Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Henry Smith(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Maude
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. I pay tribute to him for the way in which he and his Committee have held us to account for what we do. He has done that consistently and persistently. It has not always been comfortable, but that is what the House of Commons is for.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
My responsibilities are for efficiency and reform, civil service issues, public sector industrial relations strategy, government transparency, civil contingencies, civil society and cyber-security.
Henry Smith
I would like sincerely to thank my right hon. Friend and neighbouring Member of Parliament for all his assistance and advice over many years., Can he estimate the amount of taxpayers’ money that has been saved through efficiencies in his five years in the Cabinet Office?
Mr Maude
In the course of this Parliament we have saved more than £50 billion through efficiency and reform savings. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for the support he has given throughout the process. He is a completely brilliant local MP, and I am confident he will be back here after the election.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Henry Smith(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Maude
Earlier this week, the MOJ announced its plans to take forward the agreed plans on shared services, which were first put forward under the Labour Government in 2004 but did not begin to be implemented until 2012. There are major efficiency savings to be made. I am sure that SSCL—Shared Services Connected Ltd—the shared service company the MOJ proposes to use, will look carefully at all the facilities and will want to concentrate activity at the most effective and efficient ones, and I see absolutely no reason why Newport’s should not be among those.
Henry Smith
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his answer and for the significant amounts of taxpayer money that the Cabinet Office is saving. What role can greater digitisation play in obtaining further efficiencies?
Mr Maude
Moving public services online has a major part to play, both in making services more convenient and designed around the needs of the user rather than the convenience of the Government, and in making major savings. Typically, the cost of an online transaction is about one fiftieth of the cost of the transaction being done face to face, but for those people who are not online there will always be an assisted digital option.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Henry Smith(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
T3. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the £10 billion- worth of efficiency savings that his Department has made on behalf of the taxpayer in the past year. What ambition does he have for the coming year?
Mr Maude
We hope that those savings will rise to £15 billion in the current year, and potentially to £20 billion the following year, with a further £5 billion, at least, after that. If only the Leader of the Opposition had started to do this when he held my job, perhaps we would not have inherited quite the size of public sector deficit that we did, but I am afraid that he was showing weak leadership even then.
Civil Service Reform
Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Henry Smith(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
My right hon. Friend touched on the importance of importing the very best of transformational change from the enterprise sector. Will he say a little more about that?
Mr Maude
We want a civil service culture that is much more recognisable to those who come from the private sector so that there can be greater interaction. Where people do move from one sector to another, frequently it does not work because they feel like they have landed on a different planet. It is particularly valuable for civil servants to spend some time in the private sector as they will pick up additional skills, as well as vice versa. There can be very valuable cross-fertilisation. This has often been tried, but it has worked far too rarely. We are going to have another go.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Henry Smith(13 years ago)
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Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
T4. Can my right hon. Friend say how the British Government compare with the French Government when it comes to the number of contracts they procure with domestic suppliers?
Mr Maude
The procurement practice that we inherited from the previous Government militates heavily against the interests of UK suppliers and UK jobs, especially when it comes to very large contracts. Both France and Germany, which do not operate protectionist regimes and which obey the rules, give away fewer jobs to other countries. We are looking at this to see how we can support UK suppliers in a way that the previous Government signally failed to do.
Public Bodies Reform
Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Henry Smith(14 years ago)
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Mr Maude
There is a bit of a difference between pay in the private sector and pay in the public sector—[Interruption.] The fact that the hon. Gentleman finds it difficult to make the distinction tells us a lot about the mentality behind the last Government. In the public sector, it is taxpayers’ money that is being spent and Ministers have a responsibility to ensure that it is well spent. The fact that they did not is one of the reasons why we are now facing the scale of budget deficit that we are. The transparency that we have applied to pay in the quangos has meant that people have been shocked to find out how profligate some of the pay has been.
On the transfer of staff into the civil service, the terms and conditions will of course be transferred according to the TUPE rules, as the hon. Gentleman would expect.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
In a previous existence, I was a leader of a local authority, and three things got in the way of effectiveness—an increasing lack of democratic authority; an over-burdensome inspection regime; and a lack of funding. All three of those problems often stemmed from the existence of far too many quangos. I seek an assurance from my right hon. Friend that functions presently carried out by quangos that are to be abolished will be devolved to the local level.
Mr Maude
Wherever possible, that is our preference. We believe in localism and in trusting local authorities to take responsibility for what they do. Our commitment to localism does not only mean devolving to local authorities. In the case of consumer functions, for example, we think that devolving beyond local authorities to citizens advice bureaux is potentially a better approach. However, I can confirm our preference to devolve powers to as close to the front line of where citizens use services as possible.