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Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) Wednesday Volume 542 21 March 2012 No. 283 HOUSE OF COMMONS OFFICIAL REPORT PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (HANSARD) Wednesday 21 March 2012 £5·00 © Parliamentary Copyright House of Commons 2012 This publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Parliamentary Click-Use Licence, available online through The National Archives website at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/our-services/parliamentary-licence-information.htm Enquiries to The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU; e-mail: [email protected] 773 21 MARCH 2012 774 Cathy Jamieson: Recent analysis by the Office for House of Commons National Statistics revealed that half of all central Government Departments, including the Minister’s, have Wednesday 21 March 2012 actually increased staff numbers in the past six months. How does that fit with the Government’s pledge to increase localism? Is that not more central bureaucracy The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock being created? PRAYERS Mr Letwin: The hon. Lady will be aware that, as I mentioned in my first answer, there has been a massive reduction in the headcount of the civil service as a [MR SPEAKER in the Chair] whole. Of course there have been particular cases in which particular people needed to be hired, but the broad effort we have been making has brought down Oral Answers to Questions the deficit and increased dramatically the efficiency of the civil service. Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con): CABINET OFFICE May I remind my right hon. Friend of the findings of the Public Administration Committee report, “Change The Minister for the Cabinet Office was asked— in Government”, published last autumn, which identified the reduction in resources as just one of the many Civil Service changes the Government are trying to achieve in the civil service? We await the plan for civil service reform 1. Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab): If he will with great interest, because our main conclusion was undertake an impact assessment on the effect of that the Government need a plan in order to effect this changes in resource for the civil service on delivery of change. Government policy. [100937] Mr Letwin: My hon. Friend, the Chairman of the 8. Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/ Public Administration Committee, is absolutely right. Co-op): If he will undertake an impact assessment on My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet the effect of changes in resource for the civil service on Office and Paymaster General and I have had meetings delivery of Government policy. [100944] with the Prime Minister, the head of the civil service and the Cabinet Secretary, and under the aegis of those The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver two very senior officials the review to which my hon. Letwin): Our aim is to maintain the superb quality of Friend refers is now being carried forward. There will our civil service while reducing its quantity. Under this be a strategy—much beloved of the Committee—that Government the civil service headcount has come down will emerge from that review, and once it is available from 487,000 to 435,000, which is smaller than it has Ministers will consider it and produce a plan for further been at any time since the second world war. Of course, changes in the civil service. this reduction helps to reduce the deficit, but it is also a natural consequence of our intention to reduce bureaucracy, Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con): It has improve public services and promote the big society by been reported that the outgoing director of strategy for shifting power to people on the front line. the Prime Minister, the excellent Steve Hilton, wishes to Mr Barron: A recent National Audit Office report on reduce the number of Whitehall civil servants by two cost reduction in central Government suggests that the thirds. Does the Minister agree? staffing departures revealed an unplanned and haphazard redundancy drive that has paid off 18,000 civil servants Mr Letwin: I am afraid that some wildly inaccurate since 2010, at a cost of £600 million, to save just reports have been floating around, but it is certainly £400 million. One of the report’s conclusions is: true that the review that the Cabinet Secretary and the “Few departmental systems can link costs to outputs and head of the civil service are leading on, which I mentioned impacts, making it difficult to evaluate the effect of cost changes”. in my previous answer, is looking right across the board Does the Minister agree, and what will his Department to try to work out what a modern civil service ought to do about it? look like, bearing in mind all the technology and other advantages we currently have, in order to deliver innovation, Mr Letwin: The right hon. Gentleman has a distinguished change and the delivery of policy in the most effective career, which includes at one time being Parliamentary and efficient way possible. Private Secretary to Lord Kinnock, so presumably he has some experience of figures that go completely wonky, Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab): The Minister has and the ones he is presenting give a very wonky picture. announced the closure of the Central Office of Information, What the NAO report actually revealed is that the cost which provides politically independent public information to the Departments was £600 million, the payback to from professional civil servants, and he will instead the taxpayer was over 10 to 16 months and the total locate the service in various Departments, with the savings in this spending review period alone, in net consequential inherent risk that the Government present value, will be between £750 million and £1.4 billion. information service might become politicised. We would There is a massive saving there, which he would see if he of course support any sensible measure to deliver a read the whole report. more economic service, but is not the current flood of 775 Oral Answers21 MARCH 2012 Oral Answers 776 leaks, on an industrial scale, in relation to today’s the result was bad value for money and the serious Budget a portent of the public information service’s undermining of the self-esteem of professional civil politicisation, which he is opening the door to? servants, who like being asked to do difficult things and are very good at doing them. Mr Letwin: In a word, no. The changes that are being made in the structure and character of the information Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con): service are being made in order to have a modern Does my right hon. Friend agree that every Government service that can actually do the job properly. The hon. need the best possible policy advice available, and that Gentleman ought to pause before talking about sometimes it comes from within the civil service, and politicisation of the civil service, as under the previous sometimes from without? Government efforts were made on an unparalleled scale to politicise the service’s activities. By contrast, this Mr Maude: As the new Cabinet Secretary said the Government in all our information have been other day, the civil service has in the past had a monopoly extraordinarily transparent, providing data on an on policy advice, and he and others feel that it is unparalleled scale and operating a much more open something worth questioning. I am sorry that it is only Government than he and his colleagues ever dreamed the Opposition who seem to have closed minds on the of doing. issue. Jon Trickett: But that is all flim-flam, frankly. The leaking of Budget information on that scale is without Voluntary and Community Sector precedent, and it is in clear breach, Mr Speaker, of your strict admonition that such statements should take place 3. Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab): first in the House and not in the media. There is no way What recent discussions he has had on the types of that professional civil servants in the COI would have Government funding models available to the voluntary undertaken such leaking, so does the Minister agree and community sector. [100939] that there should be a Cabinet Office inquiry to identify the leakers? If it was civil servants, they are clearly in 13. Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab): What recent breach of their code of conduct, but, if it was Ministers, discussions he has had on the types of Government they are playing fast and loose with our democracy. funding models available to the voluntary and community sector. [100949] Mr Letwin: First, if the hon. Gentleman recalls his time as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the previous The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Prime Minister, he will be aware that he was serving a Hurd): We want to help the voluntary and community past master at giving foretastes of Budgets. Secondly, I sector to become more resilient by developing three am surprised that the hon. Gentleman feels he knows pillars of funding: traditional giving, income from the what is or is not a leak, as he has not seen the Budget state including more opportunities to deliver public yet, and nor has the House. service and a new pillar, the emerging market of social investment. Policy Advice (Outsourcing) Lilian Greenwood: Many local voluntary organisations 2. Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab): were set up to complement statutory services, as What recent discussions he has had with permanent Nottingham Community and Voluntary Service reminded secretaries on Government outsourcing of policy me when I met its representatives last week. If the advice. [100938] predominant funding source for the voluntary sector is now to be public sector contracts, will not thousands of The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster valuable voluntary groups throughout the country be General (Mr Francis Maude): The head of the civil left high and dry, showing once again this Government’s service has set up a number of themed groups to explore utter contempt for the big society that they purport to various aspects of civil service reform.
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