Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and James Gray

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his compliment. We are trying to make a lot of progress, and the British Government are now regarded as world leading, after having been, frankly, a byword for failure in Government IT. Other Governments are now using the source code for gov.uk, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Baroness Lane-Fox leads the Go ON UK charity, which is dedicated to getting more people online, which is the key purpose. When we provide the assisted digital option, we ideally want to frame contracts so that they incentivise the provider not just to provide a service, but to use it to help individuals to get online so that their lives are enriched more widely.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

In answer to the very good question from my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), the Minister responded that those, like many in my constituency, who have no access to computers and are not online will be given something called an “assisted digital alternative”. Will he perhaps tell us what that is?

[Mr Maude]

It can take many forms, but the point is that the service is provided or the transaction is conducted digitally—it is conducted online—although not necessarily by the citizen themselves. For example, it could be done in a library, where someone sits alongside the citizen to help them to input data or conduct the transaction, or it could be done on the telephone, with someone on the other end to put data into the web service. There are a lot of different ways of providing it, and they will be fashioned around the needs of the user, not the convenience of the Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and James Gray

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s confirmation that the civil service is a good and diverse employer. I expect that to continue.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

T6. Government spending on advertising and consultants of all kinds is nearly always wasteful, profligate and—[Interruption.]

[Mr Gray]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Government spending on advertising and consultants is nearly always wasteful, extravagant and profligate. What was the annual spend of the previous Government, how much has my right hon. Friend managed to cut it by, and what further plans does he have to squeeze this kind of waste out of Government spending?

[Mr Maude]

We saved nearly £400 million a year by restricting the spend on advertising and marketing, which was wholly incontinent under the previous Government. There are sometimes good cases for using consultants, but we have cut the spend on them by nearly 70%. These disciplines will continue for the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and James Gray

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

It is one thing to have a target but another to reach it. The £21 billion of public sector fraud that the National Fraud Authority identified arose after his party’s Government had set their ambitious targets. We are getting on and doing things—identifying fraud and error and stopping hard-earned taxpayers’ money going out of the door, to ensure that instead it goes to the vulnerable people and important public services where it is needed.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

One and a half billion pounds sounds not like a modest saving, in the words of the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), but like a worthwhile saving, given that every penny comes out of people’s pockets. How soon will the Minister be able to take forward savings towards achieving the £21 billion total? We need to stamp this out of the public sector: what can we do about it?

[Mr Maude]

I should make it clear that this is only the beginning. The issue is not only benefit or tax fraud but procurement fraud. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is undertaking a pilot on supplier fraud in his Department, and it is already yielding significant returns. If the previous Government had been as concerned with eradicating fraud as we are, the public finances would not perhaps be in the mess they are in.