Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Letwin and Kevin Barron

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

Our aim is to maintain the superb quality of our civil service while reducing its quantity. Under this Government the civil service headcount has come down from 487,000 to 435,000, which is smaller than it has been at any time since the second world war. Of course, this reduction helps to reduce the deficit, but it is also a natural consequence of our intention to reduce bureaucracy, improve public services and promote the big society by shifting power to people on the front line.

[Mr Barron]

A recent National Audit Office report on cost reduction in central Government suggests that the staffing departures revealed an unplanned and haphazard redundancy drive that has paid off 18,000 civil servants since 2010, at a cost of £600 million, to save just £400 million. One of the report’s conclusions is:

“Few departmental systems can link costs to outputs and impacts, making it difficult to evaluate the effect of cost changes”.

Does the Minister agree, and what will his Department do about it?

[Mr Letwin]

The right hon. Gentleman has a distinguished career, which includes at one time being Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Kinnock, so presumably he has some experience of figures that go completely wonky, and the ones he is presenting give a very wonky picture. What the NAO report actually revealed is that the cost to the Departments was £600 million, the payback to the taxpayer was over 10 to 16 months and the total savings in this spending review period alone, in net present value, will be between £750 million and £1.4 billion. There is a massive saving there, which he would see if he read the whole report.

Departmental Business Plans

Debate between Oliver Letwin and Kevin Barron

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend that it is only by making the kinds of changes that he describes that we can really improve public services. That is why I have the good news for him that under the programme laid out in the Department for Education business plan my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will do exactly what my hon. Friend requests. That is why we have a programme of academies and free schools which gives those kinds of powers locally to the professionals on the ground. By doing that we enable parents and pupils, by choosing the schools of their own desire, to create real competitive pressure for excellence in the system. Combining that with the efforts to create a proper pupil premium means that the least advantaged will be most advantaged in our system, and the combination of those effects will be to give excellence and improvement for all.

[Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

The Minister says that Departments will publish a simple report on their progress towards meeting their commitments. What will happen if those commitments are often not met?

[Mr Letwin]

What will happen is a series of things that are inconvenient for the responsible Ministers, rising to something that is rather more than inconvenient. In the first place, a report will be made, which will be available to everybody—no Minister likes to see such a thing appear in public. Secondly, the Minister involved will find himself having a discussion with my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and me to explain what has occurred—[Interruption.] I do not know whether Labour Members want to know about this, but I am trying to explain it. The second thing that will happen is that the Minister will meet the Chief Secretary and me, and the permanent secretary will have a conversation with the head of the civil service. Finally, if the problem is still not resolved, the Secretary of State in question will have a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. This is a serious set of incentives; if one thinks about what it was like under the previous Government, or any previous Government, one realises that Ministers do not wish to go through that process and will therefore try to meet their objectives.