Interpreting and Translation Services

Debate between Ian Swales and Mark Pritchard

Thursday 20th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Ian Swales]

My right hon. Friend makes a valuable point, which is of great concern to the Public Accounts Committee. We seem to have a number of Government Departments that—I suppose it is belt and braces—are making the outsourcing, or contracting-out process, so complicated that now only four or five companies can win the bid. The whole job is how a bid is won and not what the service is, because frequently the people who win the bids do not do the work. Eddie Stobart will not be providing legal aid; its expertise is winning a Government bid. That is the almost farcical situation that we have now got into. The Ministry needs to learn the lessons from that process, particularly as it seems to be about to do some very similar things on a much bigger scale.

One of the other issues that we have—we use the expression on our Committee “following the public pound” —is that the more this type of thing happens, the less access the National Audit Office has to the people who are doing the work. If the services are run by the Department, the NAO can be all over them, but typically, the contracts do not provide transparency or access, so our auditors are unable to get into the key providers.

In summary, the Minister needs to convince us about the lessons learnt, and about what improvement actions will be taken. I feel—not my Committee but I, personally—that a lot of scrutiny by a lot of people should take place before we walk into the same trap again, and I fear that the Public Accounts Committee may have a lot more work coming down the road towards it.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Before I call John Mann, to be helpful, I just say that I intend to start the wind-ups at 2.30 pm.