Social Policy

Lord Bichard Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bichard]

My Lords, first, I add my voice to the many justified congratulations that the noble Lord, Lord Wei, has already received on his maiden speech. As someone who made his own maiden speech more recently than most in this Chamber, I think that I can probably share more than most the sense of euphoria and sheer relief that he is probably feeling at the moment. We all look forward to working with him—I certainly do—and it was good to hear the passion that he brought to the subject.

In my maiden speech, I drew attention to my belief that our public services need to be radically reformed if we are to provide better services at less cost, which is the challenge that we face not just in the next year but probably for the next decade. As part of that reform, I suggested that the public sector needs to regard civil society as a genuine partner in the development of social policy, so I, too, am delighted to be able to return to this issue so quickly, courtesy of the debate initiated by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, and hugely encouraged by what I have heard today.

At the moment, the reality is that civil society in all its organised forms is sometimes seen by government, national and local, as a convenient agent for delivering pre-defined policy—convenient sometimes, it must be said, because it is easier to remove the resource from civil society than from the statutory sector and easier sometimes to expect civil society to deliver with less resources than the statutory sector would have needed. It is far less frequently seen as a partner in the development of policy at an early stage. That is where I would like to intervene in this debate. The lack of involvement of civil society at an early stage is regrettable for several reasons. First, civil society has, over time, been responsible for many important social policy innovations. I think of restorative justice as an important current example. At a time when we need innovative thinking perhaps more than ever before, the statutory sector should see the value of involving civil society, the voluntary sector and their representatives in the co-design of policy, not just in its later delivery.

That involvement is important also because those active in civil society are usually closer to local communities than the statutory sector, much more able to identify early the developing issues which need to be addressed, sometimes by Government. They are also much more likely to be able to identify first the problems which existing policy is creating, and therefore the need for legislative or regulatory adjustment. Let us not forget that they are often the first to identify unnecessary expenditure—waste—and deserve to be listened to for that reason as well.

Those active in civil society are also in a better position than most to see people's problems in the round and to understand the need for them to be addressed not in departmental silos, which still too often exist, but in a coherent way, with policies built around clients and their needs, not around the needs and priorities of departments and local authorities. We know that too many families in this country are receiving support from five, six or seven different statutory agencies. We need to involve civil society in bringing some sense to that problem, highlighting it and ensuring that it is tackled. Finally—and perhaps this has not been mentioned tonight—civil society can also play an important part in winning the support of individuals, communities and citizens for new policy if they have an understanding of why a policy is thought necessary and if they have been involved—perhaps played a part—in its design.

For all these reasons, not involving civil society in early policy discussions is a missed opportunity. The question therefore is: why are such partnerships still too rare? What can we do to change that? There are several reasons why they are too rare. Perhaps one is that in the recent past we have sometimes rushed to policy. We have left ourselves too little time to allow relevant interests to be involved and to hear different voices and voices closer to our various communities. Perhaps we should think about whether a more considered approach to policy would be timely, an approach based more on available evidence and diverse voices than on dogma.

Perhaps there are concerns from the statutory sector on occasions about whether confidentiality, where necessary, will be respected if civil society and the voluntary sector are involved in early-stage discussions. That was an argument put to me when I was leading a large statutory-sector organisation as chief executive of the Benefits Agency and when I was a Permanent Secretary. My experience was that the voluntary sector understood the benefits of being involved at an early stage and was loath to abuse that and, consequently, to lose future opportunities to influence policy development. I found that, even in difficult situations, if it was trusted, the voluntary sector would respond to that trust. There is a tendency for those of us who spend a long time working in government to be too secretive, too often. Perhaps we should be more open. We should open up the policy development process a good deal more than we have in the recent past. Sometimes, regrettably, there has also been a certain arrogance at play within the statutory sector. There has been a sense that somehow civil society and its representatives were less able. When I chaired quite large major charitable organisations, I sensed that to be the case. Government departments seemed to know that they knew best.

The most important question, which has already been raised once or twice in this debate, is: what can we now do to ensure the development of a relationship that is built upon respect, trust and partnership? I shall offer three or four very practical—they could be thought trivial—examples of what could be done. I have deliberately chosen practical, low-key developments. First, let us have more opportunities and more encouragement for the best civil servants to spend significant time—not a day or a week—working in civil society so that they understand better the challenges of local communities and the organisations that are closest to them. Let us make more opportunities for those active in civil society to spend some time in government to influence the thinking and understand its workings so that they are in a better position to carry on influencing that thinking. When we review departments in future, let us pay more attention to their capacity to work in partnership with civil society and to the results of their attempts to do that. Let us continue to encourage civil servants, senior as well as junior, to offer themselves as volunteers in their communities. In fairness, a great deal of that already happens. But it really does need to be recognised and valued by senior managers. It might even be right to take into account that kind of activity when we are thinking about promotion of civil servants.

Those are just some very basic, practical things that we can do. I offer them because we can agree here that this partnership between government and civil society will make for better policy. We can encourage it. We can indulge in the rhetoric that we are all very good at. But rhetoric and encouragement will not alone make it happen. We need to find practical ways of making it the reality that it is not yet.

If we are going to change the balance between the power of the state and the people, which most of us have been saying today we want to do, then it is a time for practical working. It is a time for us to take action; and it really is quite urgent, because the challenges that we face as a society demand that change of balance.