Government Efficiency and Reform

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Lord Robathan

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The public service mutuals programme is important. There are now more than 100 of them, whereas there were fewer than 10 when the coalition Government were formed. More than 35,000 members of staff have joined public service mutuals, which are delivering public services to the value of more than £1.5 billion. Most of them choose to be not-for-profit, and have seen an extraordinary improvement in productivity by bringing together: entrepreneurial leadership, of which there is much more in the public sector than is generally thought; staff who are liberated from bureaucratic constraints; hard-edged commercial discipline; and the public service ethos. Those four factors, brought together, are an extraordinarily powerful driver of improved productivity and value.

[Mr Andrew Robathan (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

In my right hon. Friend’s swansong—I commend him for it and for his five years’ work, saving money for the public purse—I wonder whether I might pick up on one specific issue of government efficiency reform, which is the trade unions training fund. It was set up a dozen or so years ago by the previous Government; some £10 million to £12 million was given to trade unions’ training and, lo and behold, £12 million came back as a bung to the Labour party. Will he update the House on what has happened to that?

[Mr Maude]

My right hon. Friend should not assume that this is my swansong. Although it is my last week in the House of Commons, I am answering oral questions on Wednesday and I am looking forward to that—[Interruption.] I am looking forward to engaging with the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on that occasion. It is very nice to see my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury here, as he has been my comrade in arms as we have driven forward these efficiency savings over that period. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr Robathan) will know that I made a statement, either last week or the week before, about the reform of trade unions within central Government. We have cut the cost of the subsidies to trade unions significantly over that time, bringing into these things a proper sense of proportion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Lord Robathan

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Robathan (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

4. What assessment he has made of the use of trade union facility time by civil servants; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

At the time of the last general election there was no proper monitoring of trade union facility time in government. We now have controls in place that have saved taxpayers £25 million in the last rolling year to date, and have reduced the number of taxpayer-funded full-time union officials in central Government from 200 in May 2010 to fewer than 10 now.

[Mr Robathan]

I am sure everybody in the House believes that employees in whatever sector should be given both the right and the opportunity to be properly represented with their employers, be it by trades unions or others, but the majority of my constituents and, I suspect, the majority of people in this country would still be quite shocked and unhappy to discover that we are still funding public servants, who should be working for the public service, to support trade union activity that has nothing whatever to do with what they are paid for. Will my right hon. Friend bear down on the remaining members given facility time in the public service?

[Mr Maude]

As I say, the amount of facility time has been reduced significantly. There is a perfectly proper use of facility time for trade union duties in resolving grievances and dealing with disputes locally and effectively, and we support that, but there was also a huge amount of unmonitored and out-of-control, paid-for activity supporting trade unions, including in many cases paying for civil servants to attend seaside conferences of trade unions at the taxpayers’ expense, and that seemed to us to be wrong.