1 Chair: Minister, would you like to make a brief Q6 Mr Gray: Do you run the parliamentary statement before we start? You do not have to. Department? Elizabeth Truss: Maybe it is best to start with the Hilary Spencer: Yes, the parliamentary team is one questions. of the teams that reports to me. There are a number Chair: Right. Well, I will say hello. of reasons. Elizabeth Truss: Hello. Chair: Thank you for coming here to see us. Q7 Mr Gray: I am sorry; I am being a bit dim. I Elizabeth Truss: Not at all. have not read my papers properly. Would you mind just introducing yourself properly? Q2 Chair: I think it is a bit mean that you have been Hilary Spencer: Yes, of course. My name is Hilary offered up as the sacrificial lamb bearing in mind you Spencer. I am the Director in charge of Strategy, have only been in post for a couple of months, but Performance and Private Office Group in the thank you very much for agreeing to do it. Well, we Department. do not know whether you did agree to it; you might Mr Gray: Strategy, Performance and Private Office. have been instructed to do it, but thank you for being Thank you. here anyway. Hilary Spencer: As to the reasons why the Elizabeth Truss: I am saying nothing on that point. Department’s performance is poor, I do not think anybody is disputing the fact that the performance in Q3 Chair: To be honest, Minister—and I will call the Department is objectively poor in terms of our you Minister, is that all right? response rates to parliamentary questions and Elizabeth Truss: Yes. comparatively poor with other Government Chair: I will call you Minister. Minister, I think the Departments. Committee and colleagues are concerned that the The reasons for it being poor in the Department for performance of the Department for Education is pretty Education are several. One is that there is a bit of a poor compared to your peer group in other cultural issue around the way that people approach Departments. It really is a cause of concern, as I have parliamentary questions. They are so keen to get the said, and we would like to explore over the next half detail right and accurate that quite a lot of—oh, dear, hour, 45 minutes, why it is so poor and what can be I fear that I have just pre-empted the next question. I done to improve it. Without further delay, I shall ask do think there is some nervousness around not getting my colleague Mr Gray to open up proceedings. the detail right in questions. I think we have had particular problems with our IT system. There have Q4 Mr Gray: Minister, I think the Chairman asked been two particular points in time where the entire IT the first question, in a sense. First of all, would you system has failed—one in February 2011 and one in accept that the Department for Education is June this year, which has caused a particular problem. significantly worse in this regard than everybody else? This is one of the things. You will be aware that we Elizabeth Truss: Yes. have recently published the DfE review; one of the key things that we are saying as part of that is that the Q5 Mr Gray: Can you think of a reason why that Department needs to get better in terms of its poor should be the case? functions as a Government Department, one of which Elizabeth Truss: Well, there are a whole series of is these types of things. reasons why that is the case. I agree that the performance is not what it should be completely. That Q8 Mr Gray: That is not a reason. Let us unpick the is evidenced from the—I wonder if Hilary might— first two reasons you gave there, if I may. First of all Hilary is overall in charge in the Department of the you said it is a cultural matter and the Department for PQ process. Education are particularly keen to get the answers cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Ev 2 Procedure Committee: Evidence
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer right and detailed. I have two difficulties with that. We are well aware of this problem. This problem is One is that, presumably, every Department of State is discussed at both the management board and the DfE trying to get the answers right. board of the Department and we are working on Hilary Spencer: You would hope, yes. solutions—so both a solution in process terms but also a solution in terms of the IT problems that Hilary Q9 Mr Gray: Therefore, I cannot see why it should outlined. I think those are the two key issues from the take you any longer than anybody else. Department’s point of view. I acknowledge that it is a Secondly, a couple of examples we have in front of problem and the evidence is clear that it is a problem. us that we will be testing the Minister on in a moment do seem to me to demonstrate that the Department for Q12 Tom Greatrex: You referred to process Education specialises in producing waffly, Sir problems just then. Maybe it would be helpful for the Humphrey answers that provide no useful information Committee to outline the process in your Department at all. I have one in front of me. Shall I give you an from when you receive a question from a Member example, Minister, and perhaps you could comment? to when an answer goes out. What process does it Elizabeth Truss: Yes, go ahead. go through? Hilary Spencer: Yes, I am happy to answer that. At Q10 Mr Gray: This, funnily enough, comes from the point at which the PQ arrives in the Department it someone who was a Minister in the Department until is then—there are two issues with this. We have a PQ recently—Tim Loughton. He tabled this question on tracking system, which is the system that has failed 22 October to ask the Secretary of State which youth and we have taken it out of service from June this projects firstly he, the Secretary of State, and, year. The process that we were following up to that secondly, each Minister of the Department, had visited point was at the point at which a PQ came into the since May 2010. Pretty simple. It is just a list of youth Department, it gets logged electronically; it gets fed opportunities that you have visited in the last two into the system; it is allocated by 10.30 that day to the years. lead drafter and to the responsible deputy director, That was answered on 6 December, a month and a half who has overall responsibility for making sure that the later. Bearing in mind that parliamentary questions are content of the parliamentary question is correct and supposed to be answered within three days, a month timely. They then return that to the parliamentary and a half is not brilliant. It was a very factual branch at midday the next day, and that then is passed question: which youth clubs have you visited in the on to our adviser’s office, which clears all of the last two years? The answer comes back, “Since May parliamentary questions that come into the 2010 the Secretary of State and his ministerial team Department and all the responses that come out of the have visited a wide range of settings and Department. It then goes the following day through to establishments working with and for young people”. one of the Ministers’ offices. Some of our PQs are Either you, Minister, or Hilary—do you think that cleared by two Ministers, depending on which House actually answers the question at all? they go to or which topic they relate to. Elizabeth Truss: I am happy to answer. It perhaps does not go into the level of detail you might expect. Q13 Tom Greatrex: Right. If you had a very straightforward question with a straightforward, Q11 Mr Gray: Minister, you cannot be serious. This factual, simple answer, that could take three days to is not an episode from Yes Minister. The question was go from start to finish? extremely specific. The question was which youth Hilary Spencer: Yes. project has the Secretary of State and other Ministers visited: a very, very specific, factual question. The Q14 Tom Greatrex: That example that Mr Gray answer bears no relationship at all to the question. You say it is short on detail, but there is no detail of any quoted from was six or seven weeks. kind at all. Don’t you think that brings the whole issue Hilary Spencer: Yes. of parliamentary questions into disrepute? Elizabeth Truss: I do not think it does. There is a Q15 Tom Greatrex: In those types of examples, whole continuum of questions the Department gets which bit takes the longest? asked. I agree with you—this is what I was trying to Hilary Spencer: It varies. If it is a very say in my answer, Mr Gray, that I absolutely agree straightforward question, about 40% of our PQs at the with you that that does not go into the level of detail moment are answered on time. In general, they are the that one might expect. most straightforward. Can I just come back on some of the points Hilary Tom Greatrex: It is 18% of the time. has outlined? We do recognise that there is a problem Hilary Spencer: Which statistics are you looking at here and an issue here in the length of time the from there? internal process is taking within the Department. Tom Greatrex: Parliamentary written questions 2010 Essentially, what Hilary is saying is that the to 2012. Department for Education review is all about Hilary Spencer: Yes, so that is the first two years of changing the Department from one where it does go the parliamentary session. That relates to May 2012. through quite a lot of steps in the process to a much At the moment our latest statistics for October were cleaner process that is more focused on outcomes and that 43% of our Commons ordinary written PQs met more focused on getting good responses. the deadline. cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 3
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer
Q16 Tom Greatrex: Which would still be Q23 Chair: But why is the information not furnished significantly worse than every other Department. here? The information is not here. What, they went Hilary Spencer: No, I agree; I am not disputing that. through the diaries, provided who with the I am not disputing the relative performance and I not information, and then a decision was taken not to give saying it is good enough, but I think if 40% of our it to Mr Loughton? PQs were reasonably simple that process does work Hilary Spencer: I am not sure about the details of that reasonably effectively for a straightforward PQ. Some specific one. Can I look into it and provide you with of the delays occur in the process where a request is a report on what happened on this specific PQ? more detailed. The process of trying to get a list of all Chair: Have you finished, Tom? the youth centres that every Minister in the Tom Greatrex: Yes. Department has visited over the last two and a half years involves every diary manager in each of the Q24 Nic Dakin: I think we have all had answers Ministers’ offices tracking back through the diary to from Education similar to this one, which take longer locate it. than they should. I think you recognise the failure in terms of quality standards on that, but then I think we Q17 Mr Gray: The diaries being electronic? would all agree that this does not answer the question. Hilary Spencer: Yes, but it would take— If in seven weeks you have been assembling the list of things and that comes out after seven weeks, okay, it is late but at least the question is answered. It fails Q18 Mr Gray: I cannot think of anything simpler. on the standard of timeliness and fails on the standard That would seem to me to be an incredibly simple of quality of answer. Would you agree? thing to do—go through an electronic diary and state Elizabeth Truss: Yes. when you visited. Apparently, the Minister himself, Tim Loughton, thinks it should be pretty simple. Why Q25 Nic Dakin: I think Tom was trying to tease out is that complicated? Why is that difficult? where the blockages in the system might be. One Hilary Spencer: It is not inherently complicated. It alternative, one possible solution, one possible would take a diary manager about at least two hours explanation might be that it is the political adviser to do an electronic search to check that. area where a blockage lies because there is sensitivity and there is pause there. It is reasonable for us to ask Q19 Tom Greatrex: Not seven weeks? if that is where the blockage is. Can you give us some Hilary Spencer: No, it should not take seven weeks, confirmation or challenge to that test? I agree. Elizabeth Truss: I personally do not have a view. I do not think we have the data on where in the system it Q20 Tom Greatrex: Which bit in those types of has been blocked. questions takes the longest? Is it the bit to get the ministerial sign-off? Is it the bit when the adviser is Q26 Nic Dakin: This has been going on for a couple clearing it? of years. The performance has improved but it is still Hilary Spencer: Well, the truth is it probably varies. the poorest across the whole of Government, but you On some questions, the assembling of the information do not have the information on where it is. I ran a is difficult. In other areas, particularly where college for many years and if I did not have that something is politically more controversial— information at my fingertips in terms of where the obviously, Tim Loughton is a former Minister of the problems were, then I would be quite properly Department—our advisers and Ministers would want criticised by the Department. to be careful about it. But I do not see that that is a Hilary Spencer: Yes, and it is worth saying that there particular reason. Our system has failed. The were significant improvements in the Department’s electronic system has failed and that is causing quite performance between January and April this year, a lot of upheaval. which is when we got much more detailed management information, which did allow us to track to the hour how long different parts of the process Q21 Chair: But given your not answering his very take. simple question—it was an extremely simple question—you must tell us why a decision was taken Q27 Nic Dakin: So you could share that management in the Department not to ask the diary secretaries to information with us? produce the information. Am I right in thinking he has Hilary Spencer: At that point we did. We had it for lodged an FOI for this information now? four months between January and April, then our Hilary Spencer: I am not sure; I do not know about electronic system started having problems in May and that. we have not been able to retrieve the same level of management information since then. I am very happy Q22 Chair: I think he might have. Can you please to share with you the data for the beginning of the just explain to my colleague why a decision was taken year, which does set that out in more detail. within the Department not to ask the diary managers to go through their diaries? Q28 Nic Dakin: I think that might be helpful. The Hilary Spencer: A decision would not have been other thing that strikes me is that if you look at Health, taken. The diary managers would all have been asked which is not a dissimilar area of political activity in to go through the diaries. terms of controversy and so on, Health is performing cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Ev 4 Procedure Committee: Evidence
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer astoundingly well, which is to their credit. I just Q33 Nic Dakin: What are you aiming for? You seem wonder what the Department has done in terms of satisfied—well, not satisfied, but from 18% we are trying to learn from Health’s experience. now talking about 40%, you tell us, although you are Hilary Spencer: Yes, we have. Our parliamentary also saying your management information is not good team has conducted visits to the Department for enough to give total assurance around that. I am just Transport, DFID, DECC, the Ministry of Justice, the interested in what sort of level of performance Department of Health, and DCMS to try to understand improvement you expect to have in the first quarter what they do that enables their performance to be so of 2013. much better. Hilary Spencer: Well, I would hope that we are somewhere between 40% and 50% in January, Q29 Nic Dakin: What has it learnt from those visits? February and March. Hilary Spencer: The key thing we have learned is that most Departments do it in slightly different ways. Q34 Nic Dakin: Which would still put you pretty Some of them have a reasonably large parliamentary much at the bottom of the league, would it not? team who manually go round. They have a big central Hilary Spencer: I agree. I am not claiming that that team that goes round and chases people to make sure would bring our performance to a good standard. I they meet deadlines. There are other teams that have think it would be acceptable. It would be better than better IT systems, which enable more consistent it is now, but it would be disingenuous of me to say tracking. that with no further improvements to our IT we will I hesitate to walk into the area we have covered suddenly be as good as a number of other before, but there are some Departments that give Departments. much shorter answers than other Departments. The Cabinet Office, I think, is an example of one of those. Q35 John Hemming: I have two areas I would like I think a lot of it is to do with the management to look at. One is particularly the question here about information; as you say, management information that what places have people visited. I do not know who allows you to identify at which point the blockage is is the appropriate person to ask there, but given that occurring in the system because then you know what the question is about each Minister and which places to do to tackle it. they visited and given that that information would be available from the electronic diary, would it be Q30 Nic Dakin: You are not convincing me that you accurate to say that none of the diary secretaries have the management information now to address looked up the information? the problem. Hilary Spencer: As I said, I just do not know enough Hilary Spencer: I would not try to. At the moment, I about the details of this particular case. do not think we have because our IT system has failed. Our management committee signed off at the Q36 John Hemming: In other words, you need to board meeting in October the procurement for a new come back on this particular question? IT system, which should be live by Easter 2013. Hilary Spencer: Yes.
Q31 Nic Dakin: So we have another year to go Q37 John Hemming: Obviously, one would presume before we get proper delivery in terms of that at least one person is sufficiently competent parliamentary answers? within the Department to look up a diary and list the Hilary Spencer: Well, I think we will be able to see appointments within the period of time it took to significant improvements faster than a year. The answer the question and that somebody took a specific problems we have had with the system decision not to provide that information. Say it comes collapsing in May and June were that we had no from a diary secretary and the diary secretary management information and we have been running it produces the information. Where does it go next? off a manual system. That was a crisis measure while Hilary Spencer: If it is something that relates to we tried to fix the system. Ministers’ diaries, the collation of that would then go We have concluded that as the system currently to the principal private secretary as the senior civil stands, it is not possible to fix it and we have looked servant in charge of private office. at the options of importing IT systems from other Government Departments that have worked more Q38 John Hemming: It goes to the principal private effectively. Our conclusion has been that we cannot secretary. Does it go to anyone else? do that, but in the meantime we have strengthened Hilary Spencer: The principal private secretary would the manual process. We have put extra staff into the be responsible for clearing the accuracy of the parliamentary team to try to cope with that so that information and making sure that the overall— where we cannot do things electronically we have at least a bit more human resource into trying to fix the Q39 John Hemming: Once the principal private system. secretary has looked at it, does it just get then sent to the House? Q32 Nic Dakin: Final question from me, then. What Hilary Spencer: No, the process I outlined in response sort of level of performance would you expect to have to an earlier question—it then goes on to our advisers between January and March next year? and to the Minister’s office before it goes back to the Hilary Spencer: Between January and March? House. cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 5
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer
Q40 John Hemming: It goes to an adviser, so John Hemming: A lack of willingness to share basically somewhere on that point if any information information. It seems quite clear. was provided to start out with and it has been stopped, who would be likely to have stopped it? Q43 Helen Goodman: On 1 November, I put down Hilary Spencer: I am reluctant to say more about this a question to the Secretary of State to ask which when I am not completely sure of my facts. newspaper and other media proprietors, editors and senior executives he has met since 1 July 2012. I am Q41 John Hemming: Without investigating the sure the Minister will recall this because she sent me individual question. the answer on Monday 10 December. The answer was There is another issue I would like you to go away that the Secretary of State had met the following and look at as well. I had a real battle with the media executives since 1 July 2012: in July, Anne Department that involved lots of references to the McElvoy of The Economist; in July, Louise Rogers, Procedure Committee about two years ago when the the TES; in August, David Wooding of The Sun;in Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was, in fact, October, Gary O’Donoghue and Vicki Young of the in office. A lot of it related to what is happening to BBC; and in October, John Micklethwait, Joel Budd children in care. and James Astill, The Economist. There was a further There is a thing called the SSDA903 return. I accept sentence in the answer that the Minister signed off: that that is the specific responsibility of the Member “This does not include media executives who may for Crewe and Nantwich, but it is still the Education have been in attendance at lunches or events also Department. We got a compromise where I would e- attended by the Secretary of State”. Do you think that mail backwards and forwards with the statisticians, that was a complicated question to answer? because I had been previously banned from talking to Elizabeth Truss: No. the statisticians under the previous Government. But because I understand how the database works I know Q44 Helen Goodman: Why do you think that it took the questions to ask. six weeks to get an answer? My concern about it is that a number of children are Elizabeth Truss: Well, I think we are back to this lost by local authorities each year. That includes process question here, which is that as a Minister toddlers who are lost; 180 babies that leave the system signing off the question I see the end of the process and nobody knows where they go. I just wonder but not the whole process. I completely agree with whether the acceptance of that by the Department for what Hilary is saying about absolutely we need proper Education would be seen as complacent—that information about each leg in that process. At the children disappear from the care system for other moment, it is a black box and that is not ideal. What reasons and we do not know where they have gone. we are saying here first of all is that the Department There is an equivalent system in American called is having an overall review of its processes, which is AFCARS, which tracks children that run away. Now, the DfE review, which is all about having a more a baby running away is a bit difficult, really. I just efficient Department that is focused on outcomes and wonder whether you think that is reasonable. proper processes. Hilary Spencer: I am trying to compute the bit of my At the moment, more broadly than PQs, my brain that has been geared up to talk about PQs with observation as a Minister is things are going through this specific question. more processes than they need to. Certainly at DfE boards I feed that into the Permanent Secretary, who Q42 John Hemming: It is about the issue of is overall responsible for the efficient working and accountability. My worry about it is that the running of the Department. I think as you can hear Department is complacent about accountability in from Hilary and my responses, there certainly is not general. Now, obviously, these things I was handling complacency at the DfE. We absolutely recognise this through parliamentary questions and we got a is not what it should be. We are asking other compromise when there were so many things flying organisations in the education world to be efficient around that we would handle it through e-mails and we want to be efficient as well, which is why the directly rather than through parliamentary questions. I DfE review is being conducted, which is why we are wonder if you could come back with a detailed written sourcing this new IT system. Absolutely I would love response from the Department as to whether it is to have the management information on the process reasonable to have children completely disappear that question went through and how long the stages from the care system and not know what has happened are, but I am afraid I do not. to them. Chair: John, I hear where you are coming from, but Q45 Helen Goodman: I must say I am sure you we are here to talk about PQs. would love to have the management information, but John Hemming: Well, it is all a question of I think that the idea that questions cannot be answered accountability. These were PQs at one stage and I swiftly and people cannot do what they need to do have asked these in PQs as well, so it is relevant. because you do not have an adequate tracking system But it comes down to this question of process and does not entirely hold water. accountability and whether the Department is Elizabeth Truss: I did not just say the tracking complacent in the sense that it does not matter system, by the way; I said the process as well. whether or not you answer questions. Chair: There is a lack of willingness to share Q46 Helen Goodman: The process. I asked the same information. question to four other Departments. They all replied cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Ev 6 Procedure Committee: Evidence
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer within five days, not the six weeks that it took the Q53 Helen Goodman: Now, an agreement on the Department for Education. How can it possibly be that size of administrative cuts is the responsibility of your process is so complicated that it takes seven Ministers. It is not the responsibility of officials. It times as long in your Department as it does in four is Ministers who undertake the negotiations with the other Departments? Treasury. I would like to ask the Minister whether she Elizabeth Truss: What I am saying is that there is believes that if there is a 50% reduction in resource it clearly a problem with the process, which needs to be is likely that the Department’s efficiency with respect improved. Absolutely. to handling PQs and correspondence from parliamentarians will improve, stay the same or get Q47 Helen Goodman: There is one problem here worse. that is about time. The other, which we have surfaced Elizabeth Truss: Well, I think we have to improve. I but I want to ask you a little bit more about, is content. think that Parliament is due answers in a much shorter We have here a list of people whom the Secretary of timeframe than we have been doing as a Department. State met and then a general disclaimer, “This does I think that is imperative. One of the issues I pointed not include media executives who may have been in out with the process, which as discussed has more of attendance at lunches or events also attended by the a black-box element than I would like at the moment, Secretary of State”. Do you think that he will have is that it is going through a lot of stages. met more media executives at lunches and events in I think we need to simplify things and make them that time than had formal meetings? more efficient—and that is a general point about the Elizabeth Truss: I honestly do not know. Department and the way we use IT, the way we deal with correspondence. It is a classic case of process re- Q48 Helen Goodman: Because I can think of engineering that needs to happen across the board. I seeing photographs— do think that the problems we have at the moment are Elizabeth Truss: It sounds like Hilary does know. not caused by a lack of resources, financial or human. The problem we have at the moment is not having a Q49 Helen Goodman: I have seen photographs of clear process that is properly tracked and understood. the Secretary of State at media events with media That is the issue. Just can I— executives in the newspapers. For example, I have seen a photograph of him at The Spectator lunch. I Q54 Chair: I will let you ask one more question and think it is pretty clear that there will have been a large then we will bring someone else in. number of people. Do you think that this answer is Helen Goodman: One more question. sufficiently forthcoming to make parliamentary Elizabeth Truss: Oh, I was just going to reply to— accountability meaningful? Chair: Okay, finish your answer, Minister, sorry, and Hilary Spencer: I think I can probably help explain then one more question, Helen. why the question was answered in this particular way. Elizabeth Truss: I was just going to reply to a The searches I was talking about earlier, when we previous question. The negotiations with the Treasury have a specific request about who a Minister has met, are not my specific responsibility within the the information that is contained in the diary invitation Department, so I cannot really answer you on that on the electronic system will say, “Minister meeting point. with XYZ”. They will be named in there, which is how you would do a search on it. It is unlikely that— Q55 Helen Goodman: Okay. We have heard that initially a question goes to the policy area or the Q50 Mr Gray: Even though it did not, but person responsible for the issue under question. theoretically it could have done, yes. Obviously, it has to be finally sent off to a Minister, Elizabeth Truss: It was in this case. by definition. There are two other processes in Hilary Spencer: But it is unlikely that the electronic between that: going to the parliamentary unit and bits in the calendar would also have a list of all going to special advisers. If one is looking for other attendees. shortening the process, presumably it is the two middle points where things can be shortened. You Q51 Helen Goodman: You have said that you are cannot really shorten it at the beginning or at the end. reviewing your processes and you want to become a Elizabeth Truss: No, I would not necessarily agree more efficient Department. with that because I think one of the issues is it can go Hilary Spencer: When you say “you”, that is the to multiple policy officials. One of the changes in the Permanent Secretary’s role and that is what he is DfE review is to have a more flexible, multifunctional working on at the moment. That is the whole purpose approach rather than having officials working on of the DfE review. absolutely micro areas of the portfolio.
Q52 Helen Goodman: Okay. Ministers have taken Q56 Helen Goodman: Well, that may be so but— decisions to reduce the amount of resource they are Elizabeth Truss: The idea is if you could have better putting into running costs in the Department for accessible information and a more flexible structure, Education, have they not? Could you just remind the then that enables you to do things more quickly rather Committee what percentage cuts in running costs your than a process that goes to multiple people, which it Department has agreed with the Treasury? does at the moment. I think the point is in the process Hilary Spencer: Yes, we have agreed a 50% cut in our Hilary outlined there are sub-layers to that process, administration budget from May 2010 to May 2015. which is what is taking the time. It does not just go to cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 7
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer one policy person and then on to one parliamentary Q63 Martin Vickers: Indeed, but are your officials person. It is going round. and advisers under instruction to be as helpful and Helen Goodman: That may be so in some cases, but open and transparent as possible? in the example I have given you it can only have gone Elizabeth Truss: Yes. to the Secretary of State’s diary secretary. There is nowhere else in the Department where it can have Q64 John Hemming: I apologise because I need to gone. I do not have any further questions. go another Select Committee— Chair: Right. I know lots of colleagues want to get Chair: Martin, I will come back to you. in, but I will take them in order. John Hemming: I think to assist the Committee, it might be best if the Department simply provided a Q57 Martin Vickers: I think it has already been copy of all the correspondence and e-mails relating to mentioned. In your opening remarks, “culture” was the answering of this question. Is there any problem the word that you used. I am sure it is the culture of with that? your Department and every Government Department, Hilary Spencer: I do not think so. I will check. if they were asked, that they would say, “Yes, we want to be as open and transparent as possible”. Would you Q65 John Hemming: If you do that, then we can agree that if we take the example of the question that understand exactly who provided what information to we have been talking about—I am sure there are whom and how it was edited. That seems a very hundreds of others we could point to—if we assume simple solution because that way we will understand that the Minister himself did not approve that answer, why a very simple, straightforward question ends up then either the special adviser or the official clearly with a nonsense answer. That is a very good solution. does not understand the culture of openness and I apologise because I need to go. transparency? Chair: Martin, back to you? Elizabeth Truss: Which question are you referring to? Martin Vickers: No, it is okay. Q66 Mr Nuttall: Where does one start? First of all, Q58 Martin Vickers: Well, I was referring can I ask a really straightforward, simple question? specifically to the one that we have been talking Would I be right in thinking that all the staff within about, the reply about visits to youth projects. the DfE are able to communicate with each other by Elizabeth Truss: I think the point is that we need to e-mail? investigate the details of how that question went Hilary Spencer: Yes. through the process because we do not know. Q67 Mr Nuttall: They can. They are all on an e-mail Q59 Martin Vickers: But would you accept that system and they can all communicate by e-mail—very whoever approved that answer was unaware that you simple, good. Consequently, presumably, assuming wanted to be as open and transparent and helpful as that the system works on a daily basis, there is no possible? Would he or she have been under ministerial delay in one member of staff being able to talk to instruction to be as helpful or as unhelpful as another member of staff? Send them an e-mail and possible? they either ignore it or they reply? Hilary Spencer: Again, I am really wary of giving Hilary Spencer: Yes, I guess, subject to other things you misleading information by not being on top of that they are doing, but yes. the detail. Q68 Mr Nuttall: Well, subject to other things, but Q60 Martin Vickers: Well, I am not asking that is the truth, isn’t it? They get the e-mail; they specifically about this question; I am just using that read it, they either respond there and then or they wait. as an example. Is it ministerial instructions to special We are told by the Secretary of State in a letter to the advisers and officials to be as open and transparent Chairman on 17 November that the previous IT as possible? system collapsed. Could you just explain to me Elizabeth Truss: Absolutely. because I do not quite understand? I could understand how a building collapses; I am not quite sure how an IT system collapses. Could you explain how it Q61 Martin Vickers: And informative? So whoever collapsed to my very simple brain? What happened? approved this was not aware? How did it collapse? Elizabeth Truss: We want to be informative in the Hilary Spencer: Yes, I can do. That is referring to answers that we give to our questions. February 2011, is that right? That is that reply?
Q62 Martin Vickers: It would appear that some Q69 Mr Nuttall: It said since June 2012. officials or advisers are not aware that that is your Hilary Spencer: Yes. So, as I said at the beginning, intention. there have been two points where the PQ system has Elizabeth Truss: We do not know the cause of how failed. One was February 2011 and the other one was that answer has come into being. That is the point I in June 2012. You are right; “collapse” does sound am making. We do not know what happened to result like a building metaphor so perhaps we could think in that answer. That is a question we do not have the about our drafting on some of that. answer to. I think Hilary has already committed that Basically, what we have had is a freestanding PQ she is going to come back with the details of that. system that does not interact with our e-mail system. cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Ev 8 Procedure Committee: Evidence
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer
It is a contact record management system where instances it is harder because it means you cannot see things are logged electronically and are then where things are at different points in the system transmitted. In order to access a PQ, you as a drafter, because it is all happening through people’s inboxes. someone who is trying to write the responses, would The new system that we are procuring will be fully need to log into the system to get what the PQ is and integrated with Outlook. We have learnt the lessons then draft your answer in the system, close it, save it. from that and the new system should do that. It would then get sent to your manager or the deputy Chair: One last question. director for approval and then, once they had approved it, it would then get sent electronically Q77 Mr Nuttall: One last question. Okay, I will try through this internal system to the parliamentary team to phrase it as one. and so on and so on through then the rest of the Chair: It can be a long question. process. That system stopped working. Mr Nuttall: It is all to do with WPQs, though obviously there are two sorts of WPQs: ordinary and Q70 Mr Nuttall: Right. It stopped working. named day. So far in this session we have not really Hilary Spencer: Yes. explored in what way the Department prioritises named-day questions. It seems to be that we have only Q71 Mr Nuttall: I am still not quite sure why it ever heard of one process, and yet I would have stopped working. Presumably— thought that the fact that when a Member puts in a Hilary Spencer: If I knew that, I would have fixed it. named-day question they are expecting a speedier answer, that somehow there must be some sort of Q72 Mr Nuttall: Did the IT people just say, “That is expedited system within the Department that will it, the system has shut down” and all the information result in a faster answer being given. on it was lost? Although looking at the statistics, which show that Hilary Spencer: No. It started first having some initial named-day questions were only 1% behind those of problems in April, which our IT team manager fixed. an ordinary written question, it appears that there is It is a system built by Capgemini. In May they sent no prioritisation at all. In fact, it seems to be that, in a number of people to try to help us restore the according to this PQ performance chart, ordinary system. The intention was to try to fix the system. written questions were 18% on time; named-day They put in some temporary solutions, which did questions were 17% on time. You were probably restore it a little bit. The specific problems that better off— occurred in it were that it was taking a huge amount Hilary Spencer: That is a proportion of how on time of time to download the questions when they first they are. came in. Things were taking two hours to get into the Elizabeth Truss: Yes. That is referring to the overall system per question to download. statistics— Q73 Mr Nuttall: Excellent. That brings me back to Q78 Mr Nuttall: Yes, I am sure you are going to tell my original point, because you can see where this is me that things have improved. I hope so. going, can’t you? Hilary Spencer: They have. I can give you the Hilary Spencer: No, I agree. statistics. Q74 Mr Nuttall: If I was an operative there, I would Q79 Mr Nuttall: say, “Well, this system is rubbish, but I will tell you What are the latest figures? what, I am just going to send them an e-mail”. Hilary Spencer: For October, Commons named-day Hilary Spencer: That is indeed the system we are now PQs were 22% on time and Commons ordinary operating. It is our emergency system. written were 43% on time. That does not really help me address the question that you asked, though, does Q75 Mr Nuttall: We established at the outset that an it? Almost the contrary. e-mail more or less goes instantaneously to the new person. Q80 Chair: I will say, Ms Spencer, you are doing Hilary Spencer: Yes. very well. I genuinely mean that because I think this is difficult and I think you are taking it with good grace. Q76 Mr Nuttall: I am not quite sure—an e-mail is Hilary Spencer: Right. instantaneous—why when this new IT system comes Chair: We will come back to this at the end just on board it will be any faster than sending somebody where we take this, because I suspect this will not be an e-mail. the last time we have a brush with the Department for Hilary Spencer: Because it will be integrated with Education unless things improve dramatically. Outlook so it will be exactly the same system. You are completely right. It was a system that was Q81 Jacob Rees-Mogg: Minister, thank you for procured before I took over responsibility for this. It coming in. It seems to be a splendid chance, good does not work. It is not functional. It has had two fortune, that the improvement in the Ministry’s major malfunctions, which have rendered large parts performance coincides with your arriving there, which of it inoperable. It does not work. It is not fit for allows me to get on to the issue of ministerial purpose and so we are operating at the moment on a responsibility. It seems to me that this is an area where system where we are using e-mails. It is proving in officials are valiant but it is actually a fundamental some instances easier for people to use it. In other part of a Minister’s responsibility to Parliament and, cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 9
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer therefore, process is not particularly relevant. It is Just doing some very simple maths, there were 4,398 day-to-day ministerial responsibility. ordinary questions. That is 15 per sitting day in the My first question is about how important you as a first two years. There are what, five Ministers? That Minister feel accountability to Parliament is in your is three per day per Minister. overall role. Is it the most important part of your role? Elizabeth Truss: Yes, although the distribution is not Is it secondary to being a servant of the Crown? Is it equal between Ministers and I sign off a fair few of third to being a political figure? Where do you put them. being accountable to Parliament in your role? Elizabeth Truss: I think it is very important. Q87 Jacob Rees-Mogg: I appreciate that, but this is only per sitting day and Ministers obviously work on Q82 Jacob Rees-Mogg: You think it is very other days as well. It is not an unmanageable amount important? for a Minister to know on day one and to take charge Elizabeth Truss: Can I just comment on the process, of the process. The process, yes, of course, the writing though? I think the issue here, which we have gone of the answers, the checking of diaries, is something into, is that at the moment the process does not work to be done by the civil servants. The accountability to as it should. That is not just the IT process. Clearly, Parliament is the job of the Minister and, therefore, to officials are manually intervening in running a process ensure that the job is being done is the job of the that there is not visibility of. As a Minister, I do not Minister. I just wonder whether you as a new necessarily have the information I would need. Minister—you are not at fault for what has happened Absolutely I want things to happen on time, but in in the period we are really looking at—were now to terms of why they are not happening on time, that take complete charge of the questions that came to information is not available to me. I would point out you, you could conceivably show your colleagues that in terms of the administration of the Department how it could be done. that is very clearly the responsibility of the Permanent Elizabeth Truss: Well, that is absolutely right. You Secretary. Ministers do not have the power to hire and have said that there is a distribution between the fire, as you are well aware, in the British system. Ministers. As I say, the distribution is not equal by any stretch of the imagination, so I would find myself Q83 Jacob Rees-Mogg: I am well aware. At what probably looking at rather more than 15 a day. The point do you know that a parliamentary question is issue here, though, is who is responsible for managing your responsibility? processes in the Department. Because there is one Elizabeth Truss: When it arrives on my desk to sign thing about the style, the fact that I want the questions off. that I answer to be open and transparent and give full information and be properly on time. That is Q84 Jacob Rees-Mogg: Okay. Is it up to you as a absolutely a ministerial responsibility and that is what Minister to say that when a question comes in that is I have said to the Permanent Secretary that I want to in your area of responsibility it should be brought to see. Likewise on correspondence, which you may be your attention as soon as it is in Hansard? Or could aware the Department also has an issue about. New you, in fact, look in Hansard to see if any of the Ministers have been very clear that we also want to questions belong to you as a Minister? see improvements on that front. Elizabeth Truss: I do not know how I would gain a However, if a Minister tries to manage every single front-end view of the process, really. process that is going on, whether it is the answering Hilary Spencer: Yes. The way the system and its of parliamentary questions or policymaking processes, broken bones are working at the minute, we could the critical thing is the machine has to work. Fixing build— the machine is critical to making this work because Elizabeth Truss: That would be extremely helpful then Ministers can have proper oversight of the information, Jacob. You are telling me it is in process. I would completely agree with you, Jacob, Hansard. that it would be very helpful for me to see, to be able to monitor exactly which questions have come in that Q85 Jacob Rees-Mogg: It is in Hansard every day. relate to my area. Sorry, it is in the questions book. It is on the Order Sometimes it is not obviously clear which area the Paper every day. Every day you can see that there are questions are in and sometimes they can be in multiple questions and for which ministry. You will know as a areas as well, as we have seen with the question about Minister whether they are in your area of youth visits. It has to be a departmentally managed responsibility or not. What really puzzles me is that process. It has to be under the responsibility of the these rotten answers that come—I quite understand Permanent Secretary, but absolutely Ministers have to how a Minister six weeks late will sign off a question have much better information about what is happening because you must at that point feel it is better to say and what is going through the process. We have just something than go back to the beginning of the had a board meeting of the DfE board where we have process and be three months late. been through all this because at present the Elizabeth Truss: That might be correct, yes. information—let us be clear, it is the responsibility of officials to provide that information to Ministers. We Q86 Jacob Rees-Mogg: I would have thought that as have to operate over a number of areas, all of which a Minister you would want to know the day a question are extremely important. is down that it is your responsibility, which means you I absolutely believe in accountability to Parliament. I can then say to your officials, “Where is the answer?” do not think the performance is good enough and I cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Ev 10 Procedure Committee: Evidence
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer want to see an improvement in PQs and other factors about the DfE review is that there is correspondence, but also we have to make sure that going to be more effort to focus on ministerial we get things like the National Curriculum out by the priorities, which I think is absolutely critical. time we have said we will get it out. Lots of different We are working on all those things, Jacob. In my view, processes to manage and it is the responsibility in the the answer is not to give answers that would not be British system of the independent Civil Service to proper answers. A lot of the questions are quite manage those processes. Yes, I need to have technically detailed, so it is how many academies and information about it, but to actually take charge of free schools were set up in this particular borough. It managing every single part of the Department would is not the kind of thing that I can summon up. require me to become a civil servant, which I am not. Q92 Chair: With the greatest of respect, Minister, Q88 Jacob Rees-Mogg: I think there is a difference how many academies were established in the borough with things in Parliament and things outside of Broxbourne could be done, as my colleague Mr Parliament. The implementation of the National Nuttall said, with a simple phone call. None of this is Curriculum—the policy decision is yours; the rocket science. implementation is the Civil Service’s. As far as Elizabeth Truss: I personally— Parliament is concerned, an answer that has your Chair: No, you could not do it, but— name on it and a question that comes to you is entirely Elizabeth Truss: I can tell you, Mr Walker, that I your responsibility. If that question— would not know who to phone to get the answer to Elizabeth Truss: That is not entirely so. Ministers are that question. ultimately accountable— Chair: That is because they are keeping you in the dark. Q89 Jacob Rees-Mogg: They are accountable—and very directly, for what they say or write to Parliament. Q93 Jacob Rees-Mogg: Minister—the reason I Elizabeth Truss: Absolutely, which is why I sign it would encourage you to do this. If you started giving off. some answers that had not been through all this beastly process and gave them on time, that might gird Q90 Jacob Rees-Mogg: You could, if you wanted to, the civil servants who are not giving the answers, and take every question that came in that you thought was perhaps some other people involved, into action for you and do a manuscript answer and give it in to because they would prefer to get their answers out on the Table Office. You would be constitutionally time rather than have your perhaps more absolutely correct. You cannot put it off to process. independently-minded answers appearing rather The Civil Service may be letting you down, but this earlier. Sometimes taking what is your responsibility is so fundamentally ministerial responsibility. into your own hands may be a way of forcing the Elizabeth Truss: But take the question about which system to work. youth projects have Ministers visited in the last six Elizabeth Truss: I think we need to terminate this months. That is not a question that I could give a session before I get too much encouragement, Mr manuscript answer to unless I was making it up. Chairman.
Q91 Jacob Rees-Mogg: You could have said, Q94 Mr Gray: I want to focus on one little part of Minister, how many you have visited and allowed the process, if I may. First of all, Minister, do you your other ministerial colleagues—it could have been accept that parliamentary questions by definition must answered by every Minister individually, which might be absolutely factual and must be replied absolutely have been the easiest way to do it. factually? Elizabeth Truss: But if you multiply that—because Elizabeth Truss: Well, there are different ways of we have said there are 15 questions per sitting day— giving a factual answer. Obviously, they should not be Jacob Rees-Mogg: You might get a few more but fictitious so what is— it is— Elizabeth Truss:—and let us say, for example, that I Q95 Mr Gray: No, the distinction is not between might do twice as many or three times as many as facts and fiction. The distinction is between facts and that. There is a proper way of managing things, which opinion. Parliamentary questions by definition, under all other Departments manage. This is not some pie in the law of the land, must be factual. the sky idea that is not possible. As has been pointed Elizabeth Truss: Yes, in which case I agree with out by members of this Committee, DCMS, the that, yes. Department of Health, manage to answer parliamentary questions on time without having to Q96 Mr Gray: If I ask a factual question, you may have the process you are suggesting. only answer it factually. You may not put your opinion I think it is important to get the answers on time, but there. You may not spin it. You must answer the I do not think that means that Ministers should take factual question I have asked factually. Do you accept up the role that is properly the role of civil servants, that is the case? which is making the process work. I am absolutely Elizabeth Truss: Yes. responsible for the content of the answer; I completely understand that. I am also responsible, with the Q97 Mr Gray: Right. Given that is the case, a Secretary of State, for making sure that the moment ago—perhaps I could turn to Hilary—you Department is prioritising the right things. One of the said that one of the hold-ups was that some of the cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 11
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer questions are politically more controversial and they Hilary Spencer: Well, it is reasonably standard may take longer. What did you mean by that? practice across Whitehall for parliamentary questions Hilary Spencer: In some instances, where a Member to go to advisers. has asked a question about something that is shortly to be announced, then there is the provision to hold Q103 Mr Gray: It was not when I was a special off, or a commitment that a Minister needs to make adviser. I never saw a PQ once. Why do the special announcements to the House first, but it is reasonable advisers see PQs? not to— Hilary Spencer: Partly to make sure that they are consistent. They are a point in the process. Our special Q98 Mr Gray: That is not political. A reasonable adviser would see all of the parliamentary questions. delay is fine if some announcement is to be made, but They would make sure that they were consistent in that is not politically more—the word you used was terms of a response that came out of the Department “controversial”. You said very often questions can be in a way that there is not an official who does exactly delayed because they are politically more the same thing because they— controversial. What sort of question might be Mr Gray: Consistent? politically more controversial? Hilary Spencer: I will try to think of a reasonable Q104 Chair: But you said the Permanent Secretary example of this. had total oversight. What is the Permanent Secretary’s involvement with the special adviser—a political Q99 Chair: Can I help you here? appointment? Hilary Spencer: Do. Hilary Spencer: I am not quite sure I understand that.
Q100 Chair: I think you have drawn the short straw. Q105 Chair: In answering the questions, the Minister The reason they are controversial is that a special and yourself, the Minister said the Permanent adviser gets involved and holds the whole process up. Secretary has oversight for the running of the Can you explain to Mr Gray and the Committee what Department and the process. I was not aware that your relationship is with the special adviser and special advisers reported to Permanent Secretaries, so perhaps, Minister, you could talk about the role of the Permanent Secretary does not— the special advisers in answering questions. Because I Elizabeth Truss: No, they advise Ministers. think it is a little unfair that you are having to cover for the political practices within your Department. Q106 Chair: But the special adviser is part of the You talk about the role of the special adviser and then process, so how can the Permanent Secretary have the Minister will talk about the political role of the overall responsibility for the process if the special special adviser in answering ministerial questions. adviser, by your own admission, is part of the process? Hilary Spencer: Yes. I suppose this question about What we are trying to get at is it seems to me that the what is politically controversial or not, some of it is special adviser is part of the problem here. What do to do with the content of the question that is asked. you do, for example, when the special adviser puts a Some questions are asked by Members of Parliament red line through a part of a question? Does he send it that are completely factual and are asked in that spirit. back to you or does he send it to the Permanent I think we all know that is the case. I think there are Secretary, the Minister? When a special adviser some questions that come in from Members of the redlines a question, as they do, what then happens? House that are intended to achieve some sort of What do you do when that happens? political effect or obtain some sort of information that Hilary Spencer: As I outlined the process, a senior could be used for political purposes. civil servant would sign off the draft of the parliamentary question in their area, including the Q101 Mr Gray: Well, they are all used for political background note, and that would then go back to the purposes, but they are factual. Every single question parliamentary team and then on to an adviser. has a political purpose behind it, of course it does. For example, you would not be allowed to put down a Q107 Chair: An adviser or special adviser? question that would say, “Would you agree the Hilary Spencer: It could be either. Conservative Party has wrecked education?” That would be controversial; you cannot do that. Q108 Chair: What is an adviser? Hilary Spencer: No, I agree. Hilary Spencer: We have policy advisers in the Department. Q102 Mr Gray: All you can ask for is the number of schools and visits. These are factual questions. Q109 Chair: Are they a political appointment? How could they not be answered factually? What the Hilary Spencer: No, they are short term. Chairman is getting at, and I think he is absolutely right, is if I am right—I am right because the rules of Q110 Chair: Who are they? the House are absolutely plain: you can only ask a Hilary Spencer: They are senior Civil Service factual question and it must be answered factually. If appointments. that is the case, why do they go to special advisers at all? What role does a special adviser have in Q111 Chair: Right. When do they go to the special answering a factual question? adviser? cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Ev 12 Procedure Committee: Evidence
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer
Hilary Spencer: Each day the advisers’ support office, discussion, no explanation, just factual answers to the advisers’ private office, has a list of all the factual questions—surely it could be argued that the parliamentary questions that they are being asked to special adviser whose job it is to provide a political clear, and they will decide between them, quite often insight into something—the special adviser job is to depending on workload and who is available that day. provide those things that civil servants are not allowed to do because they are political. Surely that means that Q112 Chair: But what happens when a red line is we are moving into a position in which the put through part of an answer? Does it get sent back parliamentary questions are becoming not factual but or does it just go out? political. Hilary Spencer: In truth, it depends what they have Elizabeth Truss: I do not think that it is that easy to put a red line through. If they have put a red line draw the line between fact and things like policy, through an apostrophe or a comma or there is some which are what the Minister plans to do on something, grammatical change, obviously it will just get changed for example. It could be a question on whether the by their office and that will go straight on. Sometimes Government plan to remove this special allowance or they ask for more information to be included, and if something like that. Now, either the Minister is they do that then it will go back to the drafting team. planning to do that or not planning to do that, but that is a policy decision. Q113 Chair: What happens when they ask for less There is not a clear line on those things. The questions information to be included? that you highlighted earlier are very much factual Hilary Spencer: It depends on what type of questions, but there are other questions that are asking information they are asking to be removed. If the for a policy position, in which case I think it is information they are removing changes the factual basis of the answer that has been signed off by a perfectly proper that a special adviser should advise a senior civil servant, it would go back to that senior Minister—because, let’s face it, there is quite a lot of civil servant so they can guarantee its factual policy—on what the position might be on that accuracy. particular policy.
Q114 Mr Gray: I want to ask the Minister about this, Q118 Mr Gray: There may be some. There may be if I may. What added value do you think the special some delicate and sensitive parliamentary questions adviser places on a PQ? What is the purpose of the that require the special adviser’s very clever, special adviser seeing a PQ answer? politically astute, sophisticated input. That would be Elizabeth Truss: I just wanted to—because you are something for the Minister to ask the special adviser asking the question. to have a look at—“Have you seen this one? Have a Mr Gray: No, no. Answer the question. look at this and let me know what you feel about that”. Elizabeth Truss: It is the same answer. I am honestly That would be a perfectly reasonable thing to do. answering your question. You ask why the Permanent What we are talking about here is that every single Secretary does not appoint the special adviser. No, the parliamentary question is going through a special special adviser is there as an adviser to the Minister. adviser. I am a former special adviser and I have been That is the point. That is why they are involved in there. I know they are bigger and more important now the process. than they were when I was doing it, but he is sitting there with one secretary. Piles and piles and piles of Q115 Mr Gray: Yes, precisely. The special adviser’s parliamentary questions come through. We have job is to— heard—we are told anecdotally—that the blockage in Elizabeth Truss: As Mr Rees-Mogg has outlined, the the system is because special advisers are sitting on Minister has to be happy with the answer to the them. Is that true? question and they have to answer the question. We Hilary Spencer: I think it would be unfair to say that talked about fact and not fact earlier, but if the the special advisers are the cause of the blockages in question is what is the Government’s policy on this the whole system. issue—let us say that this is a matter on which the Elizabeth Truss: There are a lot of issues, and I have Government has never opined before. alluded to this earlier, in assembling the information from the policy teams. Q116 Mr Gray: Then it would not be a PQ. That would not be an allowable PQ. Elizabeth Truss: No, there can be. It is very Q119 Mr Gray: No, you cannot get away with a load interesting you should say that. of waffle around the thing. Let us stick with this question about the special advisers. You think they are Q117 Mr Gray: Hang on a minute; I do want to not the blockage. How quickly would you— focus now. You are not answering the questions I am Hilary Spencer: I think probably sometimes they are putting to you at all. a blockage in a way that sometimes, even when our I do not understand why it should be that in recent system works on e-mail, if it is sent to someone and years—it did not used to happen when I was a special they are out of the office or they do not read it and adviser—special advisers have become involved in they are not in a meeting, that might also be a the parliamentary question system. If you accept that blockage. All I am saying is I think it is perfectly parliamentary questions are factual questions possible that the advisers are at points a blockage, but demanding factual answers—no spin involved, no so, too, are a number of other things. cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 13
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer
Q120 Mr Gray: Let us be clear about this. How PQs. This is an issue with correspondence as well and quickly would you expect the special adviser to clear overall systems and processes within the Department. a PQ? Hilary Spencer: The process I outlined at the Q128 Chair: Do special advisers see correspondence beginning—a five-day process that allows us to before you sign it off? answer things within the parliamentary timetable is Hilary Spencer: Not generally. that they clear it within 24 hours. Elizabeth Truss: Sometimes. Sometimes, because it is a different issue but I also take correspondence from Q121 Mr Gray: Quite clearly they do not. Some of parliamentary colleagues very seriously and want to these questions have taken two or three months. get back to people as quickly as possible with a good Elizabeth Truss: That is not necessarily that they were answer. I do not think it is satisfactory, and other sitting in the special adviser’s office. Ministers do not think it is satisfactory, when Hilary Spencer: That assumes that all other bits of correspondence is not completed in a reasonable the process work perfectly. timeframe as well. There is a general issue that the Permanent Secretary has very recently identified about Q122 Mr Gray: Not necessarily, but I am just asking the overall processes in dealing with these kinds of whether it was or not. If what you are saying is that issues within the Department. the Department is taking three months to answer these questions and you can guarantee—and it is all on the Q129 John Hemming: There is a database that record. We are broadcasting here. This is a records the parliamentary questions asked, all of them, parliamentary inquiry. You are saying that delay that and whether they have been answered or not. Do you we are looking into, PQs taking three months, you are make any use of that database? guaranteeing to us formally as evidence before Hilary Spencer: I am sure the parliamentary team Parliament—it is not your opinion; it is evidence— does. that the special advisers are not delaying PQs in the Department for Education at all. Is that right? Q130 John Hemming: I am just thinking that if you Hilary Spencer: I am not saying they are not delaying can get access to this you can get a list of all the it at all. I think I have been quite clear about that. I questions that have not been answered by your am saying it is highly likely there are points where Department and somebody can then go through it and the special advisers delay things in their office for say, “Well, those ones are a bit old”. It is not that reasons as much of administration as anything else, difficult, is it? as, too, do other parts of the Department. Hilary Spencer: No, and also our internal system would allow us to do that. When it is functioning, it Q123 Mr Gray: A moment ago you said they do ought to be able to. it in 24 hours. Are you saying that sometimes they do not? Q131 John Hemming: All I am saying is there is a Elizabeth Truss: No, that is the ideal. system that functions today that you could use and I Hilary Spencer: I said that is the expectation—that am just suggesting you might try to use it, that is all. they do it within 24 hours. Hilary Spencer: Yes, and I think the parliamentary team has explored that. Again, I will refer that. Q124 Mr Gray: So how long does it take? Q132 John Hemming: “Explored” meaning what? It Hilary Spencer: It varies. Sometimes they do them is there. It works at the moment, as far as I know. It within two hours, sometimes longer. might be a useful thing to respond to the Committee on, on the basis that you have looked at it, used it. It Q125 Tom Greatrex: Minister, you have made clear is on the intranet and it just says which questions have your view of who is responsible for the process, but not been answered by the Department, so you could just in terms of your role, when you get given an just find out. answer to sign off you are presumably aware of the Elizabeth Truss: Yes. date when the question was tabled? Elizabeth Truss: Yes. Q133 Martin Vickers: Hilary, a moment ago in reply to James you said that replies went through a special Q126 Tom Greatrex: I know you have only been a adviser to ensure that they were consistent. That is Minister for a relatively short time, but from the right, is it not? But, Minister, you just said a moment numbers that you have alluded to, you seem to get ago that correspondence does not go through an more than an equal share, amongst your ministerial adviser. So correspondence could be inconsistent? colleagues, in the Department. When you have looked Elizabeth Truss: Well, I have to say that I do show at the dates to see that a date you are signing off will special advisers a lot of my correspondence for be six or seven weeks after the date it was tabled, precisely that reason—to make sure it is consistent. have you gone back to ask why that is the case? Elizabeth Truss: Yes. Q134 Martin Vickers: If there is a logic to PQs going to a special adviser, surely the same logic would Q127 Tom Greatrex: What have been the reasons? apply to correspondence. Elizabeth Truss: Well, the list of reasons that have Hilary Spencer: Can I say a bit more about that? I been outlined. As I say, this is not just an issue with have the dubious pleasure of also being responsible cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Ev 14 Procedure Committee: Evidence
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer for our ministerial correspondence, so I can probably sitting there waiting. Do you know what that backlog say a bit more about the processes that attach to each is today? How many questions do you have of those. unanswered at the moment? The example I gave in terms of a parliamentary Hilary Spencer: No, I cannot tell you exactly for question, quite often questions come in that do not today, no, but I can do if that is helpful. fit conveniently into one division or one senior civil servant’s area of responsibility. We have a number of Q140 Mr Nuttall: When was the last time you things that are quite cross-cutting. It could be that the checked? balance of a question falls mostly in one division, so Hilary Spencer: Well, the figures for November. they would draft an answer to it based on lines that they have from other colleagues or best intent, and Q141 Mr Nuttall: Okay, that is fair enough, yes. Was then another question that is on quite a similar topic that the last day of November? but is not phrased in exactly the same way, the balance Hilary Spencer: Yes, at the end of November we had of the question means that it gets assigned to another 81 Commons named-day PQs that were due for division, who again would answer it to the best of answer and 56 were answered by the end of their knowledge and then provide an answer. One of November. Commons ordinary written PQs, 159 were the functions that a single unit of advisers looking at due for answer and 137 were answered. those two different PQs can serve is that they are one point of contact that looks across everything that is Q142 Mr Nuttall: Well, that does not sound like the coming out. That would be where they would add backlog, does it? That just sounds like an interim some value in terms of consistency. figure. In terms of the way the ministerial correspondence Hilary Spencer: I do not think it is a huge backlog. works, firstly, the volume is really different—we We have had points with a significant backlog, answer somewhere between 200 and 300 letters a particularly after June or July where we have had a week in terms of ministerial correspondence—but also significant backlog. There was a bit of a build-up the staffing around it is such that we have a lead immediately after the ministerial reshuffle, which I drafter for each Minister. There is there a point of think is common to quite a lot of Departments when contact who is seeing everything that goes into the you have new Ministers coming in. I think there has Minister so is providing that checking and been a bit of a backlog following the reshuffle, but consistency function. no, I think we are in a slightly better position now in terms of questions being answered. I still think we are Q135 Chair: How many members of staff are there not getting them out as fast as we ought to. doing parliamentary questions? Hilary Spencer: There are now eight. Q143 Chair: Right. All Governments have problems with questions. What was it like at the Department for Q136 Chair: There are 15 questions a day; that is Education in the last year of the last Government? two questions per person on average. It is never as You were obviously there before the general election. simple as that, but that is two questions per person Hilary Spencer: I was actually in Washington DC. per day. Hilary Spencer: There have been eight people since Q144 Chair: Oh, right. Do we have any idea what it about a month ago. We have upped the staffing in was like in the year before? response to— Hilary Spencer: In what sense? In terms of overall performance? Q137 Chair: What was it before? Hilary Spencer: It has been five up to May 2012. We Q145 Chair: Was the performance as bad as it was have then put in two extra members of staff at more after the general election? senior grade. Hilary Spencer: Yes, it was on average about 20%, 25%. Q138 Chair: It is just not extraordinarily onerous, 15 questions a day spread among five people. Is it, Mr Q146 Chair: You see, I just do not understand why Rees-Mogg? you have been sent with a junior Minister who has Jacob Rees-Mogg: That was my point earlier. been there for two months to come and talk to us. Chair: It is just not that difficult. Perhaps I could Really, to be honest, I am disappointed—not in your second a member of my staff over to help because performance, because I do not think we could have they deal with a lot more cases than three a day. expected anything more. I think you have been given Hilary Spencer: Again, as we started on this, I am not a hospital pass, as it is known. I think we need to get defending the quality and timeliness of the PQs that the Secretary of State here. I think we need to get the we are giving back to you. We are not complacent Permanent Secretary and we need to get the special about this. adviser, because the evidence you have given suggests Chair: I do not think that you are the problem, nor that your Department is wholly dysfunctional. do I think the Minister is the problem. I think the As you have stated, the Permanent Secretary is people you work for are the problem. ultimately responsible for the process. I really do not think that either of you is equipped to answer the Q139 Mr Nuttall: It is all about the backlog, really, questions that we have asked today. You have done it isn’t it, now? There must be a backlog of questions to the best of your ability but, as I say, Minister, you cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:16] Job: 029337 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o001_db_12_12_12 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-i.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 15
12 December 2012 Elizabeth Truss MP and Hilary Spencer have been there for two months. With the greatest of Q149 Chair: Well, great, he can come and tell us respect, you are junior to your Permanent Secretary. what his great vision is for the Department. But the If this has been going on for three years, then actually Secretary of State has been there for two and a half there is a cultural failing within your Department. I years and he can perhaps tell us why this has not think the Committee needs to go into session after this concerned him more. Because what we have is and discuss whether we invite the Secretary of State Parliament being bypassed at the moment. That is and the Permanent Secretary to come and see us. really what this amounts to—that the concerns of Colleagues, how do you— parliamentarians do not really warrant serious Mr Gray: And the special adviser. attention by the Department for Education. That is Chair: And the special adviser. All right? pretty shameful and a pretty poor reflection on the Department. Colleagues, does anybody want to ask a Q147 Mr Gray: How many special advisers are question before we let these good people go? there? Jacob Rees-Mogg: Just to say that Health is at 99.6% Hilary Spencer: Three. on named-day questions on the named day in 2010 to 2012. Q148 Chair: It is just not good enough, is it? Twenty per cent. in answering questions, 40%, “We may get Q150 Chair: Can I thank you both for maintaining there in the end”, when you have Departments out your good humour? there getting into the 70 percentile. This has been Hilary Spencer: Not at all. going on year after year after year. Has it not been Chair: You are both a credit to your organisation and extremely depressing for you to be there over the last I am sure you will go on to do great things. You are two and a half years, just working around a culture of being held back by those ahead of you in the food deprioritisation of parliamentary questions? chain, but thank you very much. Hilary Spencer: I think I probably ought to say that Hilary Spencer: Thank you. our current Permanent Secretary has been in post Chair: I am sure you enjoyed it as much as we did. since April this year. cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [SE] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Ev 16 Procedure Committee: Evidence
Wednesday 23 January 2013
Members present: Mr Charles Walker (Chair)
Jenny Chapman John Hemming Nic Dakin Mr David Nuttall Helen Goodman Jacob Rees-Mogg Tom Greatrex Martin Vickers ______
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Education, Chris Wormald, Permanent Secretary, Department for Education, and Sam Freedman, Policy Adviser, gave evidence.
Q151 Chair: Secretary of State, thank you for Michael Gove: Yes. I will give an overview, and I coming, Mr Wormald, thank you for coming, and Mr know that the Permanent Secretary will add some Freedman, thank you for coming. Gosh, we have detail. In essence, almost every part of the way in never had so many people in the public gallery. I am which we answer parliamentary questions has not sure they are not here because of me, but perhaps they worked. Firstly, I think that I and other Ministers have are here because of you, Secretary of State. not been clear enough about the need to answer Nevertheless, thank you for coming. You know why questions fully and rapidly, so I think there has been we are conducting this inquiry. You know why you an absence of clarity on that matter, which we have are giving evidence. Your Department’s record on sought to correct by the Permanent Secretary and I answering parliamentary questions is not good, and sending a clear message to all the staff that the that is probably a fairly generous interpretation. excellent work that the overwhelming majority of civil Personally, I feel it is about accountability—how servants do is overshadowed by weakness in this area. seriously your Department takes accountability to our I think that we have particular weaknesses in our Parliament and to the Members of that Parliament. parliamentary team. Not the Ministers, but those There were parts of the evidence session that indicated allocated responsibility for dealing with parliamentary that accountability was not taken that seriously, questions in the Department were in a team that was because if it was, questions would be answered in a too small and lacked the expertise to be able to make more timely fashion and in a more complete fashion. rapid and effective judgments. It is no criticism of the Do you want to make an opening statement, Mr individuals. They were being asked to do a Secretary of State? particularly difficult task. We did not staff or resource Michael Gove: Yes. You are being more than them appropriately. generous to me, Mr Chairman. I think that you cannot Beyond that, within the Department, I think at every be bottom of the league table in Whitehall by such a stage when individual directors and deputy directors wide margin as we are and be anything other than were pursuing answers to questions, when people were drafting answers to questions, and indeed when deeply disappointed at the incredibly poor they were being finally cleared, there was a lack of performance of the Department when it comes to urgency. What made the whole situation worse was parliamentary questions. More than that, this that we inherited an information technology system weakness follows a weakness that we had with that had a number of weaknesses. I do not want to correspondence as well. I have been a Back Bencher, blame that system—that would be blaming our and I know how frustrating it is when parliamentary tools—but it complicated matters. If we had been questions are not answered and correspondence is operating at the top of our game, it would have been either answered late or sloppily, or both, so on behalf something that we could have taken in our stride. of the Department I would like to apologise to you, to Because we were not, it exacerbated the problems. We the Committee and to the House. I hope, in the course now have a situation where we are essentially of this evidence session, we can explain, without ever answering questions in a very traditional, paper-based seeking to explain away, what has gone wrong. way. The message that we need to improve has gone through. We are going to get a better system in order Q152 Chair: That is very kind, and I would just say to deal with it. The system that was designed was for the record that this has been an ongoing problem supposed to make it easier both for experts in within the Department for the past four or five years, particular areas to answer questions and also for the so there is no political motivation here. This has been private office to know who was dealing with any an ongoing problem for a significant amount of time. question at any particular time. There were flaws with I have been assigned the first question, possibly that system, which I am sure we will explore. because it is the least interesting, but could you just outline to us the process that the Department is going Q153 Chair: Excellent. Mr Wormald, do you want to through to improve the situation? There has been say anything? some correspondence, but your understanding of what Chris Wormald: Yes. The first thing I would like to is going on—perhaps Mr Wormald would like to come do is endorse what the Secretary of State said about in as well on that. the Department’s overall performance. The view that cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 17
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman it is unacceptably poor is one that we share in terms Sam Freedman: I am a member of the civil service, of the civil service management, as is our commitment yes, exactly. to improve the situation now. The Secretary of State has outlined quite comprehensively the changes we Q155 Martin Vickers: Secretary of State, in your are making. I think the only things I would add are opening remarks you mentioned that you had inherited that we have significantly upped the level of senior a poor IT system, which in effect means that the oversight in the system. Hilary Spencer, who you met problem has now been going on for, what, three years last time you considered this, is a member of the plus. Why is it proving so difficult, and why are other board, and is the member of the board with direct Departments seemingly able to overcome these responsibility to drive improvements in this area. problems? Are the systems not in any way The other big change we are making on the non-IT compatible? side is to go over to a system where there is a single Michael Gove: The first thing to say—I think the named individual who is responsible for tracking Permanent Secretary will say a little bit more—is that every single individual PQ as it goes through its whole we couldn’t give you a full answer without talking journey through the Department. As I am sure we will about the IT system, but I must emphasise that it is come on to, a lot of the delays and problems were much more than the IT system. To use an analogy exacerbated by IT problems that the Secretary of State from medicine, it is an already weakened system, so described, which I can go into more detail on if that another thing going wrong forces it to collapse. A is helpful. It was becoming lost between stages. When healthier system would have been able, as I mentioned it became delayed, it was very difficult to pick up earlier, to take this in its stride. again, so there will be a person whose job it is to We inherited a situation where the previous chase individual ones right through the system. Government had entered into a contract with Capita The third big non-IT change is that we are going to to provide a variety of IT functions. It must be have much greater senior oversight when PQs first stressed that many of those functions have been come in to agree strategy for answering this question. delivered in a way that has been entirely to the Another of the causes of the delay was civil servants satisfaction of the Department and to that of the doing a lot of work on a PQ, it then coming back to various other individuals and agencies upon which the the seventh floor, the more senior people looking at it Department relies. But there were particular problems and deciding, “That is not the right way to approach with the parliamentary questions application that they this question. That is not what the MP was getting at”, provided for us. It was in the nature of the deal that and that then causes a delay as it is redrafted. The they did care and maintenance overall for IT, and then idea is to have that discussion at the beginning of the if we required a new application we had to go to them process, rather than the end. Then, of course, the key first. They had first refusal on the design of that. to it in the long term will be a new IT system that is In the process of designing a system, which came in hopefully procured rather more successfully than the in 2009, to answer parliamentary questions, the design one that we did in 2009 to 2010. Getting that IT of the specification was given to the private office. system in place and having it properly procured, Naturally, they reflected what Ministers wanted, and, to be fair to Ministers at that time, they wanted a lot properly “spec-ed” and then tested and implemented from it, so the private office request was what IT is quite a long-term thing, so we are not relying on people might call over-engineered or over-specified. new IT for the immediate improvements we want to The IT people said, “We will try to provide that”, but drive. As the Secretary of State said, in the short term in the end essentially what should have been a clean we will be managing this on a much more traditional, and clear process was over-specified and, as a result, paper-based, e-mail spreadsheet basis, and then in the the product at the end of it under-performed to the longer term we want to get back to a position where extent that a series of errors led to its crashing on two we have a proper IT system that tracks these things occasions. When it crashed, it meant, in effect, that it for us and produces the kind of management was impossible to know where parliamentary information that this Committee wants and seeks, and questions were in the system and how to answer the Department needs to manage the process properly. them—an appalling situation—and for that reason we That will then allow us to give Ministers the have gone back to a traditional, paper-based method reassurance they deserve that the Department is doing of answering them. We are seeking to ensure that we this properly. do have an IT answer—I hate using these phrases, but you know what I mean—that is appropriate. Earlier Q154 Chair: Thank you. Just before I bring in my this week—and I have to say stimulated by this colleague Mr Vickers, Mr Freedman, could you briefly Committee, but it would have happened anyway—the outline to the Committee what your role is in the Permanent Secretary and I talked to the people in process, just so they are up to speed, so you can be charge of IT procurement in our Department to walk involved in this discussion as well? through the weaknesses in the system that we had Sam Freedman: At the moment, all the PQs go inherited and what would be required in the future. through the adviser’s office; I am the adviser who Chris Wormald: I should say it is Capgemini, not looks at them. I am the Secretary of State’s Senior Capita. Policy Adviser on Schools. At the moment, I look at Michael Gove: Sorry; Freudian slip. all PQs, and that is, I think, part of the process that Chris Wormald: Yes. The story, again, is exactly as has been questioned previously. the Secretary of State describes it. The intention of the Chair: You are a member of the civil service. tracking system that was introduced in February in cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Ev 18 Procedure Committee: Evidence
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman
2009 and 2010 was to address previous weaknesses in did others. We have a number of PQs that is roughly the PQ system, and I understand it is quite difficult similar to Departments of our size, and I have because there was very little correct management certainly seen no evidence that they are any more information. From what we can see from the numbers, complicated in our Department than in the others. I performance has not been great in this Department— cannot give you a, “This is what was different at as I think you said at the beginning, Chair—for quite DfE”, other than, clearly, that the procurement of that some time. The PQ system was supposed to be part IT system did not go well, and then we should have of the answer to that system. As the Secretary of State done our remedial action quicker. The difference you said, it was over-specified. In practice, it did not sit are looking for is in the decisions made by the well with the rest of the IT architecture of the Department, not any externality. Department. The other thing that happened was— again, it is quite difficult to tell because the data is so Q157 John Hemming: Here is something I prepared poor—it appears that post the Election the number of earlier for the Secretary of State, because it makes it PQs the Department received, in line with lots of a little bit easier to follow. As people probably know, Departments—this was not special to us—went up I am a bit of a techie. Don’t try to read the first bit; it quite a lot, which exacerbated the problems of an is just to demonstrate things. I thought, after the last already weak IT system. meeting of the Procedure Committee looking at things I meant to say right at the beginning, as the Secretary in December, that Parliament had a system that of State said, that these are explanations, not excuses. tracked parliamentary questions and that it should be None of them excuses the Department’s performance, possible from that system to find out which ones have but in order to explain to the Committee, what not been answered, and indeed that is the case. happened, as the Secretary of State said, was that it In the afternoon following the meeting, I found out crashed. It crashed first in, I think, February 2011— which 61 questions had not been answered after one sorry, a bit before that—and my predecessor month, and those are the ones listed on the first sheet. Permanent Secretary launched a programme to improve the handling of PQs. The system was put The good news is that when I did the calculations this back together, and there was then a period, which I morning and got the list—I have done it, so it can be arrived in the middle of, when PQ performance was read on pages 2 and 3—there are now only 36 improving within the Department. It went up from questions that are over one month old, which is 17%, which was its low point, to somewhere around obviously a lot longer than it is supposed to be. 40% on time. Still nothing like good enough, but what Interestingly, one of them is from Edward Timpson, we were seeing, both at ministerial level and senior- and now he is the Minister I do not think he is too official level, was every month things getting slightly bothered about answering his own question. I did better. At that point we did believe that progress was notice Lisa Nandy putting in a question asking when being made and we were heading in the right her question of 23 May 2012 would be answered, and direction, from a very low base. her question is a very, very simple one, about how In June 2011,1 the system crashed again and our much money is spent on one particular person’s performance collapsed, and at that point we moved expenses. There could be an answer; “We won’t over to the paper-based system and e-mail-based answer that”, or whatever it may be. The first one on system that we are currently using. We then spent here is 9 May, due to be answered on 14 May, and it several months attempting to fix that system, which in is asked by Lisa Nandy. There is no sense going hindsight was a mistake made by me and my senior through all the details, because they are all there. The colleagues. We should have taken the decision at that basic question is: why don’t you use Parliament’s IT point that this system was never going to work system just to track which questions are not answered properly and chosen to replace it at that time. We and chase them on the back of that? spent several months attempting to repair that IT Chris Wormald: I should clarify what I said about system. We took the final decision that the system PQs getting lost. The problem is not not knowing would have to be replaced, not repaired, in November which questions we have not answered; it is tracking 2011,2 and, as I say, one of the mistakes we made the PQ while it is in the Department that is quite was to not make that decision to go for an entirely difficult to do—or certainly without the labour- new system early enough. Now, as the Secretary of intensive process that we are putting in now—without State said, we have made a big push around the a properly functioning IT system. We know which Department, and we will be improving our current questions we have not answered. Once it has left our system while we procure the new one. parliamentary section the, “Who has it been e-mailed to?” “Who has that person forwarded the question on Q156 Martin Vickers: Thank you for that. I am still to?” and “Who is currently responsible for it being not clear why your Department is seemingly unique answered?” are having to be done manually. That is in terms of its IT requirements, compared to, say, the not ideal, but your basic point is correct. We know Health Department. which questions we have to answer. Chris Wormald: It shouldn’t be, and, as I say, I am not attempting to excuse the Department’s flaws. There is Q158 John Hemming: This is not IT. This is a very nothing unique about the Department’s situation that basic thing. We know we can get a list of all the led to this position. We had an expansion of PQs; so questions that have not been answered, and some of 1 Witness correction: this should read “June 2012”. them just have not been touched. You could have just 2 Witness correction: this should read “November 2012”. asked them again within the Department. There is no cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 19
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman need to find out where it went to before. I think this Michael Gove: Is Nigerian. is absurd. John Hemming: I wrote to the Minister enclosing the Interestingly, on page 4, you are now not the worst in communication from the Nigerian Government that terms of questions over one month. complains about the system, and then the same Chris Wormald: Some good news. Minister answers the question saying they are not John Hemming: I did a summary for all the aware of anything. One wonders what is going on. If Departments, and DCLG is top at 47, MoJ number we just look at page 5— two at 43, and the Department for Education is now Chair: John, I do not want to look too hard at this, only 36 on questions that have taken more than a because it is a personal issue you have. I would like month to answer. But frankly the answer that you the Minister to respond to the question: how are you know which questions is just not acceptable. going to deal with John’s specific concerns on this? Chris Wormald: As I will add in every answer, I am Michael Gove: Of course. not attempting to excuse the Department’s flaws. The process you are describing is exactly the one we are Q160 John Hemming: If we can have a letter on now going through. The problem is we are starting that, we would be grateful. from too far back. Michael Gove: We certainly will. I would say one thing. There is a tension sometimes between speed Q159 John Hemming: We had a discussion about and accuracy. There is a— this on 12 December, when, one would presume, it John Hemming: Yes, but this one was slow and was clear that people were not happy with the inaccurate. performance of the Department. It has improved a bit, Michael Gove: Indeed, but one of the points I would but it has not improved that much. make is that a superficial—and it is only superficial— Coming further on, unsurprisingly I suppose, two of reading of the letter from the Nigerian Government my questions that have been outstanding for a long raises a number of issues of serious concern about time were answered on Monday, which would be child protection, but they do not relate, so far as I sensible, given that you were coming to the have seen in my superficial reading, specifically to Committee meeting on Wednesday. As the Minister is adoption. aware, I am concerned about foreign Governments John Hemming: Except I know that they do. who are complaining about the UK child protection Michael Gove: On the basis of the letter, one cannot system. I asked the question: “Have you had any know that. complaints from foreign governments in any form?” I John Hemming: Yes. I do not think we can resolve got the response: “Ministers are aware of no that in this particular hearing. representations received from Governments relating to Michael Gove: No, but the case is important. They foreign national children being adopted in England deserve to be dealt with appropriately. On the basis of without parental consent”. I have spoken to the the question answered, I think that the answer is fair, Minister about it previously. On page 6 of the but given the importance of this issue, the most document, we have a public statement by the Slovak appropriate thing would be for either me or Minister Republic. On page 7 of the document, I have a letter Timpson to meet you and to run through these cases. from the Czech Republic saying there is a problem. Chair: Excellent. On page 8 of the document, I have a letter from the Spanish Government saying there is a problem. On Q161 John Hemming: It sounds very good. On a page 9 of the document, I have a letter from the final point, going back to the meeting of 12 December, Nigerian Government saying there is a problem, and I have extracted on pages 15 and 16 some points from then I have a letter from the Minister who I sent the there. We have the IT issue and the issue about the Nigerian Government’s letter, saying, “Thank you for Department being slow because it wanted to be sending me the Nigerian Government’s letter.” On accurate, but frankly I do not think that is what is page 14, I have a translation via Google of a Slovak going on. We looked particularly at a question from news story, where a Slovak Minister spoke to William the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. In fact, Hague at a foreign conference, complaining about our one part of that is about the care system losing child protection system. My thought would be that if children, which is the thing I go on about a lot, but in the Foreign Secretary was complained to, he would question 64 on page 16, I asked the Department to pass it to the Department as an issue to be looked at. send us copies of the documentation relating to the The basic question is, having rapidly got a question answering of the question by the Member for East out of the way for this particular Committee meeting, Worthing, and nothing has happened on that. We have is that a fair answer on page 5? had a letter, but what we have not had are the Michael Gove: Speaking for myself, I would have to background papers. Under the Freedom of read all of the submissions. For example, I am not Information Act we would get all of those papers. Is denying that there is a problem here, but, for example, there any problem giving us those papers? the Czech letter confirms that the Czech Government Michael Gove: I don’t think so, no. I know that a has had concerns and is grateful to you—as I think letter arrived with an explanation from my colleague, we all are—for raising it, but it does not say that the Hilary Spencer, and I do take your point. I will seek Czech Government had contacted the British to ensure that all background papers are there. One Government. thing I should say, with respect to that question, is that John Hemming: No, the one where I get the letter the answer that you were given is that I attended no from the Minister that answered the question. visits to do with youth centres or youth activities. That cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Ev 20 Procedure Committee: Evidence
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman is actually inaccurate, because the question was will reach an acceptable standard, because in this kind answered without asking me. Quite rightly; the private of area what you want to do is to improve every single office dealt with it. They contacted my parliamentary month. There is not one Department that is at 100%, office. I know that I went to, to mention just one which is what we should all aspire to. The challenge example, the Etihad Stadium as a guest of the Football we are putting ourselves under is to improve all the Association to present awards to those who were time, so I do not think it is the kind of process where involved with the K.I.C.K.S. Initiative, which is an you say, “Right, it is finished now. Our system now explicit youth initiative—not educational, not works”, and so on. We will not have our—I don’t explicitly sporting, but youth—and I did so in order quite know how to describe it—ideal system, our IT- to show my support for it. That was not recorded. It based system, fully up and running until the autumn, is just another example where, of course, the question so we will certainly not reach our peak efficiency makes me look bad—tant pis—but the point is that it performance until then, but in terms of timeliness we was inaccurate. I think one of the tensions sometimes will be aiming to get our performance up much is between speed and accuracy. We need to do better quicker than that, basically by spending more staff on both. time. What we are doing to both clear the backlog and improve the day-to-day performance is investing quite Q162 John Hemming: Yes. I just make the point that a lot more staff in this area so that they can both work we were promised these papers at that Committee through the backlog and improve performance to a meeting and they still have not arrived. level that is, in the first instance, much more in line Michael Gove: I take your point. It is a fair point. with the Whitehall average, and then, in the longer term, hopefully towards the kind of performances that Q163 Jacob Rees-Mogg: I want to clarify that that all Departments should aspire to. is all it is, Secretary of State. It was agreed that we Mr Nuttall: I understand that the performance is would get essentially all the papers relating to the improving at the moment. answer of one specific question which we thought Chris Wormald: Yes. might be illuminating in regard to how other questions were answered. If that in fact could be provided, I Q166 Mr Nuttall: At the current rate of performance know the Committee would be very grateful. improvement, how long, assuming that rate continues, Michael Gove: It is an entirely reasonable request, will it be before you achieve the accepted target? and we will accede to it. Chris Wormald: We have made quite a big improvement in the last month or so. I think it is very Q164 Chair: What we did get was a letter from unlikely, given that we were going from a very, very Hilary, explaining the process around the question low base at that point, we would continue that rate of tabled by Tim Loughton on 12 December, but nothing progress. I think we went up by about 20 points, from beyond that. our absolute low point, but of course the easiest thing Jacob Rees-Mogg: Not the details. to do is to get off the absolute floor—but we would be Chair: Not the details. hoping to improve by, yes, five or 10 points a month, I Jacob Rees-Mogg: Internal versions. would guess. I am slightly reluctant to put numbers to Michael Gove: Absolutely. Because I only knew these things, because what we are really trying to do is about this question when I read the transcripts of this create a system that actually works and is sustainably Committee’s deliberations with Hilary and with working. As I said, my and my senior colleagues’ own Minister Truss, I was not aware of the process so mistake in that period from January to June was to be therefore I am speculating; I think that quite a lot of over-optimistic about the quality of the whole system it would have been conversational and some of it because the numbers were getting better every month. would have involved looking through my diary, my My and my senior colleagues’ test has to be: not only ministerial and my constituency diary. Some things in are the numbers improving to a level that this the ministerial diary would be listed in general Committee and Parliament in general finds acceptable, terms—“Trip to Manchester”—without necessarily but have we created a system that can sustain those the specificity that would help answer the question levels of performance over a period of time, rather accurately, but of course all relevant papers we will than do what we have done over the last two years, share with the Committee. which is slightly yo-yo up and down.
Q165 Mr Nuttall: Thank you, Secretary of State and Q167 Mr Nuttall: Is there a process in place to Permanent Secretary, for your answers so far. Could I ensure that in the desire to meet targets there is no turn now to the backlog and what is being done to loss of quality in the answer? As the Secretary of State clear it? First of all, when do you think the backlog said, there is often a pay-off between answering it will be cleared? A simple question. Secondly, what do quickly and getting the answer right. you think is an acceptable length of time for a non- Chris Wormald: Yes. One very important bit, which I named-day question to be answered? Thirdly, when have mentioned before, about how we want to will it be that named-day questions, all of them, are improve the process is right at the beginning when answered on the named day that they are meant to be? more senior staff and advisers, and in some cases Chris Wormald: Non-named-day questions we are Ministers, look at the question not when the answer supposed to answer within five days, and that is the was being drafted but as it comes in, so that more target that we aim for, which we are a long way from, senior people can be saying, “I think what the MP is as you know. I do not have a target date for when we really getting at here is the following”. That would cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 21
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman seem to me key to setting us off on the right foot Members were well served. I only did that for a towards a quality answer. relatively brief period, but in my box every night there are letters for me to sign. Therefore, when I see that Q168 Chair: Thank you. Just before I call Tom, there it is 17 January and I am replying to a letter from 24 is a lack of precision in the Department that worries October, I express my unhappiness, and then when I me. I have a letter here from the Secretary of State on see that the letter I am just about to finish signing 17 November, which clearly the Secretary of State refers to Essex when it should refer to East Sussex, does not write, because he is a very busy man. In then I think, “It is going to take another 48 hours for the final substantive paragraph it says, “One of my someone who has already been through this to deal ministerial team will be attending your Committee on with it”. So I was much more conscious of and 12 December, and I hope you will be reassured that reminded every day of some of the problems that we my Department will do everything possible to return had with correspondence, and the exchanges that we to providing the level of service Members rightly had on correspondence were much more—what is the expect”. There was no level of service to return to, word?—protracted. and I am concerned that in your Department there are I was not as aware of the detailed problems that we people who just have not grasped this. I know this had with PQs. I knew the situation was far from letter was written a couple of months ago, but there is perfect and, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I a lack of precision there. I am addressed as the Right had intervened in a more determined fashion at an Honourable Charles Walker, Nick Gibb is referenced earlier point. as the Right Honourable Nick Gibb; there is a lack of precision in how this is being dealt with and a lack Q170 Tom Greatrex: I presume other Ministers in of understanding that I think is causing me and the your Department will have been aware of that at the Committee concern. I just wanted to interject that. same time. Chris Wormald: Yes. Sorry, one comment: those are Michael Gove: I think they expressed their fair comments, and the reason that the Secretary of frustrations both about correspondence and PQs to State and I put out the message, the whole Department officials within the Department, and, as the Permanent and the new process that we did last week as some Secretary has laid out, there were efforts to deal with sort of January offering to the Department, was to the situation at each point. Again, with the benefit of explain the new system that we want to put in place, hindsight, none of those efforts was sufficient to the but also to get over to everyone involved in this scale of the problem. process—as the Secretary of State said, the problems Chris Wormald: Yes, and to reiterate the point I made are throughout the organisation—the importance of earlier, the Ministers will of course have seen the getting it right. On your base charge, as well as how same information that we did, so for a good chunk have our systems not worked, have we not taken it as of this period what they were seeing was a steadily seriously as we should have done over those years, I improving performance, and I do not think it is unfair think that is a fair comment. for a busy Minister in that situation to think, “Right, the medicine is working. We are on the right track now”. So I don’t think it is fair to say, certainly in that Q169 Tom Greatrex: Could I ask the Secretary of 3 State when he became aware that there was a problem period up until June 2011 when, as I say, from a with PQ answering? Was it almost from the start when very low base it was improving, that we could have you became Secretary of State? expected Ministers to be saying, “But I still think Michael Gove: Yes, I knew that we had inherited a there is an underlying problem”. problem and that the old predecessor Department, the Department for Children, Schools and Families, had Q171 Tom Greatrex: They would have been aware an issue with it. I had, for the most part, relied on the presumably therefore that there was a problem to decisions being made by, firstly, Chris’ predecessor, start with? David Bell, and then subsequently by Chris in order Chris Wormald: Absolutely. That was, as I say, well- to address it. One of the sources of particular concern known and my predecessor talked— to me, which of course the Chairman has just referred to, early in the life of the Parliament, was Q172 Tom Greatrex: You say it is well known, but correspondence, and I was more acutely aware of we have one of your former Ministers, Secretary of problems there than I was aware of the scale of the State, making clear to us that he was never made issue that we had with PQs. aware there was a problem with PQs— Tom Greatrex: But you were aware there was a Michael Gove: It depends how— problem in terms of speed of answering from pretty Tom Greatrex: In the speed of answering, possibly? much early on in your— Michael Gove: Yes, one of the things there is that Michael Gove: Speed and accuracy, yes. I think that each Minister when they answer a PQ will be able to see the date on which the PQ was put in, and will the speed and accuracy issue related most acutely to obviously know the date on which they are signing it PQs, but I think it also related to correspondence. I off. It may well be that any individual Minister is knew the correspondence issue more, or was more more concerned with the accuracy of the answer, and familiar with it, because there was a brief period when it is entirely possible that they may not pay the same I myself would clear certain PQs, and I did so degree of attention to the time. It is not the case that primarily in order to give people an understanding of this information will be veiled or hidden, but it may the importance that I placed on accuracy, clear English, full answers and appropriate context, so that 3 Witness correction: this should read “June 2012”. cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Ev 22 Procedure Committee: Evidence
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman well be the case that for a busy Minister the most our PQ system and the rest of the Department’s important thing to do is to make sure that the answer systems. Therefore, just to take a system and import that he or she is giving out is full and fair, and I think it straight into the Department might be possible, but in the brief period when I was looking at PQs, for me you risk the second of those problems: that again it the most important thing was accuracy. will not integrate well with the overall system, and the problems will replicate. Just to be clear what those Q173 Tom Greatrex: All right. It seems remarkable problems are. In an ideal system, what happens is you that you were aware almost from the start when you have a system that tracks where the PQ is and is became Secretary of State, and one of your former automatically sending e-mail alerts to the people who Ministers seemed to suggest that he was not aware need to do things at particular points. So the PQ is there was a problem with speed. It just gets to this tracked through the bespoke system, and then what point that the Chair was making about being unclear appears in your e-mail box is the automatic thing that as to the accuracy of what is happening in your says, “You are now late with this question. Do Department. Can I ask the question I was supposed to something about it”. So the integration between that ask? When Hilary Spencer came before us in system and our overall IT system is quite an important December, she made the point, “I have looked at part of the process, because it is much more difficult different options for reporting IT systems from other than you would think just to import a system from Government Departments but it was not possible to another Department, because you risk those problems. do that.” Why is it not possible to use the PQ system Michael Gove: Very briefly, one of the features of the from another Department? There are plenty of system that we inherited is that in effect, as though examples where, if that was the issue, they are you had a Google doc, you would have the document performing much better than your Department. accessible to someone. Ideally, you should know who Michael Gove: Once the decision had been made to was filling out the answer at any given time. When it invest in Capgemini and then to ask them to pursue collapsed, we did not know. Theoretically, it could a particular application, then that would be followed have worked even better. Cloud technology allows us through. You are absolutely right. There are other to design a system which should—fingers crossed— Departments that have a better, and have had—almost be significantly better. I am no expert on this. I have all of them—a consistently better, approach to this become more knowledgeable over the last few weeks. matter. There has to be a balance, I think, between The other thing is I am not doing my job if this being absolutely rigorous where a Department is situation carries on in this way, and the Committee is falling down—no Department is perfect—and where absolutely right to demand better performance. Very it is strong. I will not bore the Committee by running briefly, just following on from Mr Nuttall’s point, we through all the areas where I think the Department is have a long way to go, but if the Department of strong and in some cases exceptionally strong, but I Health, similar in the scale of questions—the number want to stress that because I know that there have of questions—and the challenges that it has, can get been some suggestions that Ministers are critical of 97% of all their written PQs on time and 100% of the performance of the civil service overall. Not at all. named-day PQs on time, then so should we. I can’t It is because so many of those areas are so good that tell you how quickly we have to do it, but that has to this area stands out like a sore thumb, and the reason be the target. why it irritates me, I suspect almost as much as it Chair: John, a very short question, because we are irritates everyone here, is that it gives a very poor making such tedious progress. account of what the Department is doing overall and it is a disservice to you because you are serving your Q174 John Hemming: I can provide advice on how constituents in holding the Department to account. to get information off the Parliamentary intranet if you Few things infuriate me more than things that are would like. Your parliamentary office—if they contact sloppily or poorly written; poor English is evidence me, I can help. of poor thought and, therefore, a lack of care in a Michael Gove: They would be grateful. sensitive matter. So I wanted to stress that for balance, to apologise again, before handing over to the Q175 Jenny Chapman: I couldn’t not take the Permanent Secretary on the specific point about IT. opportunity to say that there are 450 very highly- The specific IT problem arose, as I said, in 2009 when skilled and capable staff in Darlington who would be a previous set of Ministers, who wanted to do the right very happy to support you in this task. However— thing and had a private office that also wanted to do Chris Wormald: A point for another discussion. the right thing, over-engineered the process. Jenny Chapman: It is, yes. But just again on the Chris Wormald: Yes, and, as I said at the beginning, Department of Health, Chris, you said that there was it is a specific question and we will get to the end of no Department who achieved 100%, but the my technical expertise quite quickly in this Department of Health gets damn near at 99.6 on conversation. However, as it was explained to us, named-day questions, which is about as close to there were two problems with the system that we perfect as you can ask of anybody. You say, I expect procured in 2009. One was its over-specification, quite correctly, you cannot just transplant an IT which basically meant they had too much data in it, system from one Department to another, but I suspect and that eventually overloaded the system and caused that is not just about IT— it to crash. The second was it did not map well onto Chris Wormald: Absolutely. the overall IT architecture of the Department, and that Jenny Chapman: It is also about the culture and the was one of the problems. It was the interface between processes. Maybe they do not have an adviser looking cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 23
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman over every question when it comes in to see how the accuracy with correspondence and PQs, it is a MP might like it responded to most appropriately, and situation that we inherited and I think there have been they may treat things on a more factual basis. I do not problems in the Department that require to be know. Have you looked at the wider way that other addressed. Departments deal with this, not just IT? One further thing that I would say, which you are Chris Wormald: Yes, we have; we have looked at a generous enough not to mention, is of course that the lot of the high-performing Departments, and what you role of adviser has been raised. I should stress that Mr say is completely right. As we have said all the way Freedman is a member of the civil service and his through, IT is a contributory factor to this problem, principal role is to make sure that there is coherence, but it is not the full explanation. All aspects of this so that we do not give answers where, because process were weak. Had the IT been better, then the different parts of the Department have given slightly problem would not have been as bad and we would different wordings to things, a hare is set running have been able to identify it more quickly, and we about policy change. Sometimes it is the case that would have the management information that would context will be provided—additional information—in allow us to spot more easily where in the systems the order to make an answer more intelligible. A majority problems were. But the problems, as you say, go wider of Government Departments have advisers playing a than that and the Departments who perform well do role in clearing questions and that is certainly the case exactly as you say. It is as much in the culture of how in the predecessor Department, in the DCSF, but this work is done as it is in the technical process, and advisers cannot relinquish their responsibility to do I think that was one of the problems with the original things rapidly and accurately as well. One of the areas IT system and how it was procured and specified. As where I will freely acknowledge that I had been with many of the problems the Government has had insufficiently clear across the Department was the with IT contracting, which are well documented, part vital importance of making sure that we respect of the problem is when you think of them as an IT everyone with whom we deal, Parliament most of all. solution rather than as a part of a process that involves various human beings. You have to see it as an end- Q177 Nic Dakin: Given that latter point about to-end thing. Certainly from how it was explained to advisers, why has there been a reluctance to allow us, it was very much, “Here is the IT system that will political advisers to come and give evidence to this solve the problem”, as opposed to the kind of session? approach that you are rightly pointing to, and I am Michael Gove: Essentially for two reasons: one, the sure that my hugely professional staff in Darlington person who clears the PQs, all PQs, and therefore who will be keen to assist, as you say. is master of the process and can most illuminate it for this Committee or anyone else’s benefit is Mr Q176 Nic Dakin: I am very heartened by the Freedman; secondly, my interpretation, and it is open openness with which you recognise the IT is not an of course to critique, of the Osmotherly Rules is that excuse. I want to focus on culture. We have a Ministers answer for special advisers and that Department, Secretary of State, where you yourself ultimately when the Committee calls a Minister or in are in trouble with the Information Commissioner. particular a Secretary of State to speak, it is I who am Your performance is always eloquent and engaging. responsible for their actions, not they, and therefore At questions this week you were somewhat cavalier our special advisers do not ordinarily appear before in your attitude towards leaking to the press. We have Select Committees. But again, if I am in error, I had a briefing against former Ministers this week. So apologise, and I would be happy to clarify matters. there is a suggestion that maybe the cultural explanation is that this is a Department that is a bit Q178 Helen Goodman: Secretary of State, I was a free and easy around information, and that the civil servant in the Treasury for 17 years before we problems here are part of that cultural approach rather had these complicated IT systems, and I do not think than about IT or anything else. we ever found ourselves in the situation in which your Michael Gove: I think it is fair to look at the issues Department has found itself. I feel this whole through different prisms. I would separate them in discussion is becoming increasingly like a different ways. Firstly, the leaking: I have been more performance of The Government Inspector, with spinned against than spinning in that respect, and I ludicrously long and overly complex questions and hope I have developed a sense of equanimity when I explanations. One of the things that certainly did not am on the receiving end, but as I outlined to the happen when I was an official was that every question Education Select Committee today, if anyone in the went through a special adviser, and I wonder on Department engages in leaking or briefing in a way reflection, given what you have said about ministerial that is directed towards others, particularly those who responsibility, if you do feel that sometimes have been and are distinguished in public service, that Ministers—particularly perhaps junior Ministers— is unacceptable, and I hope I have made that clear. shuffle off their responsibilities on to special advisers? With the Information Commissioner, essentially there Michael Gove: I don’t. was a complex relationship between a set of questions being asked by an outside organisation, the Q179 Helen Goodman: You do not; good. In that Department and the Information Commissioner. It is case, can I ask you whether one very simple way of a sui generis matter, and one again that I would be cleaning up your process would not be not to pass all happy to discuss in greater detail if this or any other of these questions and answers through the special Committee wanted to. On the broader question about advisers? cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Ev 24 Procedure Committee: Evidence
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman
Michael Gove: I will draw a distinction between who were not operating in the way that they should, special advisers who are free to operate in a political that we could locate that and take steps to deal with it. way for a variety of reasons and other people who Chris Wormald: I have one point on the DfE review; have a policy adviser role, some of whom may be I might come back to adviser roles at some point as appointed on a fixed-term contract and others of well. One of the things the review identified, and we whom are members of the career civil service. In our have been public about, is that overall our decision- case the overwhelming majority of questions that go making processes in the Department are too slow and to the advisers’ office are seen and passed by an involve too many people. That is true across the official who is not a special adviser and not free to board, it is true when we are making policy, true when operate in that way. The overwhelming majority of we are doing implementation, and it is true in this Government Departments do have special advisers. case. I do not think in this circumstance there was There are other special advisers. The role of anything at all between the numbers of civil servants Government Departments has changed. The volume and the quality of the performance delivered. The and frequency of questions is higher. The nature of Treasury, of course, is an interesting case; it is quite a communication between Departments, Parliament and small Department that delivers an enormous amount, the public has changed. One thing should not change frequently very swiftly. So I do not think that the and that is the vital importance of respecting numbers you quote ought to affect this question at all. Parliament, getting things right and being fast. So I would say that there is no necessary reason why Q183 Helen Goodman: The Secretary of State was passing them through advisers or not passing them implying that questions are getting trickier than through advisers should either excuse or explain a perhaps they were 20 years ago. I wonder whether he failure to be fast and accurate. You can ensure that thinks that the question I asked him in the autumn— they are seen by everyone who needs to see them and which newspaper and other media proprietors, editors, still answer on time. That is what we have to get right. and senior executives he had met in the previous months—was a particularly tricky question. Q180 Helen Goodman: Could you just tell the Michael Gove: No. Committee whether you think that your decision to agree with the Treasury to a 50% cut in your Q184 Helen Goodman: Why did it take six weeks administration resources is going to help you in to answer? achieving that objective? Michael Gove: In order to make sure that we were not Michael Gove: Yes, is the short answer. inadvertently misleading you or the House because a social event that either I or my wife, as working Q181 Helen Goodman: Could you say why that is? journalist, might have attended might have involved Michael Gove: I think because our Department will meeting someone who was a newspaper executive and be more efficient as a result of the DfE review, the the conversation might have been beyond simply a reduction in administrative costs is part of the DfE fleeting one. So it requires a check of my diary held review process and the size of an organisation is no in the private office, my constituency diary, and cross- guarantee of its efficiency. checking a variety of events in order to be accurate, because the Prime Minister has issued, as I have Q182 Helen Goodman: I accept that, but do you not issued, these lists and then we have subsequently think that when the initial answers are being drafted— checked and discovered something had been omitted, and obviously answers to questions are always factual and people say, “Ah ha, this was a secret meeting that because we are not allowed to ask other than factual you were preventing us from knowing about”. questions—then people having a certain level of Helen Goodman: I would find that answer slightly expertise is in fact the most useful thing? more convincing if the final sentence of the answer I Michael Gove: Sometimes facts are data that are held eventually got had not read, “This does not include in a variety of ways. Sometimes the Table Office media executives who may have been in attendance allows questions to be asked and what constitutes a at lunches or events also attended by the Secretary fact in the eyes of the Table Office and the eye of the of State”. person asking it may, when it comes to the Michael Gove: My wife is a working journalist and Department, require a degree of thought and sometimes occasionally invites some of her colleagues consideration. A specific point: the question asked by to dinner at our house; probably more of an ordeal for the former Minister, Tim Loughton, perfectly them than anything else, but we needed to be accurate properly, about visits to youth facilities/clubs/ about that. Sometimes it would be the case that all my activities. What is a youth facility/club/activity? There private office knows is that I am having dinner at is an element of ambiguity there, and there has to be home; on a couple of those occasions there have been an exercise of judgment. The most important thing, executives from the BBC and indeed from News though, is that everyone in the process should get on International who have been there because they have with it, and that we should have a management been former colleagues of mine or current colleagues information system that ensures that we know where of my wife. So there is a difference between, as I did the blockage is. One of the problems that we have last night, bumping into the current editor of the Times with the Department that we inherited—though many, Literary Supplement who was at a Shakespeare many strengths—is that we did not have an effective schools festival, a former editor of The Times, management information system that meant if there someone I used to work with, 30-second conversation was a blockage or there were people in the system not worth recording, and a dinner at home with a cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 25
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman
Times or BBC executive, including people who are it might be newsworthy, I might show it to them, but parents of children at the school that my children go that would happen extremely rarely. to. There is a distinction. We try to exercise our judgment in such a way, given some of the exchanges Q189 Jacob Rees-Mogg: Quickly as well? Because between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime you would be near to them and would just be able Minister about conversations with senior media to show it to them quickly and say, “This may be figures at suppers and parties and so on. I want to err newsworthy”, so it would not be a cause for delay. on the side of transparency. Sam Freedman: No, the vast majority of questions Helen Goodman: I am very grateful to you. I am not pass through our office very quickly. sure that your answer to my question did include country suppers. If there have indeed also been some Q190 Jacob Rees-Mogg: The second point I want to country suppers and you would like to add a go on to also relates to the letter. Delays occur at every supplement to the answer that I received after six point along the line, within the multitudes of demands weeks on 10 December, I would be very grateful. on people. PQs have sometimes slipped down priority Chair: I am sure the Minister will try to be as helpful lists, including in private office as well as elsewhere. as possible. Jacob, last but not least, in this initial I want to come back to the issue of ministerial skirmish. responsibility, because there seem to be about 20 questions to your Department every sitting day, and Q185 Jacob Rees-Mogg: I must say I have great there are quite a lot of Ministers—I am not exactly sympathy for you being expected to record every time sure how many but it is about three questions per you meet your wife, which seems an unreasonably Minister per day. Does it not seem reasonable to onerous request from Parliament. In the letter you expect Ministers to take control of this process rather kindly sent jointly with the Permanent Secretary there than expecting it to be in the hands of civil servants, is a bullet point: “A risk assessment model of triage to make sure that they are completely on top of the developed with advisers and Ministers to identify and questions as they come in, and then ensuring that they focus early on tricky cases.” What would you describe get rapid answers? as a tricky case? Michael Gove: Yes. Michael Gove: One where if we answered in a slipshod or inaccurate fashion, people would quite Q191 Jacob Rees-Mogg: Is that what is now going rightly feel that they had been let down, or where the to happen? Because when we were speaking to the question of which information should be included was Parliamentary Under-Secretary she said that she did not at first sight obvious. The aim would be to give not know which questions were hers until the answer those civil servants who are involved in the drafting came to her. Should that not be reversed so that everyone knows which question he or she has at the process clear instructions. beginning of the process? Michael Gove: Yes. Q186 Jacob Rees-Mogg: Could this to some extent be politically tricky, or is it purely factually tricky? Q192 Chair: Secretary of State, there are eight Michael Gove: I hope factually tricky. I think one of people, we are informed, now working in the PQ- the things that I have learned is that it is always, answering Department. Is it only PQs that they deal always worse to delay bad news. Get it out as quickly with, or is that in the ministerial correspondence? as possible, and if someone asks a question that is Chris Wormald: That is the total staffing of our going to lead to an answer that you may consider to parliamentary branch, so they deal with all our be politically inconvenient, if those are the facts, get parliamentary business, whether it is PQs or debates them out. or Select Committee appearances. Chair: And letters? Q187 Jacob Rees-Mogg: If I may bring Mr Chris Wormald: There is a separate correspondence Freedman in—as you have sat here very patiently, and unit that deals with all letters to the Parliament. we certainly want to hear your thoughts—when Chair: They do not do letters; they do speech writing. questions come to you for approval, because you are Chris Wormald: No. career civil servant you can only look at them from a Chair: Beyond PQs, what do they do? factual point of view; you cannot give any political Chris Wormald: They are the main interface with this advice? place. They are the people who commission work for Sam Freedman: Yes, absolutely. the rest of the Department on things like debates, oral PQs—the full range of our parliamentary business. Q188 Jacob Rees-Mogg: The special advisers who But their job is to commission and manage the work- look at parliamentary questions are purely the civil flow rather than— service? Sam Freedman: I look at all of the parliamentary Q193 Chair: What do they do for debates, though? I questions that come in and clear the vast majority of am struggling. If they do not write speeches— them without any changes. If I have changes they Michael Gove: A case in point might be, for the sake would be purely factual or because I thought a policy of argument, that prior to oral questions, it might be statement did not reflect Department policy properly. that there is an oral question in an area that is part of Then if I think that I need to make special advisers the Department that has not received many aware that a particular question has come through and parliamentary questions recently, and where there may cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Ev 26 Procedure Committee: Evidence
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman be new officials. For example, there might be a the points raised by this Committee. We currently parliamentary question about school transport. They have a process where every single PQ at the end of would contact the transport team who are experts in its process goes through the advisers in the way that that policy area and say—for the sake of argument— we have described. In line with some of the “The Minister will need to have information, not just suggestions made by this Committee, what we are about the general policy area but also about transport looking to do is to significantly reduce the number of in Dorset, given that it is a Member from that county PQs that go through the advisers by spotting the ones who is asking the question, and parliamentary answers that we need to be interested in on the way. So we for oral questions need to be typed in this way”, and can’t be in the position where we both are trying to so on. They will provide that support for people who respond to the valid points made by this Committee may be deep experts in transport policy but are not in terms of what we then tell the Department to do, familiar with the demands of Parliament. Again, one but without being allowed to tell the Department what of the things that I think most Government those things are. That is a bit tricky. Departments appreciate is how important Parliament is and how important for Ministers. But the rules of Q195 Chair: Clearly nobody has a sense of irony or this place can sometimes seem arcane to people in the humour within the Department. It is just very amusing civil service, therefore, part of the responsibility for that you have to write in such flowing terms as Ministers, for the private offices, and for the opposed to calling in your eight people who have parliamentary team, is to reinforce how important it is responsibility for parliamentary questions and saying, to get that procedure right. Similarly, if there were an “Pull your finger out; get it sorted”. urgent question it would be the parliamentary team Chris Wormald: Sorry, I want to be clear because, as that would be in contact with the Speaker’s Office to the Secretary of State said at the beginning, it is very explain why we thought it was appropriate to accept important we do not blame the individual civil or appropriate to reject. They would then explain to servants who work on the parliamentary business. the policy team the briefing required and the format Answers are drafted all over the Department by the required. people who are experts in that area. So it is not a question of those eight individuals working harder or Q194 Chair: I suppose what I am driving at is that working better; it is a question of everyone in the eight people are an awful lot of people to deal with Department who has a responsibility in the process. 20 questions a day; it is two-and-a-half questions per You want the answers to be drafted by the people who person. I am just not sure that is a demanding are actually expert in the question. All those people workload, and this note you very kindly gave us a have responsibilities, alongside all their other copy of that went around to all your team—some of responsibilities, and so do the people in parliamentary, its prose was almost Churchillian. This is not a so do advisers, so do Ministers, and so do I and my difficult thing we are asking for. It is not difficult. The board. To get that culture across it is necessary to tell Department of Transport was struggling last May; people what it is they should be doing. I can see that they are now up to 95%. You talk about triage; it you do not like our language. makes it sound a bit like a hospital. There is this great Chair: No, I would just use slightly different rallying cry, “We have beaten them on the beaches, language; it is not that difficult. we have beaten them everywhere else, we can do Chris Wormald: But the message, I would have this”. This is not difficult; why are you making it so thought, was very much in line with what the difficult? I do not understand. What is the culture that Committee was asking for. makes this such a challenge? “The board has faith in the Department’s ability to make this change, we have Q196 Jacob Rees-Mogg: Could you just tell me very done it before on ministerial correspondence and it is quickly what on earth these eight people are doing? no more daunting a challenge than the policy They are not writing the answers, eight of them, for challenges teams rise to and overcome every day. 20 questions a day; they are just putting the answers Director Generals will identify directorate leave to into parliamentary language. I would have thought the join the project board and drive the work at local level Ministers could do that in three seconds. while the Permanent Secretary and the management Michael Gove: They are closer to being air traffic committee will oversee progress.” This is a bit Yes, controllers, in that they direct. I can sense you Minister-ish. It is almost comical, and I do not want probably would not want to fly into that country. But to sound rude, but really this is such a simple thing to to be fair, it is their responsibility to chase progress do; can we just crack on with it and not talk too much with parliamentary questions but also to ensure that about IT systems, and just do it? Ministers are prepared in all of the essentially Chris Wormald: Yes; I am sorry, this bit I do not procedural ways in which we interact with Parliament. accept at all. This Committee has rightly said that they do not think we have been doing well enough on this Q197 Jacob Rees-Mogg: But Ministers should know and that we have not got the message over to the the procedures of the House anyway. Come on, Department about the seriousness of the issue. In Secretary of State, you must have known these since order to get over to the Department the seriousness long before you arrived. of the issue we jointly felt that sort of message was Michael Gove: There are some things with which I appropriate to send around all 3,700 civil servants in was and am familiar. There are other areas where it is the Department. In terms of the specific thing you undoubtedly the case that the expertise of the civil raised about triage, it was exactly because of some of service helps me. Then there are sometimes some cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [O] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Procedure Committee: Evidence Ev 27
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman tasks, for example, drafting a response to the Q200 Tom Greatrex: We will try to ask a couple of Speakers’ Office in respect of UQs and so on. questions effectively prior to that visit. Mr Freedman, Jacob Rees-Mogg: But eight of them, it just seems— when Hilary Spencer gave her evidence back in Chris Wormald: I ought to say, this is a model that December she talked us through the process of exists all over Whitehall, in every single Department allocation. Can I just understand in terms of your role of which I am aware that has a parliamentary branch. that you would get the questions probably a day or so Chair: But their model is effective. after they come in routinely? How long does it take Chris Wormald: I am sorry, I will come back to that. you to then clear them? Do you look at them all, every Ours is currently larger because we have staffed it up single one? to deal with exactly the problems that this Committee Sam Freedman: I look at every single one, and I try is dealing with. We are doing a lot of things by hand, to do it the same day. I try to do it within a few hours; recording on spreadsheets, sending things by e-mail, obviously, I am in a lot of meetings and so on, so that most Departments that have a working IT system nearly all of them I look at the same day. Occasionally have now done automatically. So we do have a I will slip into a second day if I have been away from large— the office. I never go beyond a second day.
Q198 Jacob Rees-Mogg: You have so many people Q201 Tom Greatrex: Do you then have interaction you could pluck the feathers from a goose to write out with special advisers, distinct from other advisers, on these answers with a quill pen and still have time left the questions at that point or before then? over by the end of the day. Sam Freedman: Very, very rarely; a couple, but less Michael Gove: That might encourage a greater degree than 1%. of concision and precision in their writing. Q202 Tom Greatrex: So, the questions as draft Q199 Chair: I think we have reached an area of great answers before they are finally signed off: do they concern. Members of Parliament have very busy go to special advisers after they have been through private offices; we have three people and we get your office? dozens of letters and e-mails every day, most of which Sam Freedman: No, I sit in an office with the special are responded to within a week or at most two weeks. advisers. They come to me, I look at them, I make It just does not sound plausible that you have eight some changes, most of them are fine, and they then people who are responsible for parliamentary go out to ministerial offices. questions and your performance is so poor. Then we are hearing you are not going to get a new IT system Q203 Tom Greatrex: So special advisers do not have until the autumn. This is just not difficult stuff, as my a role? colleague Jacob says, and I think we just need more Sam Freedman: Special advisers have no role in the sense of urgency, less of this, “We operate in a no process. As I say, occasionally I would show one of blame culture” and just more urgency, “This is going them to them if I thought they would be interested in to be done and when we come and see you in October, it, but in most weeks they would not look at any. as I am sure we will want you to, we are going to be up at about 90% to 95%”. Q204 Tom Greatrex: What type of thing do you Chris Wormald: I am sorry, we have not at any point think they might be interested in? said that we operate in a no-blame culture, and I Sam Freedman: If I think, for instance, that we are think— publishing some data that hasn’t been in the public Chair: Well, you kind of do. domain before I would show it to them to say, “Well, Chris Wormald: No, the challenge we have set I think this is going to come out, and you need to be ourselves is how will we improve this performance aware this is going to come out”. across the Department, which I think is the challenge that this Committee set us. All I am seeking to explain Q205 Chair: We are going to start wrapping up. is that it is a challenge that does go across the whole Committee, if you have any burning questions get Department and has to affect every team in it. them in in the next eight minutes. Sam, you are going Michael Gove: I am now going to make an offer, to be leaving the Department in February, and I which I have not cross-checked with the Permanent understand a young man called Henry Cook who is a Secretary beforehand, so he may kick me; I am sure special adviser is going to be taking a keener interest he will not. The Education Select Committee in this. Do you want to expand on that very briefly? Members asked if they could come into the Sam Freedman: Just to go back to something that Department and have a look around, and we are was mentioned earlier, early on in the Parliament it delighted for them to do so. If it would assist the really was necessary for someone who had a full Committee to see how parliamentary questions are understanding of this Government’s policy agenda to handled—any member, or all of the Committee—can be looking at all of the answers, because when a lot see what happens as they come in and so on, then of of new policy is being developed things change very course that would be open. We have nothing to hide fast; people are not necessarily sure about things. Now and everything to gain from your developing a proper we have reached the stage where it is not necessary understanding so that you can question us more for advisers to look at every answer, and as I leave I effectively in the future and hold us to account. think the process will change so that, as the Permanent Chair: A very generous offer, and we will take it Secretary said, not everything will go to the advisers’ into consideration. office, and there will be a process. cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [07-05-2013 16:22] Job: 029337 Unit: PG02 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/029337/029337_o002_db_13-01-23 CORRECTED transcript HC 817-ii.xml
Ev 28 Procedure Committee: Evidence
23 January 2013 Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Chris Wormald and Sam Freedman
Q206 Chair: Sam, I need to ask you a question. As Michael Gove: I certainly would not. Absolutely no. you are aware there was an issue around a question I know exactly what you mean. One of the principles asked by Mr Loughton with regards to visits to youth in the civil service overall is to protect the principal, projects. There is concern in some quarters that this but as I mentioned earlier, and your question gives me information was made available to your office very an opportune to restate, I would rather that people had quickly, but because the information suggested that the picture, warts and all. the Secretary of State has not visited any—perfectly good reasons, I am not making judgment on that— Q209 John Hemming: Would you find it surprising perhaps a special adviser decided this was not a very that the six questions that have been outstanding for helpful bit of information to put into the public the longest are all Opposition questions? domain, and that it was not helpful politically. Can Michael Gove: I would have to look at those six you assure me that did not happen? questions to offer a commentary on them. Sam Freedman: Yes. The main interest was taken by John Hemming: You cannot comment on it now. the Secretary of State’s private office, who were trying to collect the information. There were quite a lot of Q210 Chair: Secretary of State, thank you for discussions about what constituted a youth project and coming to see us. Can I conclude by saying that I and what diaries would need to be checked and so on and this Committee take parliamentary accountability very so forth. But it was not, “We cannot give out the seriously. We think it is absolutely fundamental to a information”; it was just a, “We are not sure how to healthy democracy. So I hope when you go back to define this question”. the Department there is not a high-fives in the private office, “Yes, you bested that Select Committee, we got Q207 Helen Goodman: The Member for East through that, phew”. I hope there really is a Worthing and Shoreham also put in a question asking determination to sort this out and to get to a level what proportion of named-day questions from himself where you can be proud of the performance of your had been given a substantive answer within five days Department in delivering answers to parliamentary since September. The answer he got from Elizabeth questions. Truss was, “I will reply as soon as possible”. Is this Michael Gove: You quite rightly, when you were not reaching the realms of absurdity now? going through the message that the Permanent Sam Freedman: Yes, obviously that should be easy Secretary and I sent out, had your own critique of the to answer. way of doing it. The fact that it went out is, I hope, Helen Goodman: Good. some evidence of our determination to meet the challenge that you have rightly set. There will be other Q208 Chair: Minister, I want to be perfectly clear; ways in which you will measure our performance and that is why you have junior Ministers who do other we must do better. things. People have a responsibility to do other jobs. That was not an attack on you. I suppose the concern Q211 Chair: Thank you very much for coming is that some of the Committee would say you have a before us. Thank you very much, Mr Wormald. Sam very protective private office, of political special Freedman, that is probably an hour and a half of your advisers who are protecting you in a way that perhaps life you are never going to get back again, but thank you would not want to be protected, and perhaps are you very much for your patience and good nature. interfering in the process and interfering in, perhaps Thank you very much. delaying, the process of answering questions. You Michael Gove: I thank you, Mr Chairman, and the would not want that to happen on your behalf, would Committee. you?
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