Departmental Business Plans

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2012 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

On 31 May the Government published an updated set of departmental business plans.

Each Department’s business plan sets out:

its departmental priorities;

the actions it will undertake to fulfil its priorities and when it will take these actions;

Its expenditure for each year of the spending review; and

the indicators and other data it will publish on the cost and impact of the public services for which it is responsible.

The form and structure of the business plans has been improved from the previous versions in the following ways:

a new annex has been added showing each Department’s contributions to cross-cutting agendas including growth, social mobility, sustainable development, efficiency, open public services, the red tape challenge and the civil society compact;

the structural reform plan sections are more focused on actions that contribute to the Government’s reform agenda; activity representing “business as usual” has been moved to an annex; and

the information strategy section has been replaced by a summary of each Department’s open data strategy, which will be published in full later this summer.

We are also improving the way that progress against the plans is reported. We have updated the business plans website, available at: http://transparency.number10. gov.uk/, so that it is clearer, more informative and easier to use. The information will also be published in open formats, so that users will be able to analyse the data more easily.

A full list of the changes to each of the departmental structural reform plans and input and impact indicators contained in the business plans can be found at:

http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/department-business-plans-updated-2012/

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

8. If he will undertake an impact assessment on the effect of changes in resource for the civil service on delivery of Government policy.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

Our aim is to maintain the superb quality of our civil service while reducing its quantity. Under this Government the civil service headcount has come down from 487,000 to 435,000, which is smaller than it has been at any time since the second world war. Of course, this reduction helps to reduce the deficit, but it is also a natural consequence of our intention to reduce bureaucracy, improve public services and promote the big society by shifting power to people on the front line.

[Mr Barron]

A recent National Audit Office report on cost reduction in central Government suggests that the staffing departures revealed an unplanned and haphazard redundancy drive that has paid off 18,000 civil servants since 2010, at a cost of £600 million, to save just £400 million. One of the report’s conclusions is:

“Few departmental systems can link costs to outputs and impacts, making it difficult to evaluate the effect of cost changes”.

Does the Minister agree, and what will his Department do about it?

[Mr Letwin]

The right hon. Gentleman has a distinguished career, which includes at one time being Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Kinnock, so presumably he has some experience of figures that go completely wonky, and the ones he is presenting give a very wonky picture. What the NAO report actually revealed is that the cost to the Departments was £600 million, the payback to the taxpayer was over 10 to 16 months and the total savings in this spending review period alone, in net present value, will be between £750 million and £1.4 billion. There is a massive saving there, which he would see if he read the whole report.

[Cathy Jamieson]

Recent analysis by the Office for National Statistics revealed that half of all central Government Departments, including the Minister’s, have actually increased staff numbers in the past six months. How does that fit with the Government’s pledge to increase localism? Is that not more central bureaucracy being created?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Lady will be aware that, as I mentioned in my first answer, there has been a massive reduction in the headcount of the civil service as a whole. Of course there have been particular cases in which particular people needed to be hired, but the broad effort we have been making has brought down the deficit and increased dramatically the efficiency of the civil service.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I remind my right hon. Friend of the findings of the Public Administration Committee report, “Change in Government”, published last autumn, which identified the reduction in resources as just one of the many changes the Government are trying to achieve in the civil service? We await the plan for civil service reform with great interest, because our main conclusion was that the Government need a plan in order to effect this change.

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, is absolutely right. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General and I have had meetings with the Prime Minister, the head of the civil service and the Cabinet Secretary, and under the aegis of those two very senior officials the review to which my hon. Friend refers is now being carried forward. There will be a strategy—much beloved of the Committee—that will emerge from that review, and once it is available Ministers will consider it and produce a plan for further changes in the civil service.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

It has been reported that the outgoing director of strategy for the Prime Minister, the excellent Steve Hilton, wishes to reduce the number of Whitehall civil servants by two thirds. Does the Minister agree?

[Mr Letwin]

I am afraid that some wildly inaccurate reports have been floating around, but it is certainly true that the review that the Cabinet Secretary and the head of the civil service are leading on, which I mentioned in my previous answer, is looking right across the board to try to work out what a modern civil service ought to look like, bearing in mind all the technology and other advantages we currently have, in order to deliver innovation, change and the delivery of policy in the most effective and efficient way possible.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The Minister has announced the closure of the Central Office of Information, which provides politically independent public information from professional civil servants, and he will instead locate the service in various Departments, with the consequential inherent risk that the Government information service might become politicised. We would of course support any sensible measure to deliver a more economic service, but is not the current flood of leaks, on an industrial scale, in relation to today’s Budget a portent of the public information service’s politicisation, which he is opening the door to?

[Mr Letwin]

In a word, no. The changes that are being made in the structure and character of the information service are being made in order to have a modern service that can actually do the job properly. The hon. Gentleman ought to pause before talking about politicisation of the civil service, as under the previous Government efforts were made on an unparalleled scale to politicise the service’s activities. By contrast, this Government in all our information have been extraordinarily transparent, providing data on an unparalleled scale and operating a much more open Government than he and his colleagues ever dreamed of doing.

[Jon Trickett]

But that is all flim-flam, frankly. The leaking of Budget information on that scale is without precedent, and it is in clear breach, Mr Speaker, of your strict admonition that such statements should take place first in the House and not in the media. There is no way that professional civil servants in the COI would have undertaken such leaking, so does the Minister agree that there should be a Cabinet Office inquiry to identify the leakers? If it was civil servants, they are clearly in breach of their code of conduct, but, if it was Ministers, they are playing fast and loose with our democracy.

[Mr Letwin]

First, if the hon. Gentleman recalls his time as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the previous Prime Minister, he will be aware that he was serving a past master at giving foretastes of Budgets. Secondly, I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman feels he knows what is or is not a leak, as he has not seen the Budget yet, and nor has the House.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

2. What recent discussions he has had with permanent secretaries on Government outsourcing of policy advice.

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[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

5. What steps he is taking to ensure that the community and voluntary sector is considered in policy formulation in all Departments.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

Our agenda is to give community groups and other voluntary sector organisations a much wider role in fulfilling the demands and needs of the public than they have had in the past. That is why, in considering each of our public service reforms, we have paid particular attention to the question of how the voluntary and community sector can work through them and help them.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

Research by the NCVO has shown that Government Departments plan to cut a further £444 million of funding from the voluntary and community sector. Does the Minister agree that that is evidence of the complete disregard of his own Government for that sector?

[Mr Letwin]

Absolutely not. The hon. Lady should look carefully at what we have done in respect of funding of advice services, to which the Parliamentary Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), referred a moment or two ago. In 2010-11, the funding stood at rather less than £200 million, but in 2011-12 it went up and it has almost maintained the 2011-12 levels—still above those of 2010-11—for 2012-13. The Government are investing in the voluntary and community sector, not disinvesting in it.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Some examples of bureaucracy are being faced by many in the community and voluntary sectors. What are the Government doing to try to ensure that those sectors face no undue levels of bureaucracy in delivering their services?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right—there are major bureaucratic obstacles and regulatory hurdles. My noble Friend Lord Hodgson has been looking specifically at those, and my team and I have been looking at them as part of the red tape challenge. We are going through every single regulation that affects the voluntary sector, the community sector and social enterprises to see what we can do to ameliorate or remove those obstacles, because we are determined to build the big society.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

6. How much and what proportion of Government procurement was made from small and medium-sized enterprises in the latest period for which figures are available.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

Our big society agenda involves putting power into the hands of individuals and communities, and it is emphatically not a programme driven from the centre of Government. I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend that there is not an army of bureaucrats going around counting big society projects; that would entirely defeat the purpose.

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful to the Minister for telling me that he has no idea—I appreciate that.

Big society projects have been one of the many successes of this Conservative-led Government. In my constituency we have the Hope project, led by the superb Simon Trundle, which is transforming one of the most deprived areas in the constituency. However, it is experiencing problems as local funding is cut, and it may even have to be closed. How can the big society initiative help it to obtain more funds?

[Mr Letwin]

I am aware of the Hope project, which is to be greatly commended, and I am happy to be able to say to my hon. Friend that my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), the Minister for civil society, will meet him to discuss this. I have a terrible feeling that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) might even succeed, because I did some research and discovered that he managed to get community first funding for two of the wards in his constituency. I wish him luck in this endeavour, too.

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

Patrick Butler said in The Guardian recently:

“For many in the charity world, the Big Society…has become a toxic sign of Government hypocrisy, broken promises and ineptitude”.

What are the Government doing to change that?

[Mr Letwin]

I hope the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends will help me to do so, because distinguished members of his party totally back the big society, including the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband), who tells him and his colleagues:

“We should be for the Big Society.”

I therefore hope the hon. Gentleman will join me in putting across the idea that we should welcome the giving back of power to communities and individuals to change their own lives for the better.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

One of the ways the big society will succeed is through the dissemination of successful projects, for which the big society awards were intended to be one of the vehicles. What progress has been made with the awards?

[Mr Letwin]

I am happy to be able to tell my hon. Friend that the big society awards are alive and well and happening, with successive tranches of people coming in to get them. The Prime Minister is hugely devoted to this. It is important to recognise what communities and community groups are doing the length and breadth of the land.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

The Minister is a keen follower of my website, so he will know that I support initiatives to build social capital in communities. When I visit voluntary groups, I am very struck by the extent to which they have benefited from the future jobs fund. From a big society point of view, was it not a mistake, therefore, to abolish that fund?

[Mr Letwin]

I am indeed an avid follower of the hon. Gentleman’s website, and a most interesting document it is, too. The fact is that, alas, the future jobs fund offered only a very temporary fix. By contrast, we are trying to create a framework within which the voluntary community sector has long-term prospects that it can build on through achievement and by providing the taxpayer with value for money.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

4. What efficiency savings the Efficiency and Reform Group has identified across central Government.

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[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

6. What the Government’s objectives are for the big society initiative.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

Our objectives are to build social capital by transferring powers to communities, opening up public services and encouraging more social action.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Last year, the Prime Minister included community empowerment among his three big society aims, but this year the Communities Secretary has already been forced to write to the Conservative leader of Nottingham county council following reports of disproportionate cuts to the voluntary sector. Can the Minister tell me exactly how this Tory council’s decision to cut voluntary sector funding by a huge 34% will empower communities in our county?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has written in extremely uncompromising and tough terms to the county council in question, reminding it that there is statutory guidance, and that the proportion by which the voluntary and community sector is cut should be the same as the proportion by which the council’s own budgets are cut. I am delighted to pay tribute, unusually, to the hon. Lady’s own council, which, despite coming from a different political party from mine, has actually followed that rule, cutting both by roughly similar proportions.

[Jessica Morden]

The Public Administration Committee report on the big society described it as lacking clarity and leadership and ways of measuring progress. Why does the Minister think this cross-party group is so critical of the big society idea?

[Mr Letwin]

As a matter of fact, the Committee’s report is an admirable work that brings out extremely clearly the value of our big society agenda and urges us to push it further and faster, and we agree with that. Actually, the evidence clearly shows that it is on the ground that people will measure success. When they see more free schools educating their children better, mutuals delivering better health care, and communities taking charge of their own neighbourhood planning and making their environment better, then we will know it is a success.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

The shadow spokesman on London and the Olympics said that the big society “should be Labour territory”. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that the whole point of the big society is that it is not just for Labour but for everyone?

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend, and I should like to pray in aid the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who said that the big society is

“something that the Labour party should instinctively understand as part of its own DNA”.

The former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband), told the Labour party:

“We shouldn’t be afraid of the Big Society; we should claim it for our own”.

I hope this can bring the whole House together.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

If my right hon. Friend wants to see the big society at work, may I suggest that he look at the snow in winter clearance initiatives of East Riding and North Lincolnshire councils? They have devolved money down to local communities, enabling them last weekend to sort out snow clearance in their own way, as they wished.

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is a classic example of what I see in my own constituency, in many other rural constituencies up and down the country and increasingly in the suburbs. People are taking charge and making sure that they get what they actually need delivered locally, by people who understand the local circumstances, and in many cases much more cheaply than was previously possible from the centre.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given what is really happening, the objectives for the big society would appear to be huge funding and job cuts across the third sector, charities walking away from the Work programme and health service mutuals not getting health service contracts. Given the lack of influence that Cabinet Office Ministers clearly have across the rest of Whitehall, is the Cabinet Office not now merely the place where the emperor’s new clothes get spun?

[Mr Letwin]

Unfortunately, what the hon. Gentleman fails to reckon with is that not only this Government but any Government currently trying to run the United Kingdom would be faced with the need to clear up the fiscal mess that he and his colleagues left this country in, and that certainly entails cuts. We are very clear about that, and as matter of fact his own leader is now beginning to be clearer about that—although we are still not clear how clear he is. The fact is, therefore, that the voluntary and community sector does suffer some reduction in funding, but we are determined to create vast new opportunities for that sector, so it can compete to provide public services effectively and for the sake of the taxpayer.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

7. How much his Department spent on consultancy in the last year for which figures are available.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

3. What assessment his Department has made of the role of the big society initiative in tackling social exclusion.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

The big society is all about building social capital, which is key to solving social exclusion. There are four places where most of us build the relationships that sustain us: in the family, in school, in our communities and at work. We are taking action to build social capital in all of those through a focus on the 120,000 most troubled families, through competition and raising standards in schools, through community organisers and the community first initiative in communities and through the Work programme, the rehabilitation revolution and the drug and alcohol recovery programme.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I thank the Minister for that answer and I know that he is sincere in wanting to see civic society flourish, as am I. In Leicester, many organisations who work with vulnerable people at risk of social exclusion, such as the Shama women’s centre or those at the Saffron Lane resource centre, increasingly find that their grants and pots of money are being cut. Does the Minister think he will be able to create the big society on the cheap?

[Mr Letwin]

As I said the previous time the hon. Gentleman asked such a question, he is extraordinarily assiduous in this area. I have done some further research on where he has been recently and the Saffron Lane centre that he describes is, I am glad to say, one area where the community organisers to which I referred will be located. While I am at it, it is clear that the hon. Gentleman drags the Government with him every time he goes anywhere. He also visited the Eyres Monsell centre and that is now receiving a £50,000 grant from the community grants system. We can be said to be delivering not on the cheap but on the expensive in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

This year, 40,000 households were made homeless. As we approach Christmas and with today’s rise in unemployment, Shelter estimates that every two minutes someone else faces losing their home. Now we hear that Government cuts to the big society have resulted in homeless charities facing 25% reductions in their funding. Will the Minister at least immediately agree to restore the social exclusion taskforce, which the Government shamelessly abolished when they entered the Cabinet Office, so that in the future the homeless and others who suffer from social exclusion will at least have a voice when he and his colleagues make such hard-hearted decisions?

[Mr Letwin]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman misunderstands the changes in the machinery of government that have taken place under this Government. It is perfectly true that the social exclusion taskforce has been abolished, and the reason for that is that we have set up instead a fully fledged first-rank Cabinet committee on social justice—

[Jon Trickett]

It meets in secret.

[Mr Letwin]

It is not in the least secret, as the hon. Gentleman mutters from a sedentary position, in the sense that it will produce a social justice strategy that he will be able to read along with the rest of the House. I think he will find that we are putting absolutely at the centre of our activities the fostering of the big society in order to help, among other things, those who are homeless. That is also one of the reasons why we recently issued our housing strategy, which does more than the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues did in many years to try to improve housing in this country.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

4. Whether his Department has considered altering its guidance on the disposal of official Government documents.

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[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

9. How small and medium-sized enterprises in Calder Valley constituency can bid for central Government information and communications technology and facilities management contracts.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

It is absolutely vital that small and medium-sized enterprises should be able to bid for ICT and other contracts, and that is why the Minister for the Cabinet Office said a moment or two ago that we have set an ambition for 25% of contracts to go to SMEs. We have also simplified the contracting process, making it easier for SMEs to find out what the Government seek to purchase, and I recommend that the enterprises in my hon. Friend’s constituency look at the Contracts Finder website, which I have been on myself, It is an absolutely admirable one-stop shop for finding out about Government contracts.

[Craig Whittaker]

I thank the Minister for that reply. I am not a cynical kind of guy, but I wonder whether he can give the House some examples of how the Government are helping SMEs by awarding them contracts.

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, I can, and I refer again to something that my right hon. Friend was saying. Recently, the Government’s very large domestic travel contract was let—the domestic side alone amounts to £1.1 billion a year of travel—and one might have expected it to go to a very large firm, but, because of the way in which my right hon. Friend structured it, it went to Redfern Travel, a company with 33 employees. It is a small or, at any rate and by anyone’s definition, only a medium-scale enterprise, and it was able to win the contract. The managing director said:

“The award of this contract…clearly demonstrates that…any SME can not only bid for major Government contracts, but also meet the challenging requirements”,

so I think that that is a very good test case.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

rose—

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[Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

According to figures published by the Cabinet Office last week, the Deputy Prime Minister has appointed four more special advisers at a cost to the taxpayer of at least £190,000. At a time when the average family is set to lose £320 a year as a result of tax credit changes and at a time when almost everyone is asking what exactly is the point of the Deputy Prime Minister, does the Minister think that this is a good use of public money?

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would realise that it is extremely important in a coalition that the Deputy Prime Minister as well as the Prime Minister should have adequate research support. It is extraordinarily difficult for Government Members to take comments of that kind seriously, given the previous Government’s record on employing special advisers.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

T5. Can the Minister confirm how many civil servants went on strike in the recent action?

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

6. What recent progress he has made in increasing the number of central Government contracts secured by the third sector.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

Since May 2010 there have been 702 purchase orders for third sector services by the Department of Health alone. There have also been 94 contracts with third sector organisations from five different Departments: four from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 21 from the Ministry of Justice, 15 from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 47 from the Department for Work and Pensions and seven from the Department for Transport. Those contracts have a total value of more than £488 million. Unfortunately, I cannot say how that compares with the previous Government’s record as records were not kept at that time.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. In the last week, I met a voluntary third sector organisation in my constituency called Tolsam, which does a lot of valuable work with the young unemployed and those not in education, employment or training. Given the scale of the youth unemployment problem our country now faces, will Ministers consider introducing a requirement that third sector organisations that work with NEETs and the young employed are favoured when awarding contracts?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman, who I have discovered has a very honourable record of visiting social enterprises in his constituency, makes a good point. We do believe that there is great merit in including in public sector contracting provisions that reflect social value and social outcomes. We are working on that and we intend to proceed with it.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Government have launched the Contracts Finder website, which enables third sector companies to find Government contracts. How does the Minister intend to assess how successful that has been and will he publish figures to demonstrate whether or not it has worked?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have indeed launched the Contracts Finder website, and I did a bit of mystery shopping to check whether it was possible to use it. I am glad to be able to tell the House that it is a very useful thing. We have already received some feedback from businesses and third sector organisations that have been on the website, and where we have had that feedback we have responded to it. We will be looking at the overall effectiveness of the website in due course and reporting back to the House.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

7. What steps he is taking to promote social enterprises.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

First, we now have Big Society Capital established—the initial investment was made in the summer. Secondly, we are moving ahead with the establishment of mutuals, with a new mutuals support programme; 45,000 staff are already in social enterprises in health care alone. Thirdly, we have promoted social enterprise in the Work programme, with two social enterprises as prime providers and about 500 more voluntary sector organisations as subcontractors.

[Julie Elliott]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Does he believe that the Government and local authorities should be developing strategies to promote social enterprises? If so, why has he axed the clauses that would have made Departments do that from the private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White)?

[Mr Letwin]

We do not feel that it is necessary to legislate for strategies at a national and local level. The previous Government specialised in having lots of strategies and fulfilling none of them. By contrast, we are in favour of taking action, which is why we are working with my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) to ensure, as I mentioned in answer to the previous question, that there is provision for social outcomes and social value to be measured in contracts. That is, of course, part of his Bill. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sure that when the Minister was conducting his philosophy seminars he had a rather more respectful and attentive audience, and that is what we should grant him.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Allia and Future Business are promoting social bonds to support social enterprises, such as the future business centre in my constituency. There has been a very good uptake by individuals and companies, but not by the banks. Will the Minister have discussions with the banks to encourage them to invest in these bonds, which provide a secure social investment asset?

[Mr Letwin]

We believe that social impact bonds have an enormous role to play. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who has responsibility for the civil society, and I recently had a round table meeting with a group of social entrepreneurs and investors who are interested in investing in social enterprise. We are encouraging that and we are taking further steps through Big Society Capital to promote the use of social impact bonds. Of course our payment-by-results systems also make use of social impact bonds.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

8. What plans he has for the future of the role of the head of the civil service.

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[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

T2. Speaking of fewer jobs, the Public Bodies Bill scrapped regional development agencies. My constituent Mark Davenport invested £6,000 setting up a business installing solar panels. At six weeks’ notice, the investment made by thousands of businesses was wiped out by a dramatic cut in the feed-in tariff scheme. Can the Minister explain to Mr Davenport how the abolition of the RDAs and now the cut in feed-in tariffs is helping jobs and growth?

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

What the hon. Gentleman needs to deal with is the fact that the regional development agencies in their time never managed to achieve what they set out to achieve and acquired vast liabilities—an astonishing achievement for development agencies. The solar tariffs had to be reduced because they were a disgrace and would have cast ill-repute on the whole of the very important programme that we have for supporting renewables and feed-in tariffs in this country.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

T5. People in Edgworth in my constituency found out that their bus service is being scrapped for want of £10,000, although the local authority can still find almost £100,000 to support trade union activity. What action will the Government take to end taxpayer-funded activity within the public sector?

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

1. What progress he has made on establishing the big society bank.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

I am delighted to be able to tell my hon. Friend that we are making excellent progress in establishing the big society bank. I am equally delighted to be able to tell him that it will be called the Big Society Capital group.

Big Society Capital announced appointments to the management and board in July. It is now securing Financial Services Authority and state-aid approval, and we expect it to be open for business in the spring.

[James Morris]

Does the Minister agree that the most important thing about the initiative is that it gets funding to organisations in some of the most deprived communities in my constituency?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend is a noted, effective and passionate advocate of his constituency. It is of course for Big Society Capital itself to decide exactly where it places its investment funds, but I have absolutely no doubt that it will want to prioritise social intermediaries who focus on those families who are most vulnerable, and on those individuals and families who are most in need of help.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

Community groups, including not-for-profit organisations, have difficulty establishing community projects because of the complexity of the system to secure funding. Will the big society bank have a dedicated officer to help and assist them, so that small projects in deprived communities have a level playing field?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very real problem, which Big Society Capital has recognised. Right from the beginning of the scheme’s design, Sir Ronald Cohen has insisted, and Ministers have agreed, that it should not directly invest in social enterprises but act as a provider of finance to social intermediaries—whether they are lending banks such as Triodos or other more exotic and interesting new social intermediaries—that already have a retail function and can deal, and know how to deal, with the small groups that need to deal with them.

[Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises are aware of opportunities to gain Government contracts.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

5. What steps his Department is taking to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises are aware of opportunities to gain Government contracts.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

We have established Contracts Finder as a one-stop shop, which enables suppliers to find procurement opportunities, tender documents and contracts online and free of charge. We are also piloting a simple method, which I think is called a dynamic market, for suppliers to register online for public sector contracts below £100,000. That will enable small and medium-sized enterprises to compete at minimal cost alongside large suppliers.

[Brandon Lewis]

Does the Minister agree that, although large companies often find it easy to tender competitively for those contracts, there is a real benefit economically from spending time and effort on encouraging small and medium-sized businesses to bid for such tenders?

[Mr Letwin]

I agree strongly with my hon. Friend. There is a temptation to think that it does not matter who provides a public service contract, big or small, but we all have an enormous interest in encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises to engage in the process, because we all have a huge incentive and reason for believing that innovation in public service can lead to more productivity. It is very often the small, innovative companies that engage in innovation, and therefore we need to ensure that we encourage their participation right the way through the process.

[Andrew Bridgen]

SME information technology companies are reporting back from the Government tendering process that project aims and budgets remain unspecified and that forms are still the size of telephone directories. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that those concerns will be taken on board, so that this Government can deliver real value from IT projects—something that the previous Government failed to do?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend has actively and aggressively pursued several Government Departments about these issues and I hope that he will continue to do so. He is absolutely right that too much of this still goes on. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who has taken the lead on the issue and deserves great credit for that, has not tried to keep the issue secret—on the contrary, he has tried to open it up.

We have introduced a “mystery shopper” scheme, which allows suppliers to challenge Government procurers when they see overly bureaucratic processes. I am delighted to be able to tell the House that during the first three months of the scheme, 23 cases of things such as huge telephone-book-sized contracts were investigated and 11 have led to immediate reductions in tedious bureaucracy. All the information about the scheme has been published on the Cabinet Office website.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend had a chance to read the Public Administration Committee report “Government and IT—‘A Recipe For Rip-Offs’ ”? It points out that we cannot rely on the large systems integrators to involve small and medium-sized enterprises. The Government themselves have to employ people from that sector so that the Government can engage with it directly. That is the only way in which we will get SMEs involved in Government procurement.

[Mr Letwin]

As with every product of the Select Committee in which my hon. Friend is so notably involved, we do indeed pay enormous attention to that report. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office has already taken that set of steps and is already intending to ensure that we have the expertise to do exactly as my hon. Friend recommends. It is absolutely crucial that we get to grips with every large project, and some of them are central to the Government’s policy agenda—in welfare, for example.

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

3. What steps he plans to take to put in place a system of regular review of remaining public bodies following the implementation of the provisions of the Public Bodies Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

T7. Small and medium-sized enterprises in my constituency warmly welcome the steps that the Government are taking to make it easier for them to win Government contracts, but they also need better access to finance to win such contracts. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to help with that?

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that without the finance, SMEs cannot take part. I am delighted to be able to tell him that in the first half of the year, SME lending has almost lived up to the target set in the Merlin agreement for SMEs—it is within £1 billion—which is a major achievement.

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

T8. Does my hon. Friend agree that the promotion of youth organisations such as the Passion youth centre in Shepshed, which are often set up by churches, should be a cornerstone of the Government’s response to the riots over the summer?

Open Public Services White Paper

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the open public services White Paper.

There could not be a more important issue than this. Public services save lives, rescue people from disease and ignorance, and protect people from crime and poverty. Much of what is done by our public services is fantastic and they are among the best in the world, but we can do even better. This Government have a vision, which is set out in this White Paper, about how we can do better.

The central point is that when public services are not up to scratch, those who are well off can pay for substitutes, but for those who are not well off, there is no opportunity to pay for substitutes. We need to give everybody the same choice in and power over the services they receive that well-off people already have. This White Paper sets out how we will put that vision of choice and power for all into practice.

Our principles are clear. They are choice, decentralisation, diversity, fair access and accountability. We will increase choice wherever possible; power will be decentralised to the lowest appropriate level; public services will be open to a diverse range of providers; we will ensure that there is fair access and fair funding for all; and services will be accountable to users and taxpayers.

I will give examples of how those principles will apply in specific public services that cater for specific individuals. First, we will ensure that every adult receiving social care has an individual, personal budget by 2013, and we are moving towards personal budgets in chronic health care, for children with special needs, and in housing for vulnerable people. That means that there will be more choice and power for people who need those services. They will be able to choose what their money and the taxpayer’s money is spent on.

Secondly, we are making funding follow the pupil in schools, the student in further education, the child in child care and the patient in the NHS. That means that there will be more choice and power for people who need those services. They will be able to choose where the money is spent.

Thirdly, we are providing fair access so that, for example, a pupil premium follows pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and a health premium is paid to the local authorities that achieve the greatest improvements in public health for people in the least healthy parts of the country. We attach huge importance to that agenda. We want genuine equality of opportunity and genuine social mobility.

Fourthly, we are providing open access to data so that people can make informed choices about the services they use, such as crime maps, whereby they can see whether the local police are preventing crime in their street; health outcomes, whereby they people can see which hospitals and GPs achieve the best results; standardised satisfaction data for all public services, whereby they can see exactly which service providers are providing the quality of service they want; and open, real-time data on road conditions, speeds and accidents along our motorways, whereby they can make informed choices.

Fifthly, we will provide a new system of redress, through beefed-up powers of the ombudsmen to step in when a choice to which people have a right is denied. However, we are going further. We are not only concerned about increased choice and power for individuals, we are also determined to increase choice and power for communities so that they can determine how money is spent on their communal public services. We will do that by making it far easier for communities to take over and run public assets and assets of community value, by giving them the right to build houses for their own children and by giving parish councils and community groups the right to challenge, enabling them to take over local services and making it easier for people to form neighbourhood councils where there is none at present. We will also give neighbourhoods vastly more power to determine their own neighbourhood planning and the ability to challenge the local police at beat meetings, informed by crime maps. Let us remember that the people at those meetings will each be electors of the local police commissioner.

We recognise, of course, that some services will inevitably continue to be commissioned centrally, or by various levels of local government. Here, too, we are aiming at decentralisation, diversity and accountability. The White Paper sets out how we will use payment by results to transform welfare to work, the rehabilitation of offenders, drug and alcohol recovery, help for children in the foundation years and support for vulnerable adults. In all those areas, a diverse range of providers will be given a huge incentive to provide the social gains that our society so desperately needs by being rewarded for getting people into work, out of crime, off drugs and alcohol and into the opportunities that most of us take for granted.

To strengthen accountability, the White Paper also sets out the most radical programme of transparency for Government and the public sector anywhere in the world. To unlock innovation, the White Paper commits us to diversity of provision, removing barriers to entry, stimulating entry by new types of provider and unlocking new sources of capital. To ensure that public sector providers can hold their own on a level playing field, the White Paper sets out measures to liberate public sector bodies from red tape.

To encourage employee ownership within the public services, the White Paper sets out the measures that we are taking to promote mutualisation and employee co-operatives. To ensure that services continue if particular service providers fail, it sets out the principles for the continuity regimes that we are establishing service by service. [Interruption.] Marxist or not Marxist, in the past 13 months this Government have done more to increase choice and power for those served by our public services than the Labour party achieved in 13 years. The White Paper describes the comprehensive, consistent, coherent approach that we are taking to keep our public services moving in the direction of increased choice and power for service users, so that we can provide access to excellence for all. That is the aim behind the White Paper, and I commend it to the House.

[Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in providing me with a copy of his statement ahead of time. I have to say that although I believe absolutely his sincerity in what he has told the House, his comparison with the Labour Government wins the parliamentary prize for blooming cheek, if that is not unparliamentary language. I would rather rely on the judgment of Reform, the right-of-centre think tank, about these proposals. It states:

“The Coalition may argue that these inconsistencies”

in the White Paper

“are good politics. In fact they are bad politics because they undermine confidence that the Government is serious about reform.”

That is the problem, because there is nothing new in this White Paper.

Today’s statement is typical of the Government’s approach to policy in general. As the right hon. Gentleman reflected, our public services, on which people of all ages in our country depend and which are often the determinant of whether their life is worth living, face significant challenges, particularly at the hands of the Tory-led coalition, which is making cuts too far and too fast. People live much longer and have ever-rising expectations, but it appears from the way in which this White Paper was launched that the Cabinet Office is more preoccupied with spin and presentation than in substantive proposals.

The White Paper contains few new ideas and even fewer new proposals. In most of the cases to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, the Government are lagging behind the action of the previous Labour Government. He referred to personal budgets. The Sunday Times was told several weeks ago that the right to a personal budget, which is now used by approximately 250,000 adults, was to be extended to those with long-term conditions and to children with special needs, yet there is nothing of that in the White Paper. The right hon. Gentleman also referred to the expansion of mutuals, which was also showcased in a variety of this weekend’s newspapers. Back in November, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General undertook to put in place rights to provide for public sector workers, meaning that they could take over the running of services, but no time scale for such proposals has been forthcoming.

Ahead of today’s White Paper, I set out three tests for public service reform. First, will the reforms make services more accountable and responsive to the needs of service users? Secondly, will there be clear accountability for how public money is spent, and will members of the public be protected? Thirdly and finally, will the proposals strengthen the bonds of family and community life?

The Government are failing the test of reform, because their policies are inconsistent between Departments and sometimes within them, and nothing more has been done to put communities in control or to make people more powerful.

My questions to the Minister, therefore, are these. Given that this much-trumpeted and much-awaited White Paper has not even caught up with the legacy of the previous Labour Government, who deleted the ambition from it: the officials or the Liberal Democrats? What are the plans for millions of people to become their own bosses, as was set out in the coalition document? What assurance does he give to those workers that there will be continuity of pensions and employment benefits? When will the coalition Government exceed and expand the proposals already put in place for personal budgets by the previous Labour Government? He may have received private advice that hospitals and schools should be allowed to fail, but will he make it absolutely clear, and publicly, that he will not allow that to happen? In the funding of those new services, will he also rule out competition by price?

The Reform report says:

“Viewed as a whole, the Government’s public service reform policies are all over the place. The Government’s failure to adhere consistently to its principles gives an air of unreality to the whole programme.”

The losers will not be Members of this House, or even members of the Government, but the millions of people up and down the country whose quality of life depends on the public services that they use.

[Mr Letwin]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her critique, but I think she has to decide whether her objection is that the White Paper does not do as many of the things that the previous Labour Government were doing already—that was part of what she seemed to be arguing—or that the proposals will do damage. If she is maintaining both positions, she must be admitting that the Labour Government did great damage, which I doubt is what she wants to admit.

To some degree, the White Paper continues where the previous Labour Government left off—they did some things that we think were good and which we are carrying through, evolving and developing. That is a sensible and, I hope the House will agree, grown-up way of conducting politics because not everything our opponents think or do is necessarily wrong. However, the White Paper carries the previous Government’s programme much further, deeper and wider to deal with the very questions that the right hon. Lady addressed. For example, under the previous Administration, there was no proper system for continuity of service. One reason for the problems with Southern Cross—a legacy issue left by the previous Government—is that the previous Government did not design proper continuity-of-service regimes for the health and social care services. We are now attempting to design such regimes for all services. I hope that on mature reflection she will welcome that.

The right hon. Lady asked whether we would accept competition by price, which we have made abundantly clear we will not accept, including in the NHS. We want competition by quality, which is very different, although I assume she would agree that it makes sense to accept competition partly by price when trying, as the Government are doing, to tender through central procurement. That is certainly something that the previous Government did all the time. There are differences here, but they do not amount to inconsistencies; they amount to a coherent attempt to apply a set of principles differently in different services precisely because different services demand different treatments. She must know that. If she is claiming that much of this depends on what the Labour Government did, I would point out that they certainly did different things in different places. The White Paper is about carrying forward a programme that will benefit those using public services by giving them choice and power.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on basing his reforms on the admirable principles of choice and of giving people the information to make informed choices and, where possible, a diversity of providers to choose between? Choice is good not only for the people making the choice, but for the vast majority who will not exercise that choice but will see the quality of services rise under the influence of choice. However, may I caution him about trying to shoe-horn too many services under one elegant, all-embracing umbrella? Experience shows that it is better to do it section by section, service by service, because the real world is never as elegant as one’s intellectual constructions.

[Mr Letwin]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend, which is why the White Paper specifically makes clear not only that we will treat individual services differently from community services and services commissioned centrally, but that we will take each service on its own merits and design a regime that applies the general principles differently. That is clearly the right way to go. However, his point is vital. The purpose of giving choice and power to individuals and communities is not just to benefit the particular individuals making the choices; it is to benefit everybody by ensuring that those choices are brought to bear in a way that improves services for all.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that I am a long-standing supporter of decentralisation and involving more local people in their public services. His White Paper and previous statements have made much of involving social enterprises and charities and the third sector in the provision of public services. On that basis, will he confirm that there will be an asset lock when services are transferred, particularly to social enterprises, to ensure that the organisations carrying out these services are genuine social enterprises? If he really means what he says, why have 90% of major contracts for the Work programme gone to big companies such as Serco, Capita and G4S, leaving the social enterprise sector and charities to pick up the crumbs from the table?

[Mr Letwin]

In answer to the right hon. Lady’s first point, I would say that when assets are being transferred provision needs to be made to ensure that they are there for the public good and on a permanent basis. We intend to do that in every case in which it applies. On her point about the Work programme, I think she is missing a vital component of what the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who has responsibility for employment, has done. It is a textbook case: he was concerned that not all the bids would come from consortia in the voluntary and community sector—only a few did—so he took steps to create a protocol relating the prime contractor to the subcontractors, as a result of which the prime contractors have to treat properly the small voluntary and community bodies that in many cases are also the subcontractors. We desperately need—and intend—to get that into the mainstream of how the Government go about business.

[Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)]

In welcoming this White Paper, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he agrees that one of its key foundations is the doctrine that information is power, and that if we want to make public services really accountable to the people who use them and pay for them, we will have to learn the new discipline of telling sometimes uncomfortable truths about those areas in which public services do not live up to the standards that we all want to see? That is what Mr Gorbachev used to call “glasnost”. May we have a policy of glasnost in our public services?

[Mr Letwin]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend that glasnost has to precede and accompany perestroika; we cannot have reconstruction, or proper choice, without transparency. That is why we have put in place exactly what he recommends—namely, a transparency regime that will in many cases cause difficulties and embarrassments for the Government. That will be worth bearing, however, to achieve real improvement. I shall give my right hon. Friend an example. In the past, there were many people, not only Labour Members but among the public at large, who said that crime maps would have no real effect and that no one would be interested in them. However, millions of people have now started using crime maps. When we also give those people the right to use beat meetings and make them electors of locally elected police commissioners, we shall be transferring power from the central state out to the people who are being served. That is a very powerful combination.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Is not this White Paper the somewhat unfortunate offspring of the Minister’s previous passionately held ambition to privatise the world and the first Thatcherite attempt to take away power from local authorities, which resulted in all in-house services being taken away from local political power and brought absolute chaos for those who were dependent on the services? As he has clearly not learned from those previous mistakes, how can he possibly guarantee that the same chaos will not ensue once this White Paper goes through?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Lady has to deal with a question between herself and her own Front Bench. She will have noticed that the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) made it clear that she thought that our proposals lagged behind what the Labour Government had already tried to do. I do not think that the Labour Government would ever have accused themselves of trying to privatise everything in sight. If the Opposition are saying that the White Paper continues measures that the Labour Government were doing, they cannot possibly accuse us of trying to privatise everything in sight. Nor would it be sensible to privatise everything in that way. The White Paper makes it absolutely clear throughout that we are neutral as between public sector providers, voluntary sector providers, community groups, mutuals, co-operatives and the private sector. I hope that we will eventually get over this absurd ideological divide, because we want something very simple—namely, the best service for the person who is using it. We do not care who provides the best service; we just want to ensure that the best service is always available and that people have a choice between providers so that they can get it. I would have thought that that would join the two sides of the House.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

Between 1997 and 2010, there was a 57% real-terms increase in public spending, but there was no such corresponding increase in productivity in the public sector. How does my right hon. Friend envisage his plans increasing productivity and delivering greater value for money, including for our taxpayers in Dorset?

[Mr Letwin]

I am delighted to help out my hon. Friend and Dorset colleague on this. What he says is absolutely true: there was a vast increase in spending on public services during the last Government. Alas, the improvements in the outcomes were not as great as the inputs. That is precisely what we are trying to tackle, and we are doing it in an age-old way, by introducing innovation and diversity of supply, as well as choice and power for the people using the services, so that there is real pressure on all providers to improve. We need continuous pressure for improvement and continuous transparency on whether the services are improving, as well as a continuous ability for people who find a service being provided better elsewhere to choose the best service. Those are the methods that always improve quality.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

Most of the examples that the Minister has given are devolved, although he did mention welfare to work. He may know that there is concern in many rural and remote communities about the ability of alternative providers to deliver services. Can he at least give us an assurance that such change will not be driven through for purely ideological reasons where there is clearly no infrastructure to support alternative deliverers?

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, in the sense that this White Paper sets out a programme not to enforce diversity of provision, but to enable it. If the community wishes to leave a particular service that is provided by only one provider where it is, that will be for the community to judge. If the community believes that in some cases it is worth having a diversity of suppliers, that is what the community will be able to do. I am speaking now about areas that are mainly devolved, as the hon. Gentleman said; hence, I am speaking about England. I leave it to him and his colleagues to deal with those in Scotland. In the case of the Work programme, there is a diversity of suppliers; indeed, there had to be, in order to create competitive pressure to ensure that those who succeed also succeed in being paid, and that those who do not succeed are quickly replaced by those who will, because it is a payment-by-results programme and the aim is to get people back to work. We want the providers that are best at getting people back to work to be those that remain in business.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the excellent White Paper, which lays such emphasis on choice for individuals in the type of public services they wish to have. Does he agree that we cannot say that we are in favour of choice and then insist that a particular service be run by a monopolistic local authority? Nor can we say that we are against competition if we are also complaining about too much public procurement going to large private sector companies that were in favour of more competition, not less.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend is right that we have to maintain consistency. If we are going to achieve real choice and real power for those who are served by public services, we have to allow for diversity of provision and to be on our guard always to ensure that those who can enter the market are able to do so. That is one reason why the White Paper contains specific provisions for redress where particular providers find that they are being kept out of the market. One of the techniques that we are using for doing that was developed by the previous Government. The competition and co-operation panel and its rules, which were set up by the last Labour Government, will apply in the NHS. That is the right kind of system, and we need to replicate it in a whole series of other domains where diverse providers currently have no redress if they are prevented from entering the market.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman made a lot in his speech of the potential for local community groups to take over assets of community value and seize control of planning in their areas. He will be aware that there are community groups in various areas of the country—I would remind him of the route of High Speed 2—that are not necessarily in favour of development and may wish to use enhanced powers to stop it. He will also be conscious that the Chancellor said in his Budget speech that in such instances of national economic development interest, the default planning position should be to say yes. Who will prevail in a conflict between a community wanting to stop a development and the Chancellor wanting it to proceed?

[Mr Letwin]

The right hon. Gentleman is too much of an expert to need me to tell him this, but I will tell him because he asks for it. We have, of course, established a two-level system. For most planning decisions, we hope that the neighbourhood will take charge by engaging in neighbourhood planning. We believe that the incentives that we have built into the financial system—including the ability to get a meaningful proportion of the community infrastructure levy paid to the neighbourhood if it has more housing and development in its area—will lead neighbourhoods on the whole to prefer development. The presumption of sustainable development means that their neighbourhood plans will have to include development of an appropriate kind in order to pass muster. There will be an assessment of local housing need that contributes to that, which plans will have to observe.

However, nobody is going to pretend in our Government, any more than in the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, that any neighbourhood will welcome a nuclear power station just next to it or a railway line running straight through it. Of course there will be objections in those cases, which is why we have maintained and democratised the very system that he and his colleagues set up—because they, too, operated a two-level system—in order to accelerate planning applications for major pieces of national infrastructure. There is no disagreement between us and the right hon. Gentleman on that, and there is no reason for him to invent one.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. As befits a distinguished former philosophy don, the Minister much enjoys conducting a Socratic dialogue with the House, and we all invariably feel enriched by it, but in the interests of time, we should be grateful for the abridged version.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I very much welcome what we have heard about employee involvement in the running of organisations, and mutuality is a subject that my party has advocated for a long time. I also welcome the greater role for parish councils in local services. I am concerned, however, about local assets being run by community groups and the accountability of that mechanism. Will the Minister ensure that, as these proposals move forward, accountability lies at the heart of any change?

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, we will.

[Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)]

One danger of welfare to work is that people can be put into jobs for which they are totally unsuited. How long will these people need to stay in work before their providers are paid for the result of their efforts in finding them a job?

[Mr Letwin]

The Work programme sets out a series of staged payments made to the providers when they get people into work. Full payment is made only if they keep those people in work over a sustained period. There is a huge incentive for each provider to find people work only of a kind that they will wish to remain in for the long term.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Government should be congratulated on bringing forward a genuine Conservative proposal. Was the Minister advised by his civil servants that this policy was both brave and courageous and is there a danger that the Government will row back from this as the years go on?

[Mr Letwin]

No, there is no danger that the Government will row back from this as the years go on. I can tell my hon. Friend that I have received a great deal of advice—some of it highly constructive and some of it not at all constructive—as has my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Secretary, with whom I have worked closely on producing this White Paper.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

Using the example of Southern Cross, on which a statement should have been made today, will the Minister tell us clearly what the White Paper says about market failure? The Government have been absolutely silent about market failure in this public service, as a result of which literally thousands of elderly people are now concerned about where they will spend their future.

[Mr Letwin]

As I said in my opening remarks, Southern Cross is a clear case of a legacy failure from the previous Government, because the arrangements under which Southern Cross operated—[Interruption.] There is no point in Labour Members denying this; the arrangements under which it operated were set up during the previous Administration. There is a serious point of public policy here, which is that a proper continuity regime was not established in the national health service or the social care system by the previous Government. I admit that this also applies to Governments before that, but it now needs to be cured. That is why we set out in this White Paper a series of principles that will govern the continuity regimes that we will set up to make sure that when individual providers fail, the people using the service have continuity in respect of it. We are fulfilling that same principle in what we are doing now to ensure that every single person looked after by Southern Cross continues to receive continuity of care.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I welcome the White Paper in putting some flesh on the bones of the big society. Does my right hon. Friend agree that for the big society to work, it has to support the little society? Will he make sure that the community groups up for tender are not accessed only by the big Tesco campaigning charities so that genuinely local and grass-roots organisations will have an equal chance?

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is indeed a point we make very forcefully in the White Paper. It is our intention that a local community group should be able to get to work and do things itself either in its own local neighbourhood or as a service provider to individuals on its own basis in its own way. The means we use to achieve that is ensuring that, if the little providers are excluded from entry to the open opportunities we are creating, they will have redress.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

If local communities within a city or town decide that they want to take over the local park, how will the budgets be set, will they increase over time, and what will happen in respect of the possible residualisation of, say, the 50% of parks for which a viable service can no longer be run?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Lady appears to think that we are talking about amounts of money here, but what we are talking about is how the same amount of money is used. Whatever amount of money is being spent at the moment on a park, we say that the locals should have the right to challenge and to be able to take over the park if they can provide a proper way of running it themselves for the same amount of money—neither more nor less. I would have thought that the hon. Lady shared that ambition with me; it will not cause the problem she alludes to.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I congratulate the Government on picking up the best of the Blair legacy for the purposes of these reforms. Like the Minister, I noted the observation of the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) that there was nothing new in the White Paper. What consideration have the Government given to the role of trade unions as providers and enablers, and does the Minister believe that they could provide such services for their members?

[Mr Letwin]

I hope very much that trade unions will play a role. In conjunction with Cabinet colleagues, I am holding a series of meetings with public service unions to discuss how they can help to design some of the details of the reforms so that they will work better.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The White Paper includes a commitment to promoting mutuals and co-operatives, but, as many Labour Members have pointed out, the rhetoric does not quite match the reality. The reality is that the diversity of which the right hon. Gentleman talks does not include alternative structures. What will he do to enable mutuals and co-operatives to compete for public services on a level playing field with all the other organisations?

[Mr Letwin]

The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude), is taking a series of steps not just to enable, but to promote mutualisation and co-operatives across the whole range of public services. [Interruption.] I beg the hon. Gentleman to give us a little time. That action is already beginning to work, and I think that in four years’ time he will see a vast field of mutuals and co-operatives working constructively throughout public services.

We want to be strictly neutral. We want to favour providers of all kinds—mutuals, co-operatives, voluntary sector organisations, community groups, private sector bodies and, of course, the public sector itself—if they can provide the best possible services for users of those services. That is our aim.

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on employee ownership, I congratulate the Government on the White Paper. Might some thought be given—in addition to an asset lock—to the provision of a golden share in some of these enterprises? By giving some scope and protection in the short term, might that not allow more of them to be transferred into the mutual and employee-owned sectors?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend makes a good and interesting point, and there may well be cases in which that is the appropriate method. I know that he is a serious student of these matters. Perhaps when he has had time to read the White Paper, he would like to discuss where that idea might apply. We are certainly more than willing to entertain it.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

The Minister said in his statement that the White Paper “sets out the most radical programme of transparency for Government and the public sector anywhere in the world.” Will that apply to private sector companies and other organisations that might end up running public services?

[Mr Letwin]

It will apply to every public service provider, regardless of sector. We are interested not in who the provider is, but in whether the service provided is a good one. In every instance we will be totally transparent about the quality of services, and will enable people to make choices on that basis. If the private sector cannot match the voluntary or public sector, people will choose to take the offerings of one of those sectors, and that is as it should be.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I welcome the statement and the White Paper, and note the already enthusiastic interest in these matters in my constituency. Does the Minister agree that the transition from ideas to action will be best effected through co-operation and partnership between providers, professionals and users?

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[Mr Letwin]

I think that my hon. Friend will be proved right in many cases. I hope that he will encourage just such co-operation in his constituency, as I will in mine. If there are any instances in which he feels that we could assist that process, we should be more than delighted to meet him and discuss how we can do so.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister has made much of transparency and accountability, but if data are to enable citizens to hold public bodies to account they must be accessible in a consistent form, as, for example, crime maps are. What central guidance will the Minister establish to ensure that citizens have access to data so that they can hold public bodies to account?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Consumers, patients, pupils and all the other users of services cannot possibly be expected to make the choices we are going to enable them to make on an informed basis unless there are standardised data. That is why we are going to produce standardised satisfaction data in each public service so—[Interruption.] Yes, so people can see what is being provided and how happy, or unhappy, people are with the results. For example, patient-reported outcomes in the NHS are a vital component in patients making choices about where to go for their treatment, but information on that has been lagging for years. I know the previous Government were in principle in favour of that, but we will now bring them into action across the public services, as well as objective data in standardised form.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

May I refer back to the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell)? I used to advise the Gorbachev Government on glasnost and perestroika, and what was missing then was innovation from the grass roots up. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister therefore say a little more about the extent of the innovation that he is expecting to come from this?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is no point in a system that does not allow genuine innovation. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) rightly made it clear in a previous question that the recent productivity record of the public services has been lamentable; their productivity has not increased commensurately with the increase in investment. Part of the reason for that is lack of innovation. In the most effective services across the world, there is continuous innovation, and that often comes from new small entrants. That is why the thrust of the White Paper is to promote and enlarge the scope for new entrants with new ideas to create innovations and more productive methods of doing things, which will, of course, result in the public’s money being used better in providing the services people want.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

It was an interesting statement, but is not the danger that the Government may get a great reputation for reorganising public services rather than actually running them? Why cannot the Government concentrate on the boring, unglamorous job of promoting efficient, accountable management? Indeed, the word “management” was curiously missing from the statement.

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[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend is right in that I cannot recall a single instance in the White Paper of our referring to ourselves as “managing” public services. That is because we do not think Ministers are particularly good at managing things. We think Ministers and Governments are better at creating frameworks within which others, who are professionals, can manage things and be given the incentives to manage them best for those whom they are serving.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

During my time working in the hospice movement, I witnessed time and again that the independence of hospices enabled them to provide first-class care, and that parents of children in hospices would often say that they had set the benchmark for the care they had received. Will not the freeing up of public services from the Whitehall grasp enable them to learn from the hospice movement and provide first-class public services in this country?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The hospice movement provides an admirable example of much that is best about public service in our country, and we do, indeed, want to learn from it in many respects. We are, of course, trying to ensure that the method for funding the hospice movement always preserves its independence and ability to carry on providing the unbelievably good service it currently provides.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I am glad to hear the Minister’s commitment to open data in improving public services, but he should beware of handing it over to organisations that treat public information as a commercial asset. Is he aware of the obstacles that Network Rail and train operators raise to thwart volunteers working with real-time train running data, despite their own dependence on public subsidy? Will he demand open access to that data, to promote service innovation?

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, it is our intention to open access to data and not simply to leave that as a proprietary matter. That is absolutely vital.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I welcome the White Paper. As the funding will be following the child, the student and the patient, does my right hon. Friend agree that as well as giving more choice and power, money will be focused where there is real excellence in these sectors?

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[Mr Letwin]

Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. What we are about is trying to improve public services for all. By giving people choice and power, we enable the money to be focused, as she rightly says, on the places that are seen to be best by the service users, thereby increasing the proportion of public services that are excellent and gradually dragging up the average. Of course we also want to make sure that we do not have any coasting or substandard services, so she will also find that the White Paper contains a series of measures precisely to target providers that are consistently failing or consistently mediocre.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

Last Friday, I met representatives of a number of voluntary organisations across the black country. Does the Minister agree that it is precisely those groups that we need to energise to get involved in improving the delivery of public services in my constituency?

[Mr Letwin]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. It is vital that we energise the voluntary and community sector now, and the White Paper will show the sector a huge path forward. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who has responsibility for civil society and who was here a moment or two ago, will shortly say more to the voluntary sector about the opportunities that the open public services White Paper framework provides for it.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

What opportunities will these proposals present to the more than 25 parish and town councils in my constituency to take over public services provided by the borough and county councils, either by themselves or together with other local groups?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point and he will find in the White Paper that there is precisely the intention to give parish councils and neighbourhood councils, as they arise in places that do not currently have parish councils, much more ability to take over services and run them on behalf of local people. If he would like to discuss how we can take that forward, I am sure that, like me, the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who has responsibility for decentralisation, would be delighted to discuss that with him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

11. What progress he has made on establishing a big society bank.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

I am delighted to say that we are making extremely good progress in establishing the big society bank. Sir Ronald Cohen and Nick O’Donohoe, with whom I met recently, have put an outline of the proposals on the website. They are now working with the actuary and the administrators of the dormant accounts. So as not to waste time while we wait for state aid clearance, we have also established a high calibre interim investment committee in the Big Lottery Fund to begin work immediately.

[John Glen]

I thank the Minister for that response. What safeguards will be in place so that when small charities seek to access funds from intermediaries they will be making worthwhile investments and not causing themselves to fall into significant debt?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. It is tremendously important that the voluntary and charitable sector does not get into a debt spiral, and for that reason the big society bank’s plans involve trying to promote patient capital and risk capital that will allow the voluntary and community sector to expand without becoming over-geared and being put in financial peril.

[Anne Marie Morris]

Does the Minister agree that the big society bank will provide the vital backing required by investors in our social sector organisations, so that they can continue to support local groups dedicated to making communities better places to work and live?

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It is extremely important to point out that the purpose of the big society bank, under Sir Ronald Cohen’s direction, is to go beyond the traditional sources of finance and persuade, for example, large charities that have considerable investments to start to reinvest in the voluntary and community sector so that they can get good returns on, for example, social impact bonds.

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

How long will it take for funds from the big society bank to reach the front line?

[Mr Letwin]

That very much depends, of course, on the state aid process, which, as the hon. Gentleman will know from his own experience, we cannot totally determine. In order not to waste time, however, the investment committee that has been set up within the Big Lottery Fund will begin to disburse funds from dormant accounts as soon as they are made available and released. I hope that that will happen within a few months.

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

At a recent meeting of the Public Administration Committee, Sir Ronald Cohen said that the big society bank might have to change its name because it is not a bank. Will the Minister enlighten us? If it is not a bank, what is it?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman’s question reminds me of Maynard Keynes’s dictum when asked about the IMF and the World Bank. I think he said that the World Bank was a kind of fund, and the IMF was a kind of bank. There are often these oddities in the naming of things. Shall we just call it the BSB and know what it does, rather than worry about the name?

[Mr Speaker]

We are now better informed.

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[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

During 2011, I will be launching a new social enterprise, the Northamptonshire parent infant project. What assurance can my right hon. Friend give me that commissioners will be encouraged to provide medium-term contracts to charities that provide essential support services?

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the fantastic work she is doing with that organisation, which is tackling natal depression and perinatal problems. The central Government compact already provides for multi-year funding whenever that is appropriate. Local compacts are a matter for local decision, but I strongly encourage her county council to offer a multi-year contract, if that is at all possible.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

T7. How many mutuals does the Minister expect to support through his Department next year, and will he be making a further statement on the mutual pathfinder?

Updated Departmental Business Plans

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Friday 13th May 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

Today we are publishing updated departmental business plans.

The updated business plans now include actions from “The Plan for Growth” and the social mobility strategy and reflect the current assessment of when the Government will implement the commitments set out in the programme for Government. In addition, the updated business plans reflect responses to Departments’ consultations on the transparency sections run in December 2010 and January 2011. We have also made some minor presentational changes, including incorporating milestones into the main section of the business plans.

Where Departments have amended text from the versions published on 8 November 2010, they have provided the reason for the change. These reasons are set out in an annex which I have placed in the Library of the House. Please note that this list does not include new actions, but details any changes to existing text or deadlines. The numbering of the list is based on the revised business plans.

The business plan for the Department for Health will be published after the NHS listening exercise.

The business plans are all available on the No.10 website at www.number10.gov.uk and can also be accessed via departmental websites. Copies have also been placed in the Library of the House. Departments will continue to publish their monthly progress updates which are also available on the No.10 website and from the Vote Office.

From July, the latest information on performance against business plan indicators will be published in a quarterly data summary for each Department.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

2. Whether private sector organisations will be able to make applications to the big society bank.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

The big society bank will provide finance for the voluntary and community sector through funds to social lenders and investors. It will provide funds only to bodies that are onward lending or investing in the voluntary and community sector, charities and community groups.

[Lindsay Roy]

I thank the Minister for his response. In the light of that, can he please indicate how the bank will define social enterprise, as currently there is not a legal definition? How will he ensure that all social enterprises have access to funding but that no organisation that exists for private profit has such access?

[Mr Letwin]

Social enterprises can take a wide range of different forms, but the common feature is that they do not seek to make a profit for shareholders. I think there is a widely understood definition of voluntary and community sector groups, and the big society bank will be organised in such a way that it can identify those and make sure that the funds that it is providing to social investors and social lenders go only to those groups.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I commend the intellectual ideas behind the whole concept of the big society? May I also commend to my right hon. Friend an article by Tim Montgomerie that appeared on ConservativeHome earlier this week entitled, “Conservatives can win the poverty debate but not if the Big Society is our message”? Is the big society more accurately described as a label for a collection of policies rather than a policy itself?

[Mr Speaker]

I hope that the Minister will answer with particular reference to private sector applications and the big society bank.

[Mr Letwin]

I am grateful for that guidance, Mr Speaker.

My hon. Friend is right to point out that the big society is an idea with a very wide application. The big society bank is a fund that will have a very wide application, because we believe it is extremely important that it should be able to foster all sorts of voluntary and community enterprise which, in one way or another, enormously support the alleviation of poverty—the subject of the article to which he refers.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The idea of such a bank to help to develop the centre of civil society is a good one, but effective government requires a mix of big ideas and getting the details right. In this connection, has the Minister seen today’s report by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, which suggests that if the big society bank lends purely on commercial terms, it will be

“failing to support those that it is set up to support”?

What can he say to ensure that the lofty rhetoric of the big society bank does not founder on the rock of inadequate administrative detail?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman is of course right to say that the big society bank could not operate as it is intended to operate if it were lending, or investing, on purely commercial terms. It will have what is often described as a double bottom line: it will seek to achieve the highest possible social returns alongside reasonable financial returns. Indeed, part of the point of the big society bank is to show that there is no conflict between achieving high social returns and achieving modest but reasonable financial returns.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

3. What recent representations his Department has received on the big society initiative.

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[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

11. When he expects the first payments from the big society bank to be made.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

The first payments will be made in the next few months. The exact timing and amounts will be decided by the Reclaim Fund once it has assessed the amounts that it has received from the banks and the amounts that are likely to be reclaimed from depositors.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

We hear constantly from businesses and social enterprises that high street banks are unwilling to back innovative or new ventures. How will the Government ensure that the big society bank is different and that it assesses applications in such a way that it does not exclude start-ups and innovative organisations in favour of only the established players in the social enterprise and charities sector?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that issue. The whole point about the big society bank, as I tried to indicate to the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) a moment or two ago, is that it will be entirely different from a commercial bank. It will be set up precisely to achieve social return as much as commercial return. The other vital point is that it will operate through social lenders and investors already in the marketplace, so it should be able to reach out to the smallest community and voluntary groups and not just be restricted to the large groups that also play an important role.

[Jack Lopresti]

Is the latest estimate of money to be raised from dormant bank accounts still £400 million, and what progress has been made in securing an additional £200 million from the UK’s largest banks?

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, the estimated amount to be raised from dormant accounts remains at £400 million. The Reclaim Fund will now assess the exact amount that it can release in the first year, and the current estimate is somewhere between £60 million and £100 million. Then there are, of course, the negotiations that my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General is having with the four main lending banks that were party to the Merlin agreement about another £200 million of funding. Altogether, there should be a considerable amount of funding coming through this year and in following years.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The NESTA report referred to earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) stated that the big society bank

“should not expect to achieve commercial returns on all its investments”.

By far the majority of demand for capital is for soft capital and patient capital. Why, after two months of intense talks between the banks and the Treasury, do we still not have an agreement? The banks are saying that they want commercial returns. Will the Minister confirm today that the big society bank will not be about commercial returns for the banks but about genuine support for social and community enterprises?

[Mr Letwin]

The right hon. Lady is confusing two levels of lending and investment. There is the question of what the big society bank demands of the investments that it makes, and as I have said, that will be both a social return and a modest financial return, but not the type of commercial return that one might make with a hedge fund or in another such way. Then there is the relationship between the big society bank and the main commercial banks that are party to the Merlin agreement. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General is currently discussing the exact terms on which that investment will be made. It will have to be compatible with social objectives and the social returns that the big society bank is intended to make.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

10. What recent progress his Department has made on establishing public sector mutuals.