Outsourcing (Government Departments)

Gloria De Piero Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Grahame M. Morris]

The basis of my argument essentially is that there is no evidence base for that approach. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to develop my argument a little further, I hope to illustrate that point.

If we look at the evidence base, it is in fact a constant lesson from history that reform has often come, as the hon. Gentleman has indicated, in the form of privatisations and outsourcing, but it has not always led to service improvement. Whether the justification for such reform has been a desire to bring perceived good practice from the private sector into the public sector or, indeed, the belief that savings can be made through outsourcing, the question that we parliamentarians must ask the Government and that I wish to put to the Minister is this: where is the evidence for those reforms?

I hope that the Minister will address this issue, which is about the economic and social evidence base rather than an ideological base that is behind what seems to be a rush to sell off services and public assets. It is my contention that the Tory-led policy on public services reform that is being followed by the coalition is ideologically driven and light on any such evidence base. I want to develop that point by presenting some evidence to suggest that the Government are on the wrong side of public opinion and, indeed, wrong about the whole issue of public service reform.

I hope that the Minister is aware of a report by Ipsos MORI entitled, “What do people want, need and expect from public services?” The report presents the most up-to-date and detailed data on current public attitudes to public services and public service reform. I want to put three headline findings on the record. First, people

“want public services to be based on notions of the public good, rather than just what’s good for me”.

Secondly, people

“understand the public good largely in terms of universalism, with equality of access to benefits”.

Thirdly, people

“struggle to see a compelling or urgent case for reforming public services to cope with economic pressures and social changes”.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there are different interpretations of public sector reform? For example, Labour set up academies in areas of high deprivation, but the Tory-led Government turned that on its head. Their interpretation is anti the public good.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I agree that there are various interpretations of what constitutes public sector reform, and I will speak about academies in a few moments. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention.

On all three points illustrated in that detailed survey, the Government are out of step with the public on public service reform. Ordinary people want public services in public hands for the public good, but the Government seem to want public services outsourced to business for the good of private profit. Ordinary people want universalism, but the Government want to decentralise, to remove targets and to create local variations and postcode lotteries, so going against standardised and universal access. Ordinary people oppose rapid upheaval and fundamental reform to public services, and a case in point is the opposition to the NHS reforms.

The Government have run amok with the reorganisation of the health service and forged ahead with public service reform and outsourcing at breakneck speed. It is no surprise that when Ministers make speeches on public service reform, they do so to business leaders, never to public sector workers, service users or trade union groups who work in the public sector. I want to place on the record my support, sympathy and admiration for the front-line workers who are so often treated like pawns in a game of chess, facing constant change, reorganisation and regrading, often at the whim of political elites.

Workers across the public sector know that the latest policy move to the mass outsourcing of services and a free-for-all for business will be a last hurrah, because many of the changes will be irreversible. For people who work in the public service, it means an end to job security and to nationally determined pay, conditions and terms of service. Instead, national public services will become ever more fragmented, unstable and variable, offering short-term and risky employment not by the state, but by any fly-by-night private sector operator.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

I resist any invitation to criticise Conservative councils, particularly at this moment. My point is about attitudes to taxpayers’ money. The previous Administration were cavalier with taxpayers’ money and this Administration are trying to deliver better

[Gloria De Piero]

The Minister might not want to speak about Conservative councils, but I live in Nottinghamshire where the Conservative council has just used taxpayers’ money to develop a new logo on all the buildings. Is that good value for taxpayers?

[Mr Hurd]

I do not know because I do not know the situation in Nottingham. That is an issue on which the people of Nottingham can take a view and they will be able to express that view more clearly and more loudly because we are moving towards a world in which there is more transparency about local authorities’ spending. We are moving away from the opaque world in which we had very little information about what was being done in our name.