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Public Accounts

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. I have been a member of the Committee for six years, and have seen a number of common themes emerge. I want to address just a few of those themes, with particular reference to the reports mentioned in the motion. The first issue that I shall deal with—I hope that the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury will address this point in her reply—was touched on by the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) in his intervention on the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy). The question is: what is the centre doing to make sure that when projects are spread out across Whitehall Departments and agencies, things actually happen? Obviously, there is inherent tension between avoiding a situation in which the Treasury is too involved, and tries to micro-manage matters that should be the responsibility of Departments, and avoiding sitting back and watching a Department make a mess of things with the taxpayers' money given to it by the Treasury. I have not had the pleasure of being a Treasury Minister and being vexed by such issues—although I am sure that that is something that history will correct in the fullness of time. I am sure that Treasury Ministers worry very much about that tension between the centre and departmental responsibility. The tendency has been to let Departments sort things out. Some years ago, there was the fiasco of the individual learning accounts—an adult training scheme with great intentions, which was designed to help the most vulnerable, and which failed miserably. I remember thinking, ““Where was the Treasury?”” Similarly, in the case of the Rural Payments Agency—although I respect the fact that we are not talking about that issue today, Mr. Deputy Speaker—it was for the Department to sort out the issue. The Treasury left the Department to it, and left it to bear the financial brunt, too. The Paddington health campus scheme was the subject of our ninth report, and at the time I found myself thinking about not where the Treasury involvement was, but where the Department of Health involvement was, in relation to the local strategic health authority and the local hospital trusts involved. The ostensible purpose of the scheme was to merge the St. Mary's NHS Trust and the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust. However, as conclusion (i) of our report said,"““The Paddington Health Campus scheme, as proposed…was based on an inadequate Outline Business Case, constructed without the benefit of input from doctors and nurses as to the required clinical content.””" We went on to say, in conclusion (iii), that"““It took several years after the initial outline business case for the Campus partners to reach a clear position on the clinical content of the Campus, the land required, the planning constraints and the likely cost and affordability of the scheme. The scheme's development was also handicapped by insufficient manpower and capability. NHS Trusts taking forward building schemes should have early external assessments…of their capacity to deliver complex schemes and firm timetables against which they can measure progress.””" The Treasury minutes responded:"““Trusts are advised to appoint a dedicated full-time project director and DH has established specialist Project Director's courses at selected universities. Proven, high quality Project Directors are also deliberately moved to new schemes so hard won experience and expertise is not wasted.””" That is all very good, and I think that we all say amen to that. However, the question is this: the Government may think that it is good to have full-time project directors, and that they are necessary for delivering projects successfully, but are they actually acting on that in practice? That brings me to my second question, which is not so much about the centre versus the local, but about whether we are getting the basics right, at whatever level. Our 14th report was on delivering digital communications through the Bowman programme. That was a so-called combat infrastructure platform—a battlefield communications system. The project was inherently complicated, because it sought to make sure that all the different players in a battle, whether they were battle tanks, infantry or air support, could talk to each other, and to HQ, and all that had to be delivered properly. It was an extraordinarily complex project, yet it did not have a senior responsible owner. It was not that the senior responsible owners kept changing, as we have seen happen in many projects; there just was not one at all. As our report concluded,"““There is no individual within the Department with full responsibility for ensuring that the Bowman CIP””—" combat infrastructure platform—"““project meets its objectives. In 2006, the Department belatedly appointed a senior officer to act as Senior Responsible Owner. But he lacks the authority and time to effectively discharge this onerous responsibility and is only supported by a small staff.””" The Ministry of Defence, and subsequently the Treasury in its minutes, concluded that that was an omission, and that"““It is the Department's policy that large and complex projects or groups of projects have a Senior Responsible Owner appointed on behalf of and accountable to the Defence Management Board.””" It is a good idea to have project directors and senior responsible owners in charge of projects, but even if a senior responsible owner is in charge, is that enough? It would appear not, because our first conclusion in our 27th report on IT-enabled business change, which was referred to earlier, was that"““A fifth (21 per cent.) of Senior Responsible Owners of mission critical and high risk IT-enabled programmes had not met with the nominated Minister and a further 28 per cent. met the Minister less than once a quarter. For these major high risk undertakings to succeed, Ministers need to be briefed fully and candidly at least quarterly on risks, progress and cost escalations””." In its reply, the Treasury states:"““Ministers and Accounting Officers should, in particular, be briefed when there is significant deviation from the programme or project plan—that is, where there is more than three months slippage””." I am bound to ask, why should Ministers not be briefed all the time? Why should they be briefed only when there is slippage? Should not Ministers know what is going on in mission-critical projects all the time, whether they are going well or not? Why do Ministers not say, at an early stage, ““Why don't you have a senior responsible owner?””? I remember talking to a Minister who was involved in one high-profile case that the Committee considered—a typical IT project that had gone wrong. I am sad to say that that Minister resigned, because he had the wisdom to vote the right way on the Iraq war—that is to say, against—and he could not do that and support the Government policy of the day. I am glad to say that his career has been restored now; he is actually in the Cabinet, so that may give hon. Members a clue as to who I am talking about. I remember him saying, in respect of a particular project, ““I sat in a room, having listened to what people said, and having read about the matter, and I said, 'This isn't going to work, is it?'”” He said that there were 12 people in the room—civil servants and consultants—and they all said, ““Oh yes, Minister, it will work.”” He said that there was no one in the room who said, ““Well, actually, no. You've got a point; there are some serious concerns.”” There was no critical friend at court to make sure that the concerns were given a serious airing and had a serious voice, and as a result, he signed off the project. Of course, his instincts and concerns were absolutely right, and the project hit the buffers, just as so many others do. In another case, I was talking to the senior computer contractor from a major firm which has been involved in many of the projects that we have examined, who was desperate to talk to the Minister to find out how to resolve an impasse and get some clarity on direction, and finally begged the Department for a meeting with the Minister. Within 10 minutes of that request, the permanent secretary himself was on the phone saying, ““You don't talk to Ministers. We talk to Ministers.”” If I were a Minister—as I mentioned to the Exchequer Secretary earlier, she does not seem to think that that is likely, but in the fullness of time I very much hope that we will have the chance to put into practice some of the things that we are talking about. It seems to me essential for Ministers to find critical friends at court, who would tell them not what they wanted to hear, but what they did not want to hear. I am sure that the more intelligent and switched-on Ministers do that. There is also the problem, as we heard earlier, of civil servants not being able to get the access that they require to Ministers, as we heard again in the context of the Rural Payments Agency. In relation to the 27th report, there was one answer from the Treasury that I thought was particularly interesting. We said in our conclusion (iii) that"““over half of Senior Responsible Owners (SROs) are in their first SRO role, and nearly half spend less than 20 per cent. of their time on such duties.””" Lack of time was a key factor in some of the other projects that we looked at. We went on to say:"““Lack of relevant experience, combined with a regular turnover of post-holders, adds unnecessary risk to the management of IT-enabled change.””" We said:"““To address these issues, departments should appoint a Senior Responsible Owner at the outset of an IT-enabled business change on the presumption that he or she will remain in post until the programme or project is delivered, with performance and reward linked to agreed targets and milestones.””"