Outsourcing (Government Departments)

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[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.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I share the Minister’s concern about value for money, although I am also concerned about protecting the most vulnerable and about the standard of public services and the intelligence of targets that are used in outsourcing. Will he respond to the point that was powerfully put by my hon. Friend the Member for Easington, about the evidence base behind this? Where is the evidence that outsourcing provides better value for money?

[Mr Hurd]

I am delighted to move on to the substance of the debate. I have tried my best to respond to various interventions from Opposition Members. The hon. Member for Easington referred to open public services. [Interruption.] With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I am trying to answer the meat of his argument, which is whether it is good to create a situation in which those buying on behalf of the taxpayer have choice about where they buy services on our behalf. He is actually arguing for no choice and for protection of the status quo. The Government’s open public services White Paper makes it clear—we expect a political argument about this—that we want to switch the default setting away from in-house delivery to commissioning services from a diverse range of providers where that would improve services or reduce costs.

The hon. Gentleman made it clear that he was hostile to the for-profits sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock made a valuable point that the Government are agnostic about who delivers the service. We are particularly keen—it is a coalition Government commitment —to make it easier for charities and social enterprises to participate in public services. They are not driven by a profit motive. By definition, they are driven by a desire to deliver a better outcome for the people whom they support and care about.