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Public Accounts

It is a pleasure to respond to what has been, in the tradition of the debates that we have here, a wide-ranging, extremely interesting and beneficial debate on the important work of the Public Accounts Committee. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) compared to Marie Antoinette; I would not have thought of her, if somebody had asked me to think of the historical figure of whom the hon. Gentleman most reminds me—I am trying to get the picture of him in a beautiful ball-gown out of my head. On beautiful ball-gowns, I noted a little item in the newspapers recently about the hon. Gentleman's trip to the Republican national convention. Following Sarah Palin's inaugural address ahead of her run for the US vice-presidency, the hon. Gentleman wrote in his journal that he felt absolutely reinvigorated by what she had said and that he was looking forward to a positive response to his invitation to her to address the Cornerstone group, but it looks as though he has been disappointed. Perhaps he can call yet another Public Accounts Committee meeting to cover his disappointment at her non-arrival. The hon. Gentleman made a number of points, one of which I shall turn to soon, but first it is important to acknowledge the broad range and wide diversity of the subjects that he and his Committee members cover. Hon. Members of both parties have been quick to draw systemic lessons from some of the failures that have occurred in the use of public money. However, it is increasingly welcome that Committee members are willing to congratulate Departments that do a good job and produce something worth while, along with producing the more traditional—in some ways perhaps more enjoyable—reports that demonstrate where things have gone badly wrong. In the battle to get maximum value out of public money, we all share the same aim. It is important that we highlight and reward good practice in debates such as this as well as pointing out where things have gone wrong. That gives Departments a much greater incentive to do well and makes them more likely to try new things without being too defensive in the battle to get value for public money. On the Committee's 57th report, the hon. Gentleman and many other Members asked whether any officials had suffered any detriment as a result of what happened in the shared services project and the propensity of the IT to converse in German. I understand that some officials were dismissed. Hon. Members expressed doubt that that happened, but I will ask the appropriate Minister to write in more detail about the aftermath of the pretty sorry tale covered by the 57th report. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) made a characteristically enjoyable speech. He ran through a range of issues, including the current matter of the Valuation Office Agency and its port ratings. He made a rather overblown—and, he admitted, personal—estimate of £70 billion as the amount of consultants' fees paid. I was happy to tell him that the figure actually fell by 31 per cent. to £903 million of Government spend this year. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) commented, as an ex-consultant, that not all consultancy spending is bad and that some of it can in fact be very productive. He made the accurate comment that consultants are sometimes engaged out of confidence and a well focused approach to procurement and project management, and sometimes as a crutch to shore up confidence in a rather false way. It is important that we continue to make progress on the use of consultants and ensure that they are used appropriately and because they are needed. The Office of Government Commerce has established a consultancy value programme, which is a cross-departmental, collaborative programme aimed at deriving greater value from our use of consultants. We have also implemented the recommendations of the National Audit Office and the Committee on the matter. That is one of the ways in which we have managed to achieve that 31 per cent. decline in consultancy spend. I trust and believe that because we have developed a standardised business case process, those approving consultancy spend can be assured that it is adding value. We have also introduced schemes such as skills transfer to ensure that there is not an unhealthy reliance on the expertise of consultants. I therefore feel that we are in a much better situation in that regard than we were a few years ago.