NHS Risk Register

Debate between John Healey and Chris Skidmore

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow two of my fellow Health Committee members. The Chairman of the Committee wrote to the Secretary of State on 16 November 2011 to ask for the Government’s reasons for not publishing the risk register. In response, the Secretary of State wrote:

“It is important to understand that the risk register sets out all of the potential risks identified by the Department of Health for the entire range of areas for which it is responsible. These include financial risks, policy risks and sensitive contractual risks. It is a means by which the Department focuses on risks and acts to mitigate them. If the Department were to release risk registers in the future, there is a genuine possibility that the most significant risks will no longer be recorded, and no solution or mitigating action will therefore be identified. Any action that could deter staff from articulating and addressing business risk to their senior management and ministers carries with it the potential for highly damaging consequences.”

That is remarkably similarly to an answer given in Hansard on 23 March 2007 by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) in response to a parliamentary question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). The right hon. Gentleman stated that the Department’s risk register dealt with

“emerging risks to the Department’s programme and the national health service, and what can be done to control and mitigate these risks. It also informs discussions between the Department and top management in the NHS about addressing key issues in policy, resourcing and service management. Putting the risk register in the public domain would be likely to reduce the detail and utility of its contents. This would inhibit the free and frank exchange of views about significant risks and their management, and inhibit the provision of advice to Ministers. We therefore cannot agree to place a copy of the current version of the register in the Library.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 1191W.]

We had a similar example on 31 July 2008, when the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) responded to a freedom of information request by stating:

“Putting the risk register in the public domain would be likely to reduce the detail and utility of its contents. This would inhibit the free and frank exchange of views about significant risks and their management, and inhibit the provision of advice to Ministers.”

The Department of Health also refused a freedom of information request for copies of any presentations given by the director of public health concerned with the risk of not delivering on targets to reduce health inequalities, so it is not only risk registers that the Department has previously refused to reveal.

Members have talked today about the risk register in apocalyptic terms, as though it were a document that should remain within the confines of MI5 or MI6. The Health Minister, Earl Howe, has revealed details of the broad issues that are covered by this risk register. I should like to read them out, so as to set the debate properly in context. They include:

“how best to manage the parliamentary passage of the Bill and the potential impact of Royal Assent being delayed on the transition in the NHS; how to co-ordinate planning so that changes happen in a co-ordinated fashion while maintaining financial control; how to ensure that the NHS takes appropriate steps during organisational change to maintain and improve quality; how to ensure that lines of accountability are clear in the new system and that different bodies work together effectively, including the risk of replicating what we already have; how to minimise disruption for staff and maintain morale during transition; how best to ensure financial control during transition, to minimise the costs of moving to a new system, and to ensure that the new system delivers future efficiencies; how to ensure that future commissioning plans are robust, and to maximise the capability of the future NHS Commissioning Board; how stakeholders should be engaged in developing and implementing the reforms; and finally, how to properly resource the teams responsible for implementing the changes”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 November 2011; Vol. 733, c. 16.]

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman is right to draw the House’s attention to that fact, but does he accept that that is information that has not been published elsewhere and that the Secretary of State’s argument that the impact assessments that have been published are sufficient therefore simply will not wash?

[Chris Skidmore]

It is interesting that the right hon. Gentleman raises that point, because Earl Howe was mentioning the transition risk register, which is continually updated. That is an important point, because the appeal to the Information Commissioner to release the risk register was made on 29 November 2010, in the autumn when the register was live. The Information Commissioner made his ruling based on the fact that there was an issue of public interest at the time of the request. If the risk register is released today, it will be the risk register from autumn 2010 rather than that from February 2012. That is the moment when the wheels come off the bandwagon. The Opposition are asking the Information Commissioner to release the risk register from autumn 2010, not the risk register from February 2012. The risk register that would be released is that from the time of the White Paper, before the changes were made and before the listening exercise. It is complete nonsense. If the document was released, it would be out of date, inaccurate and would scaremonger among the population.

[John Healey]

So the hon. Gentleman agrees with Lord Henley, the Minister in the House of Lords, who told the House in January that if the Government lose the appeal next month they will publish not only the risk register from November 2010 but the updated risk registers, too?

[Chris Skidmore]

The Government do not have to publish the updated registers on the basis of the Information Commissioner’s verdict, which was on the autumn 2010 register. That is the Information Commissioner’s advice that is referred to in the motion. The Opposition are asking for an out-of-date document—we might as well give up and go home.