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Public Accounts

That is a scandal. We must start changing the culture and valuing the delivery of projects, and that requires changes on the part of politicians, so that Ministers are not trying simply to grab a quick headline, but to deliver commitments and see them through. That is probably as difficult for the present Labour Government as it will be for a future Conservative Government. It is a fundamental and inherent problem in delivering good government. I shall refer to one more thing in the Treasury minutes on the report. We had said in recommendation (ix):"““The Office of Government Commerce and the Delivery and Transformation Group have not had the power to halt failing programmes and projects. The Treasury's new Major Projects Review Group will however be reviewing all new business cases for high risk or mission critical programmes””." For some years I have wanted to see some central capacity—some power at the centre— to say, ““You've failed. No more money. We're pulling the plug.”” It seems obvious that that power should sit in the Treasury, but the Treasury minute answering that point, paragraph 21, says not that the Treasury will have that power, but rather that"““The Government agrees that the MPRG should make it clear to Departmental project owners what they need to do to address its concerns.””" There is enormous fear of greater interference. I appreciate that there are people saying that there is too much interference from the centre with Departments, just as there is from Departments down across the country—but one of my first points, which I hope the Exchequer Secretary will address, is whether the balance is right. We do not want huge amounts of intervention. We want the right intervention and the right power at the right time at the centre. I am not convinced that we have got that balance right. My next point, which is related, is that the same problems occur again and again. In our 31st report on the Government's use of consultants is a good example. We said in recommendation (ii):"““Departments and OGC do not routinely know how much money is spent on consultants””," in recommendation (iii):"““Consultants are often used when in-house staff have the necessary skills and are less expensive””," in recommendation (iv):"““Departments do not routinely assess the value of the work they receive from consultants””," in recommendation (v):"““The capability of departments to be intelligent customers””—" the point made by the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire—"““is weakened by insufficient sharing of information on consultants' performance””," and in recommendation (vi) that"““40 per cent of clients consider they have used consultants when it was not necessary.””" We said in recommendation (viii):"““Departments do not regularly plan for, or achieve, the transfer of skills from consultants to their staff to build internal capabilities””" and in recommendation (ix):"““Some consultant charges lack transparency””," and so on. The interesting thing is that not only were all those recommendations and the themes relating to them clearly identified in our Committee's 2002 report on better value for money from professional services—we make this point in our recommendation (i), which the Treasury refers to in its minute in reply on page 31—but the Cabinet Office identified those problems in a study which its own scrutiny unit did eight years previously, in 1994. It stated clearly that the Government were poor at identifying when consultants should be used, poor at appointing them, poor at project management during the process, poor at transferring skills to in-house staff and poor at learning lessons for the future. None of this is new at all, which is why I asked the Exchequer Secretary about the tension between the centre and the local and the centre and the Department, and about whether, without being heavy-handed or bureaucratic, things can be done to improve that balance. I hope that she will find time to address that issue specifically. I have been reading Michael Barber's book ““Instruction to Deliver””, in which he discusses the need to improve Departments' performance, in an environment in which the Treasury would not co-operate. He refers to Sir David Normington, who is now at the Home Office, telling him about the problems that he would face. The Treasury would shut him out, permanent secretaries would neither talk to him nor give him information and he would not be able to get to the Prime Minister—then Mr. Blair—because the policy unit would be in the way. That meant that he would probably be finished before he even started, so he had to think about how to get round the situation. He proposed a series of simple measures and behaviours to be adhered to—including, by the way, abolishing the delivery unit after a few years. He thought that that would help to improve its performance, and I think that in some ways it did. The whole story illustrates a vexing and long-term problem in the nature of how we govern ourselves, and I would be interested in the Exchequer Secretary's thoughts on that. Finally, I want to say a quick word about the BBC. I see no good reason why it should not be subject to the same degree, quality and type of scrutiny as other bodies that undertake public expenditure. The criticism that it, an important national institution, has come in for recently may be down to the fact that it has not had enough of the right scrutiny early enough. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) is no longer in her place, because a good example of BBC extravagance took place in her constituency, when Dame Ellen MacArthur arrived back from sailing around the world. We are all familiar with BBC producers turning up to cover the same event; I have asked people, as a party game, how many BBC producers they think turned up to cover the return of Dame Ellen. They usually say five, 10, 15, 20 or even 30—but in fact 64 BBC producers were there. With the best will in the world—