2. What steps he is taking to improve commercial skills in the civil service. (902234)

6. What steps he is taking to improve commercial skills in the civil service. (902239)

7. What steps he is taking to improve commercial skills in the civil service. (902240)

9. What steps he is taking to improve commercial skills in the civil service. (902242)

The Government have been working for the past three years to drive up the level of commercial skills across central Government. There is still a long way to go, given the shortcomings of where we started. The need to press ahead with redoubled speed was highlighted in our recent cross-Government review of contracts. We are creating the Crown Commercial Service, which will come online later this year.

I welcome the important steps that my right hon. Friend is taking to improve these skills. I believe that more needs to be done to continue to upgrade skills in commercial areas, particularly relating to project management and commissioning. Is he satisfied that sufficient civil servants will be going through the new commissioning agency really to make a difference to the skills base in Whitehall and beyond?

I recently attended the one-year-on event of the new Commissioning Academy, which we set up a year ago. It has achieved a good deal. During the next 18 months, we want 1,500 senior public sector commissioners to have participated in the academy. It is part of a wider programme to improve commercial skills not only in Whitehall but right across the public sector.

What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the work of the Crown representatives in driving value for money for taxpayers through procurement reform?

Our Crown representatives, who come predominantly from the private sector with a huge amount of commercial experience, have helped us to generate significant efficiencies. We buy better if we act as a single customer in Government, to maximise our buying power and improve our performance as a customer. We are renegotiating contracts with a number of suppliers, and by centrally renegotiating we have saved the taxpayer £800 million in each of the financial years during this Parliament.

When does my right hon. Friend expect that all those in charge of major Government IT contracts will have gone through the programme at Oxford Said business school, and is he satisfied that that is the very best place to send these people?

I am absolutely satisfied with the Major Projects Leadership Academy, which was set up to address what was identified by everybody as a major deficiency in Government and is now approaching its second anniversary. There is a requirement for all major project leaders to be alumni of the academy by the end of 2015, and all of them will have at least started training by the end of the current year. We started with a real deficiency of skills and experience, but we are building those with civil servants, which has been very much welcomed.

Just before Christmas, the cross-Government review of major projects identified a number of serious weaknesses in the way contracts with Serco and G4S had been administered. Will the Minister confirm that the review’s conclusions will be implemented in full? Will he also consider requiring senior civil servants to spend three years in a commercial environment before becoming permanent secretaries?

I can confirm that we have accepted the recommendations, and Departments are producing their plans for implementing them imminently. With regard to the requirement for senior civil servants to get commercial and operational experience, we have already set out that someone looking to be appointed as permanent secretary of a delivery Department must be able to show at least two years of commercial or operational experience before being considered.

May I push the Minister on that? Is it not a bit wishy-washy to refer to “commercial” skills? I am co-chair of the all-party management group. What we want across the civil service are pure management skills. Moreover, we want Ministers with some ability to manage a Department. The fact is that most of the Ministers who appeared before me when I chaired a Select Committee could not manage the proverbial in a brewery.

The hon. Gentleman may have more experience of the latter activity than I do, but the truth is that Ministers are not actually required to manage Departments; that responsibility sits very clearly with the civil service leadership. I think that they would be the first to accept that he makes a valid point. We have a deficiency in leadership and management skills as well as in commercial skills, and we need to address that. Concerns about the quality of the leadership and management of change come up consistently in the civil service staff survey, and as great organisations are always changing, we need to rectify that deficiency.

Of course we agree that we want greater commercial skills, and indeed management skills, in the civil service, but with the fiasco over the west coast main line, botched contracts over rural broadband roll-out and the lamentable implementation of the universal credit, with the Minister squabbling publicly with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when will Ministers, rather than blaming officials, take some responsibility for their own shambles?

On that last point, the hon. Gentleman will know that it was my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who spotted that things were not right with the implementation of the universal credit and commissioned the review that disclosed the problems to the Department for the first time, as the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee report makes absolutely clear. Far from evading responsibility, it was my right hon. Friend who spotted the problems and set to work solving them.

Does my right hon. Friend acknowledge the widespread appreciation of his personal commitment to improving skills in the civil service, which is truly commendable? Will he also take this opportunity to welcome the fact that the Public Administration Committee has just announced a new inquiry into skills in the civil service, and will he encourage people to send us as much evidence as possible?

I absolutely welcome the inquiry that my hon. Friend is leading and will certainly encourage a lot of evidence to be given. We have to be open about the problems that exist. Otherwise, there is no chance whatsoever of solving them. The first stage in finding solutions is being honest about the problems.