Volunteering Bill

Debate between Nick Hurd and Christopher Chope

Friday 10th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)]

May I add my voice to those wishing the Duke of Edinburgh a very happy birthday today? May I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on his prodigious fertility in terms of private Members’ Bills in this Session, but also, in the case of this particular baby, on its characteristic simplicity in terms of its structure? The Government cannot support it, for reasons that I will go into in whatever detail I can in the time that we have, but it is, as the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) also took the opportunity to say, a welcome opportunity to recognise the astonishing contribution of millions of people in constituencies throughout the country who give time to help others, and those groups, such as WorldWide Volunteering, but there are many others, which help people to use that time and inspire and connect them with opportunities to help others. It is that generosity in that landscape of that ecosystem of civil society organisations that is one of the things that makes this country great, and we should absolutely recognise it.

It is also right regularly to be asking ourselves the question: what can we do to make it easier in 2011 in modern Britain, with all the pressures on people’s time and, at the moment, money, to get involved, to support each other, to help to create the changes that people want to see? It goes to the heart of how we build a stronger sense of community where people have more power and responsibility for their lives, their communities and the services they use—the absolute aspiration of the big society vision. When it comes to encouraging and supporting social action, which is the context of the Bill, it is clear that we need to do something. We are a generous country—the statistics show that clearly—but it is also clear that giving has flatlined and there are worrying signs of decline, not least in terms of the giving of time. We have a sense of this from our own constituencies and community associations, and the difficulties that they have in finding new people to come forward. The charity world is increasingly concerned. Some people say that we cannot change this, that it is as good as it can get, but we do not accept that decline is inevitable, and our research and consultation suggest that there are people and organisations who would like to do more and could do more, but too many things get in the way.

As the hon. Lady said, there is an issue around lack of time in 2011, or perception of lack of time for many people. Often people find it difficult and complicated. For too many, the experience of volunteering, given time, is not as rewarding as it could or should be. There is a lack of awareness of opportunities, or where to start looking. There is an issue around bureaucracy—I do disagree a little with the hon. Lady here—and there is an issue around the CRB. She tried to make a case about why Lord Hodgson ignored this issue. There is a simple explanation: he recognised that other reviews of vetting and barring and of the CRB regime were going on and he took a view, I think quite sensibly, that he needed to focus the efforts of a limited resource exercise on areas where he felt that he could add more value. But his report “Unshackling Good Neighbours”—I recommend it to all colleagues—is a dose of common sense, when common sense is needed.

There is an issue around the CRB checks. I remember going to talk at a forum in Westminster and a gentleman coming up to say that he had 80 people waiting to volunteer, but they were being frustrated and held back because of the time it was taking for their CRB checks to come through. As the hon. Lady knows, there is frustration out there with the lack of opportunities to carry CRB checks around the system—the portability issue.

That brings me to the Bill. There are reasons why we cannot support it, however well intentioned it is. I hope to have the chance to summarise those reasons and our preferred approach. I hope that I can satisfy my hon. Friend about two things. In the specific context of the Bill we want to reduce bureaucracy and the cost attached to it, but without diminishing public protection, because we have duties in this regard that we cannot trivialise or walk away from. Secondly, we are fully committed to promoting volunteering, which is the Bill’s stated aim.

We have considered the Bill carefully in the time that we have been allowed and, although we welcome its aims, we oppose it principally for three reasons, the first of which is the most important; the other two flow from it. The first reason is that for the proposed fit and proper person certificate to be successful, a means of independent verification and checking for accuracy would be required. We simply could not, with any sense of responsibility, leave that as a free-for-all. There is of course a balance to be struck between protection and trust, but we think that a basic level of protection and independent verification of claims is necessary and believe that the CRB check fulfils that role, although we are very clear that it needs to be reformed and retuned in terms of proportionality and a return to common sense.

[Mr Chope]

I am not surprised that that is the Minister’s approach, although I am disappointed. How, then, does he think it is reasonable that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs can allow trustees of charities to deal with large sums of money on the basis of a mere declaration that is subject to no independent verification?

[Mr Hurd]

I think that the contexts are completely different. As I go on to explain what we are doing to reform the CRB process, I hope I will go some way towards satisfying my hon. Friend that we intend to reduce bureaucracy without undermining basic protection.

Our other concerns flow from the premise that some form of independent verification is required, and the Bill is silent on how that will work. Our concern is that we will be replacing one form of bureaucracy with another, and with costs attached. I will set out briefly a summary of what we are doing in relation to the existing CRB system in the light of the concerns that have been expressed.

We announced in the coalition programme for government a commitment to

“review the criminal records and vetting and barring regime and scale it back to common sense levels.”

The outcomes of the reviews were published on 11 February and three of the recommendations are particularly pertinent to the Bill. First, CRB checks will in future be provided only to the applicant, which will enable them to challenge any disputed or inappropriate information before it is seen by an employer or volunteering organisation. That is an important issue. I had a constituency case only two weeks ago in which a gentleman was appalled to see the information on his statement, so this change is important.

Secondly, and critically, CRB checks will be made more portable between different employers by introducing an updating service. This will enable employers to check whether a previous disclosure certificate is still valid, reducing the need for repeat checks. Thirdly, CRB checks will not be provided for anyone under the age of 16, an important point relating to clause 2, which proposes that CRB checks be restricted to those over 21. As my hon. Friend knows well, these recommendations require legislation and are being taken forward in the Protection of Freedoms Bill, which is currently going through the House. The Government believe that the current CRB check process and the implementation of the February 2011 recommendations provide the fit and proper person certificate process described in the Bill.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend refers to the CRB checks, but my understanding is that there will be no introduction of a basic CRB check that could be presented and that would exclude spent convictions.

Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill

Debate between Nick Hurd and Christopher Chope

Friday 19th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I hear the right hon. Lady’s concern. She makes a valid point, and she used a very important word—“stewardship”. I totally agree that there is a duty of good stewardship. That contains two elements: a requirement to make sure that public assets are used most productively for the public, and a requirement to make sure that they are not misused in any way. In some ways that is a contracting issue. The right hon. Lady will know that social enterprises take many different organisational forms, and that there is a bespoke legal form for social enterprise called the community interest company, which specifically provides for an asset lock. However, that falls outside the immediate scope of the Bill.

I was talking about why we think the Bill is consistent with our ambitions and aspirations for public service reform. One of our aims is to encourage greater diversity of supply and provision. Here there may be some theological differences between us and the Opposition. We have a strong desire to try to incentivise and encourage much greater flexibility at a local level, such as providing opportunities to pool budgets and integrate services. She may be aware of some pilots that we are encouraging through the Cabinet Office on local integrated services, where the onus is much more on getting out there to find out what the community wants. All those aspirations will be backed up by action that will be reflected in the White Paper.

In the context of encouraging greater diversity of supply, on which the Bill touches, we have an explicit commitment in the programme for Government and the coalition agreement to support the creation and expansion of mutuals, co-operatives, charities and social enterprises, and enable those groups to have a much greater involvement in running public services.

[Mr Chope]

Clause 1 calls on the Secretary of State to prepare a national social enterprise strategy. We do not need to legislate for that if, as my hon. Friend is saying, the Government are already going to do it of their own free will. Are they going to do it and, if so, when?

[Mr Hurd]

I will come to clause 1, and I think that my remarks will give my hon. Friend some reassurance.

We are determined to try to open up the public services markets to a broader diversity of suppliers, and we have been specific about wanting to encourage social enterprises, charities and the voluntary sector to have a bigger role. Why? Most constituency MPs have a sense of the reason. Faced with some of the really stubborn and expensive social problems that this country faces—expensive in terms not only of money but of human cost—there is overwhelming evidence in certain cases, such as the hard job of getting people back into work or keeping people out of jail, that a social enterprise or community-based solution is often most effective in doing the really difficult work. We have to respond practically to the challenge—the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles, as a former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, knows that it is a challenge—of opening up those public services markets to try to create more space for these organisations to participate and add value. It is not about trying to do things on the cheap, but about trying to deliver better solutions and to “do more with less”, to use the cliché of the moment. That requires a radical reform of commissioning and how the state buys, because, as the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles said, there is a strong feeling out there, represented by the Social Enterprise Coalition and others, that the system is obstructive and gets in the way.

That is why I and the Office for Civil Society are determined to get this right and are on the point of issuing a consultation document setting out what we need to change in state commissioning to fulfil the coalition Government commitment to create more space for social enterprises, charities, co-operatives and mutuals. The consultation document will ask the following main questions: in which public service areas could the Government create new opportunities for civil society organisations to deliver, and why? How can the Government make existing public service markets more accessible? How can commissioners use assessments of full social, environmental and economic value to inform their commissioning decisions? How can civil society organisations support greater citizen and community involvement in all stages of commissioning? And how we can reduce the amount of bureaucracy, form-filling and regulation that gets in the way of and infuriates and frustrates civil society organisations? The whole business of applying for and reporting public money is a bureaucratic nightmare for too many organisations and is often totally disproportionate to the sums of money involved. We are determined to do something about it.

In that context, the Bill’s core proposition—a requirement to consider social and environmental value where it is relevant and proportionate—is a useful complement to our own work of reform and commitment to making it easier for voluntary and community organisations and social enterprises to deliver public services. The Bill has the scope to ensure that commissioners consider the full effect of services on the people whom they serve and enable them to maximise the social, environmental and economic value of every penny they spend.

The Bill reinforces our commitment to value for money. In these tight economic times, it is particularly important that we achieve maximum value in our spend, but our observation is that currently some commissioners miss the opportunity to secure the best price and meet the wider social, economic and environmental needs of the community. Under procurement law, a contract must be awarded on the basis of the tender that is most economically advantaged or offers the lowest price. The Bill does not undermine or circumvent this requirement or otherwise undermine the Government’s value-for-money agenda and efficiency reform. On the contrary, it is anticipated that by taking full economic, social and environmental value into account, the quality and efficiency of public contracts can be improved.

I think that most hon. Members will see the potential for that just from their observations and visits. In my constituency, Hillingdon borough contracts a good proportion of public landscaping work with a company called Blue Sky. It is the only company in the country where someone has to have a criminal record to work. It does a brilliant job in offering employment opportunities to people coming out of jail—a critical milestone in proving to a future employer that they can be trusted. The people of Hillingdon are delighted with the service and the council are very satisfied with the price, and through this process we are making a huge impact on helping people to turn their lives around. I have spoken to some of the people working there. Some of them travel the length of the Central line every day to be on the course, because they see it as their way out.

That is intelligent commissioning at its best, and we want to encourage more of it. I remember visiting a social firm called Clarity that makes soap and liquids for cleaning hands. What differentiates this business is that, as I walked around the floor, I noticed that every single employee was disabled in some way—often in major ways. Again, this is an opportunity for them to build their own sense of worth and confidence, and to carve a different path that otherwise would have been shut to them. That is another opportunity for intelligent commissioning.

There are lots of other examples. In 2006, the London borough of Camden renewed its schools catering contract. At that point, there had been significant dissatisfaction with the quality and performance under the contract. There was a best-value service review prior to retendering, involving extensive consultation with parents, teachers, pupils and local social enterprise and voluntary and community stakeholders. The remit included consideration of wider social environmental and economic factors, and the new contract was shaped around the results of the review. As a result, the uptake of meals by children in primary and special schools rose by 10%, and teachers reported indirect benefits from the new contract. It has improved service and food quality without an increase in contractors’ margins. Again, that is intelligent commissioning.

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[Mr Hurd]

I certainly will, and it is important to do so. This is largely about freeing people who work in the public sector to express themselves more and to explore their own ideas of how things can be done better. I remember vividly a visit to Merton, where one person working in the mental health field had recognised that the system was failing some people with multiple chaotic problems in their lives. He had shown leadership and pulled people round a table and said, “What we are delivering isn’t good enough.” Together, they produced a new system of support, and the people receiving that support came into the room to talk to me about it. Two of them burst into tears of gratitude. It is very rare for the public to weep with gratitude for the public services that they receive, and this was a direct consequence of one person’s ability to think differently. We want to encourage more of that, but it requires action to create the space and to send the message that, yes, it is okay to think differently and show innovation inside the public services. We need to unlock the potential to do things better.

[Mr Chope]

Before my hon. Friend moves from clause 3, will he explain why it is mandatory on local authorities? I thought that the Government believed in localism and would trust local authorities to make these judgments themselves without Government interference.

[Mr Hurd]

It is a requirement to consider, where “relevant” and “proportionate”, and it does not compromise local authority autonomy in responding to the requirement. It is simply a requirement to consider. I do not see it as heavy-handed; it is simply designed to be a catalyst to encourage more people to think more intelligently about commissioning.

The need to support commissioners in this process was raised earlier. It is not just about sending a stronger signal on the requirement to consider, as there are also issues about how to measure social value and how to support commissioners. That is why the Cabinet Office has supported the measuring social value project to try to create a methodology and tools to make measures that are realistically capable of implementation. There is a clear need to advance and bring together some more standard and consistent methodologies in this area.

Furthermore, through the national programme for commissioning, we have trained well in excess of 2,000 commissioners across England and across a range of public service areas. All the commissioners have had the opportunity to receive specialist training in measuring wider social, environmental and economic value. I am delighted to say, following the comprehensive spending review, that we are going to continue this training beyond March 2011. I sat in on a session in Birmingham and it struck me that there are many commissioners out there who would like the chance to do things differently and to do more with the voluntary community sector and with social enterprises, but need some help—busting a few myths and getting some practical support. The process of engagement through the partnership improvement programme for commissioning is, I think, valuable. I am delighted that we can continue with it.

We feel that these policy interventions are important in supporting the objectives stated in our coalition programme, but we also feel that they will be insufficient without some legislative intervention to achieve the goals. That is why we support clause 3. Returning to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, we believe that these provisions are consistent with the Government’s wider localism agenda in three main ways.

First, the Bill will support the Government’s commitment to community empowerment as a fundamental element of localism. The Bill includes a requirement on commissioners to consider whether to consult the intended beneficiaries of the service in considering how to take account of wider social, environmental and economic value. Although that does not require commissioners to engage with their communities, it sends out a strong message about the importance placed by the Government on involving local citizens and communities in shaping the services they receive. This will inevitably improve community involvement in commissioning and help to ensure that it responds to the full range of communities’ priorities.

Secondly, while empowering communities, the Bill also respects the need to ensure the autonomy and flexibility of commissioners in responding to local needs. Commissioners retain the discretion to determine how social, environmental and economic value is taken into account. The Bill does not stipulate the methodology that should be adopted by commissioners, and it is right not to do so. Local autonomy is maintained.

Thirdly, the Bill does not impose an additional burden on contracting authorities. The specification that contracting authorities are required to take wider value into account only where it is relevant and proportionate means that authorities can use their common sense and avoid excessive costs or bureaucracy. It also allows them to use and draw on existing infrastructure and opportunities to consult their beneficiaries and make sensible decisions in the interests of the people they serve. For example, it is highly likely to be “relevant” and “proportionate” to consider the wider social impact of a service and to consult citizens when contracting for a citizen-facing service such as social care as opposed to a contract by councils for use by an authority’s employees. The Bill therefore requires a common-sense approach, with the authorities having appropriate discretion.

I have explained where we support the Bill and I would now like to spend a few minutes explaining what conditions we attach to our support. Although we support all the objectives, a number of conditions are attached. If the Bill goes into Committee, with the will of the House, we intend to table amendments. These will include the removal of clauses 1 and 2, which refer to a “national social enterprise strategy” and “local authority strategies”.

I am not theological about strategies. Having been in business for 18 years before entering Government, I think that on the whole it is probably a good thing to have a strategy. However, I believe that, particularly in this context, strategies should be governed by the need of the moment, and should be driven by conviction rather than by a requirement to comply with some bureaucratic process. I do not want the process of drawing up strategies to be bureaucratic. I do not want it to be simply an exercise in producing more glossy brochures that fill up the bookshelves in our offices, which are not read and which do not have real traction. Strategies must be driven by need and by conviction at the time.

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[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for the compliments he paid me earlier—I took them as compliments anyway. I congratulate him on having looked at this Bill in some detail, and on having reached not dissimilar conclusions to those that a number of my hon. Friends had already reached, and which were articulated earlier in the debate. There is no need for me to go over those concerns again as I presume that my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White)—whom I congratulate on having introduced the Bill—will be happy to accept the conditions laid down by the Minister. If my hon. Friend does not accept them, his Bill is obviously unlikely to make much more progress.

If my hon. Friend does accept the conditions, we will have a Bill that is far removed from the long title it had when it was first presented to the House on 30 June this year. It will effectively be a Bill about procurement for local authorities and public bodies. That covers a specific area, and what pleases me is that clause 3(2) states:

“The authority must consider how it might promote or improve the economic, social or environmental well-being of the relevant area by means of such a contract.”

That is different from the definition of a social enterprise in clauses 1 and 2, which confine it to being one

“that promotes or improves the social or environmental well-being”.

Economic well-being is vital to our communities up and down the land, and that is why I am pleased by the distinction drawn by clauses 1 and 2 on the one hand and clause 3 on the other. I understand why my hon. Friend the Minister is more enthusiastic about clause 3, because of the insertion of that element.

Earlier, I mentioned the exchanges that I have had with the Federation of Small Businesses, which I am sure will be equally pleased by the development, which will be surprising to some, in my hon. Friend’s announcement. The FSB is keen to point out that there are 4.6 million micro-businesses in this country, but only 16% of the value of public sector contracts currently goes to small and micro-businesses. The federation was worried that such businesses would be squeezed out by social enterprises.

[Mr Hurd]

Perhaps my hon. Friend will be reassured if I draw to his attention the Cabinet Office announcement in November of a series of measures designed to make it easier for small firms and organisations to do business with Government. They include measures to progress the Government’s aspiration to award 25% of Government contracts to small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Mr Chope]

I am sure that that will be greeted with great enthusiasm by small businesses throughout the country. To achieve that, we do not need legislation; all that is required is positive will on the part of the Government. There are many examples across the public sector of small-scale enterprises being squeezed out by larger organisations in the procurement process.

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[Mr Chope]

I agree absolutely. There are so many examples. The local community may be dependent on the local post office, but the Post Office is a national organisation with a national network. None the less, it is ever so important that the local branch of that national network in a particular village is maintained and viable. The same is true of the local pub. It does not have to be owned as a freehold by somebody local; it may be part of a national pub chain. That makes no difference to the important role that it will play in helping to maintain the local community. We could go on with lots of other examples.

I turn now to the “residue” of the Bill, and I should tell my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington that I do not mean that disparagingly—perhaps “a distillation of the Bill” would be a better expression. When we get to clause 3, we are left with a duty on local authorities not to do anything, but to consider something. My hon. Friend said that that does not offend against the principles of localism and that it is legitimate for the Government to require local authorities, and thereby councillors, to consider particular things.

[Mr Hurd]

Just to clarify, my hon. Friend is narrowing his remarks down to the local authorities, but clause 3 actually applies to public authorities that are contracting authorities as defined by the Public Contracts Regulations 2006. That is, the clause applies to bodies that are already subject to procurement law, which include Government Departments, local authorities and many other bodies.

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that correction and I am sorry that I was concentrating just on the local authority side. Local authorities are independently accountable through their councillors to their electors for what they think and do, and that is localism, but I can understand that there is a stronger case for saying that unelected public authorities, such as hospital trusts or ambulance trusts, must consider something before they do it because there is a democratic deficit between the people and those organisations.

I only wish that the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust had given some consideration to how it might have improved

“the economic, social or environmental well-being”

of my constituency before deciding on the procurement process for the hospital car service. If ever there was an activity that is best kept local, where it is most flexible and offers the best value for money, it is the hospital car service. It was run by the ambulance trust, which stopped doing that. However, instead of being given to a range of local providers, it was given to one particular taxi firm, thereby squeezing out organisations with volunteer drivers and imposing significant extra costs on many of the people being taken to and from hospital. That is only one example. If that particular organisation had thought a bit more, perhaps in accordance with clause 3, things would have been different.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Hurd and Christopher Chope

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I have had a series of discussions with several intermediaries in the marketplace that are in the business of trying to encourage and support social investment. The intention is for the bank to stand behind and support those intermediaries to allow them to do more.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

5. What recent representations he has received from trade unions on proposed changes to the terms and conditions of employment of civil servants.