Boards of Public Bodies: Representation

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I invariably enjoy the speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. He makes his points well and they are always important. I find myself endorsing much of what he said; he speaks with great expertise and I hope the Government listen.

I want to raise a couple of wider points. First, we must look at the wider cultural dimension. Of course, what the noble Lord said about diversity is crucial. If we are a multi-ethnic, multicultural society, that should be represented on public boards.

In my formative years, as a youngster post the Second World War, public service was regarded with high esteem. It was a great thing to be involved in public service; you were respected across society and expected to deliver in the context of that respect and trust. But the motivation for being on a board would be, hopefully—there were of course exceptions—because you wanted to make a contribution in the public sector. I am afraid that the balance in our society has tilted far too far towards a complete reverence and esteem for the private sector, and a neglect of the public sector. I suspect that this undermines the self-confidence of those who operate in the public sector, on boards or whatever. It is not a very clever thing to be doing; if you are a clever thing, you are making a great success in financial or commercial circles.

We have to get a great deal of leadership put back into our society, stressing the vital importance of the public sector so that we begin to build up again an atmosphere in which it is an esteemed and deeply respected form of activity in which to be involved. That of course goes into the priorities of the management of public bodies and boards. Of course, we want efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Those are crucial in dealing with public money but it is not just about cost-effectiveness, or measuring the economic efficiency of the board with the terminology and priorities of the private sector. The priority of the public sector is to deliver the service for which it is there, doing so at the same time as ensuring value for money, efficiency and effectiveness—I underline “of course” again. But it is not the same as just saying at the end of the year, “We can produce results showing that we are operating more financially effectively than ever before”. That is not an end; the end is the public service, and we have to re-establish that sense of social priority.

I would like to take a specific example because one of the issues which is very important—the health service is a crucial example of what I have been talking about—is the national parks movement, where I have been very involved for many years. I often reflect on just who the people on the boards of the national parks are supposed to be serving. Are they serving the local community or society as a whole in the United Kingdom, for which the parks should be a deeply valued asset? What are they supposed to be providing? They provide a quality or dimension of life which is not available in the hurly-burly of normal existence. They are there to provide space for physical development and fulfilment, but also space for qualitative mental activity and reflection—if you like, the spiritual dimension of the parks. I sometimes detect park authorities being tempted away from this precious and special role into demonstrating their financial effectiveness—of course, I want that anyway—but at the same time, they might say, “If we became more of a theme park, we would be more effective public organisations”. That would be calamitous. It would be a tragedy, because the point of the parks is to provide a totally different dimension—space and pace—in our society.

At this point, I always tell the same story—colleagues will have heard it before and I do not apologise for that. It is the story of a youngster from an inner-city area in Britain, who was at a training centre near Windermere. She was looking terribly excited and animated one day, so was asked by one of her instructors, “What have you done today?”. This girl, who was not yet 10, looked at her with wide eyes and said, “I’ve seen far”. A few days later, the same instructor asked the same girl, who was looking even more excited, “What have you done today?”. She said, “I’ve seen very far”.

That is a precious and special calling for the members of park authorities. Of course they have to take fully into account the economic, social and political lives of the people who live and work in the parks. That is a given, but their job is about something bigger and greater than that. That same approach and analysis applies to many other dimensions of British life. While I therefore applaud all the practical propositions that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, put forward, we need again the realisation that we have to promote the whole standing of public service and its special dimensions to far higher esteem in public life.