rose to call attention to the role of non-governmental organisations delivering services on behalf of the Government, and related questions of accountability; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am most grateful for the opportunity for this short debate. I am particularly looking forward to hearing the maiden speech of my friend—even if he is not my political friend—the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. I will concentrate on accountability and control of quangos and will try to keep my remarks brief as I am sure that others will wish to explore the role which charities and voluntary organisations can play in delivering government objectives.
In 1995, the then shadow Chancellor, a Mr Gordon Brown, vowed to make a bonfire of quangos and sweep away the quango state. In fact, under the aegis of this Admninistration, the quango state has grown enormously since 1997, with more than 700 extra bodies created. Nor can this just be attributed to this Administration. The new Scottish Nationalist Administration, elected in May on a promise to have a Scottish bonfire of quangos, has managed to create 24 new quangos since taking up office despite that promise.
I have found it almost impossible to divine the extent of the quango state. The Economic Research Council has published The Essential Guide to British Quangos and has an excellent database on its website. According to it, gross expenditure grew from £146 billion in 2004 to £174 billion in 2006. The growth in staff numbers over the past decade has been impressive, with many quangos more than doubling in size. The Student Loans Company, for example, employed 984 people in 2007 compared with 432 in 1998 and its costs have increased from £19 million to £57 million, a threefold increase. Spending on government and quango press officers alone has been estimated at more than £330 million, and the Nolan rules on appointments have been good news for head-hunters and recruitment agencies.
In paragraphs 20 and 21 of its sixth report, the Select Committee on Public Administration recommended,
“that the Government brings together information about the range of organisations carrying out its policy in a single directory, combining the information given at present in Public Bodies with other, summary information about departmental roles, and how departments deliver policy through other bodies, and how all of these bodies relate to one another … Such a publication would provide a comprehensive ‘map’ of the Government, and organisations which carry out functions on its behalf. It should more clearly classify such bodies; show how much each organisation spends in public money, and where this money comes from; what is the legal status of each organisation; who sets the policy of each organisation; who appoints its members, and how they are appointed; and what information each organisation publishes”.
That was in 1999, and the Government have done nothing, more than eight years on, to implement that simple and very sensible recommendation that would shine a light on the extent of the growth of quangos.
Indeed, the Government have moved backwards. In 2006, they ended the publication of Public Bodies, the only—somewhat inadequate—directory of these bodies available, arguing that the information would be available by going to each department’s website. I have tried that. You could spend a lifetime mining the data on those websites and get nowhere close to the extent of the quango state. Of course, the Government have something to hide. Far from abolishing the quango state, they have nourished it and allowed it to get completely out of control. Quangos are used or established to hive off difficult decisions by this Government. This Government have created hundreds of task forces, action teams and working parties and has more tsars than the Romanovs. The coincidental, I am sure, involvement of party supporters and donors does not help with its credibility.
The Minister has no idea how much the taxpayer spends on quangos or what is achieved by that expenditure. These bodies have now taken on a life of their own. The Electoral Commission, for example, which is directly accountable to Parliament, not to Ministers, did not exist 10 years ago and will spend more than £100 million between general elections. Noble Lords may be astonished by that figure; I was. I expected the Electoral Commission to spend perhaps a couple of million pounds a year at most, but it spent £21.5 million in 2005-06 and has a budget of £26.2 million for 2006-07. Expenditure by all the political parties on a general election campaign will amount to much less than half of the £100 million that the Electoral Commission will spend between general elections. Postal vote scandals, the tens of thousands disenfranchised in the Scottish elections and the confusion over donations suggest that its existence has not delivered value or improved the democratic system. Not that I am singling it out as being exceptional; I just thought it might be on Ministers’ minds on this day more than most quangos.
Every post brings to Members of this House and the other place yet another glossy publication from yet another public body, most of which are, I suspect, often instantly recycled, unread, via the waste basket. The waste is absolutely prodigious and Ministers are accountable for it but unable to call the organisations concerned to account. In part, Parliament is responsible. How often do we see amendments in this place to legislation requiring the publication of an annual report or creating some new body or group? I have no doubt that all these bodies are staffed by committed people trying their hardest to do the right thing, but they have taken on a life of their own and they are the front-line troops in the growing intrusiveness and power of the state.
In their response to the Select Committee eight years ago the Government promised that a rigorous review of NDPBs will be undertaken every five years to establish whether the functions of the body are still required. It is a promise which has been broken. When can we expect the Government to act? They need to go further. Could the functions be carried out by the voluntary or private sector? Is it really necessary for the British Council—I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, is no longer in his place as he is the chairman and might have been able to help the Minister—to be running education programmes which private firms could otherwise deliver at no cost to the taxpayer? Could some of the activities of some of these quangos be privatised? Is there scope for income generation, perhaps through Google advertising on their millions of website pages, as the excellent Dan Lewis of the Economic Research Council has suggested? I cannot understand why the BBC allows advertising on its web pages accessed from outside the UK but not on those accessed within the UK. Would it not be better to have the income and save the jobs of the news journalists currently under threat? Can quangos not be dispersed to the regions? Do they really need to be located in the most expensive parts of central London? I have quoted some astronomical costs of quangos but these annual costs are but a fraction of the long-term costs because many of the people employed are on Civil Service final salary pensions and conditions.
I wonder also whether government agencies have been a success. I accept that we invented them when we were in power. They appeared to shrink the size of the Civil Service, but in fact we have seen a growth in the numbers employed and less accountability. Their role often leads to confusion about who is in charge and to outbreaks of buck-passing. Disastrous flooding or a serious lapse of prison security are examples of events which can leave a hapless Minister doing the rounds of TV studios in a no-win position.
I do not make a habit of reading the Guardian very regularly, but David Walker writing in the Guardian’s Public magazine in an article entitled “The watchdogs are barking up the wrong tree” highlighted a crucial point which, if no other, I would like to impress on the Minister today.
He said:
“Maybe there does need to be a process, open to external inspection, by which public bodies acquire chairs and board members ... But there also needs to be someone to ask bigger questions—such as why a particular function is being carried out by a quango rather than a government department”.
He might have added, “or at all”. He argues:
“If the Environment Agency is carrying out agreed public policies then why does it need to be at arm’s length from DEFRA? If it is meant to be independent, why is it so close, financially and managerially, to Whitehall? And, moreover, what is the point of worrying about who gets appointed to the board of a public body when there are no follow up procedures in place to see whether the board performs well?”.
The people who should be asking these questions are not Guardian journalists but the Ministers responsible. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answers today. I beg to move for Papers.
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, for this opportunity. I shall concentrate my remarks on the role of charities. The third sector is very different from either government or local government bodies and commercial companies. Apart from their governance structure, they have the volunteering culture but can also develop unparalleled expertise and combine their services very flexibly. This is done by putting the child, the patient, the poor, the whatever, right at the centre of everything that they do and building the support around it—if only all public services did that. It is also a very large sector; for example, it provides 80 per cent of all the palliative care in the UK.
I consulted a number of charities in preparing for the debate, and this is what they said. Age Concern is concerned about short-term contracts from local authorities, which cause a lack of stability and an inability to plan properly. Terminating contracts at short notice also brings about uncertainty about redundancies. When money is tight, it is the council’s own services that are protected, shifting the redundancy costs from the council to the charity. When you pay out for redundancy, that pot of money is lost to the public service pot, so planning to avoid redundancies anywhere is only good housekeeping. Age Concern is also concerned about the reluctance of commissioners to fund core costs. You need to make a bit over the top of cost to fund both overheads and unexpected problems that arise during the course of the contract.
Another NGO said that the recent Compact agreement is great but is not used universally. Some government departments and local authorities are still tending towards one-year contracts. Will the Minister say how the Government are monitoring to see whether all authorities and departments are implementing it fully? The NGO was also concerned about the reluctance of commissioners to put a contingency into the contracts. When a problem arises, such as maternity leave, there is no money in the budget to cover it and the NGO has to go back and ask for more.
A third NGO was concerned about the process of bidding for contracts, which is often long-winded and behind schedule. That means that by the time you get the go-ahead, there are only a couple of weeks before the work is supposed to start. How can you manage your workforce, whether paid or volunteer, on that basis?
The RNID, which sent us a briefing for this debate, was concerned about four major issues, as the others were. There is a need for full-cost recovery, for an appropriate level of overhead, for an upfront discussion of the risks, and to make provision for them. It also wanted longer-term funding for greater stability. It also had another set of issues relating to campaigning, independence and accountability. It talked about its independence and wanted the ability to engage in campaigning, and not only as a peripheral activity. It wanted permission to broadcast social advocacy adverts and to repeal restrictions on demonstrations near Parliament, especially given the plans for the pedestrianisation of Parliament Square. My noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, who brought in a Private Member’s Bill on that issue, and I absolutely agree with the RNID. On accountability, the RNID would like to see impact reporting used more widely. This is where a charity sets out its objectives from last year, says how many of them have been achieved, and sets out its future objectives for next year.
Sue Ryder, the provider of specialist palliative and neurological care, also sent us a briefing. It is at the forefront of innovation but has concerns about the financial arrangements that restrict its ability to innovate. It cites one-year contracts and no contracts at all as being of particular concern. It told us about the magnitude of the situation. Hospices, for example, receive only 34 per cent of their funding from statutory sources, so they alone are subsidising the Government, just for palliative care, to the tune of £200 million per year—an enormous amount of money. Underfunding means that services are being eroded. They also point out that a lack of transparency in the funding process means that services are funded differently by different PCTs, which is a major contributor to there being a postcode lottery for health. The NSPCC have the same concerns about short-term funding and shortfalls, but added that different accounting or planning cycles can disrupt plans and lead either to unidentified gaps in service, or unidentified overlaps, which are a waste of money.
It is not easy to combine delivery of services with being an effective campaigning organisation, but it is desirable. The people who can alert us to need and bring about change are those closest to the grass roots. This issue of not covering full costs, and there being nothing for contingency and overheads, is serious. The public give money to charities on the understanding that it will be used to provide extra services, over and above what the Government are supposed to provide. If the cost of services is more than they get, charities will have to subsidise from their fundraising, and will therefore be able to do less of the extra stuff, which the public are paying for. The Government get a great multiplier when they use a charity to deliver services. They get it on the cheap because charities use volunteers. That is fine. I do not want to discourage the volunteering culture in any way, but it has to be taken account of.
NGOs can also provide savings by spreading their expertise over a wide area. By commissioning an NGO to deliver a service, the Government implicitly accept that they have a duty to deliver that service. They may say that if we ask them to pay charities more, they can commission less, so the missing services will have to be paid for by the charity. The charities do not always have the money to do that, so the total quantity of services will diminish, and so will innovation. Charities tell us that their ability to be creative and to innovate is being limited by the failure, financially, to allow for a bit of risk. There is always risk in doing new things. That is a pity, and we all lose by it. I look forward to the Minister’s reply to all these concerns.
My Lords, I thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I wish to offer some important perspectives from where the Church of England stands. For two years or more, Government Ministers have been in conversation with church leaders about the possibility of the church providing extensive welfare services, rather in the way that the church plays a major part in education. The new direction of the state, it seems, is to be a commissioning state, rather than one that has extensive institutions providing welfare.
Both Government and church are well aware that in the Scandinavian countries and Germany the church provides extensive welfare services. These countries have a church tax, which is paid by most citizens. The money received through taxation is returned to the church in support of its ministers, its buildings and in making possible the extensive welfare work done in its name. I admit that I have sometimes wished that we had a church tax in the United Kingdom. Because welfare provision in these European countries is long-standing, the arrangements for financial provision offer financial security to the church and its welfare institutions. The church is treated as a partner, and its work is trusted, rather than controlled.
The Church of England has very strong roots in local communities, making it well placed in many contexts to deliver quality services in a way that truly understands the local situation, which government departments may not. We very much want to be part of the discussion about the new opportunities that are opening up. We want to engage with the state in extending our considerable involvement in social care and community health provision. There is no single view in the church. In some quarters, present arrangements for partnership seem to work very well; in other areas, bishops and others have serious misgivings, based largely on their experience over some years of local projects in health and welfare, many of which the church has endeavoured to support or lead.
The Archbishop’s Council has commissioned serious research on what the Church of England’s response to the commissioning state should be. It is being carried out for the church by the Von Hügel Institute, Cambridge. We are pleased to say that it is well supported by Members from both Houses, Ministers and shadow Ministers.
On the main areas of our concern, my remarks echo points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. The first concern is best described as short-termism. Government-based funders will often fund a new project for only three years. As my Carlisle diocesan social responsibility officer put it to me, “Staff can spend one year setting up, a second year doing serious work and a third year searching for funds. The prolonged uncertainty can lead to the loss of key staff members”. As a way of delivery to meet social needs, that is inefficient and totally inadequate.
There are better examples. The church is signing 25-year contracts for the new academies. Christian groups bidding to deliver dentistry are getting 20-year contracts. In all that, we are glad, but the picture is very mixed. Good social care needs long-term commitment, which we cannot emphasise too strongly. The heart of this debate is about the quality of delivery, not about the number of initiatives. Our second concern is goalposts and the tendency for them to be continually shifted. To quote my social responsibility officer again, “The Cumbria local area agreement was launched in April 2007 and was intended to last for three years. Government policy has changed with the publication of the local government and public health Bill. There is now a new single set of 198 measures representing national priorities known as the national indicator set and the only measures on which central government would access outcomes. Cumbria is now required to deliver a new local area agreement effective from 1 April 2008”. The shifting of goalposts represents a serious deficiency in solid, proven, long-term strategy.
Funding is the third area of concern. The church’s diocesan boards of education are statutory bodies with their own financial structures and reserves, so they are reasonably secure, but that is not so for social responsibility. New church institutions would have to be created either at a diocesan level or a national level if the church is to become a major welfare provider. It cannot be prudent to do this if the continuity of funding is liable to be insecure.
The Bishop for Urban Life and Faith, the right reverend Stephen Lowe, has been to look at Anglican church projects in Australia and Hong Kong, and the arrangements for funding are quite different from how things look here. That is central to the debate which needs to be held. If the church is to be a partner, it must be trusted by government and not controlled. As I perceive it, recent governments have found that very difficult. Church projects of course would be audited, but not controlled. My opinion is that, recently, we have been building a society that is very low on trust and very high on inspection and control—I see that, for example, in farming—which is very bad news for a healthy society.
The fourth area of concern, and in many ways the most fundamental, is the possibility of a clash of views in the spheres of justice and ethical values, and the implications that this would have if the church was the recipient of large sums of taxpayers’ money for the provision of welfare. The church sees part of its role as challenging existing assumptions and values, and being an advocate for those with little voice or power. We must be about advocacy as well as about delivery.
In spite of huge areas of agreement on the welfare of our citizens, it is increasingly possible that differences could lead us into significant difficulty over, for example, protection for the poor or policies which challenge the Christian understanding of marriage. If the church chose to challenge certain policies and the values undergirding them, it could have government funding denied. Then it could be trapped in the unenviable position of making its staff insecure or having to go along with a policy which compromised the position required by its faith.
In conclusion, these are interesting and challenging times for the church. The nation is changing from a welfare state to more of a welfare society. The church very much wishes to be part of the discussion, but it also has serious concerns and misgivings, which need to be discussed frankly and addressed. It needs to be treated as a long-term partner which is trusted even when it wants to challenge the current effectiveness of delivery.
My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to explore some of the key aspects of relationships between central government and non-governmental bodies. In the six short minutes available to each of us, I want to share some of the experience of the UK voluntary bodies that the Government rely on to deliver their policies for the nation’s housing.
The not-for-profit housing associations have become the principal agencies through which the Government’s plans for affordable housing and the neighbourhood services that go with this activity are fulfilled. Council housing is no longer the mechanism for building new homes for those unable to afford what they need on the open market. Today it is the range of non-governmental bodies—mostly charitable housing associations—that add each year to the stock of affordable homes—so-called social housing. These NGOs have taken on the ownership and management of a million properties previously owned by local authorities. Each of these non-profit, non-governmental housing organisations is an independent body with an autonomous board to govern its affairs. I declare my interest as chair of one of them, the Hanover Housing Association.
Others in this debate are underlining the value of charitable, voluntary and community bodies being genuinely separate from and independent of central government. I heartily and emphatically agree with these arguments and will confine my own comments to commending the work of the National Council of Voluntary Organisations in its negotiations with government over the compact between the two parties. I wish the new Compact Commissioner well in the intermediary role when he or she is appointed.
The voluntary housing association sector represents an interesting case study. After 30 years of regulation and subjection to government edicts, have these NGOs now become creatures of the state? Is there now a master/servant relationship? Have the once-independent housing bodies, which have a proud history dating back to the Middle Ages, been captured by the state? Having taken the King’s shilling, have they become part of a contract culture, doing the Government’s bidding in return for payments? I would argue that the housing associations have not yet lost their independence of spirit or action. Housing associations are competitive and innovative, and each is different—working with local communities and specific groups in exciting and important ways. But there is a need to remain constantly vigilant against erosion of this independence.
The new Housing and Regeneration Bill currently in Committee in the other place poses new threats. This Bill introduces a new regulator for housing associations. In most respects the power of this regulator mirrors that of the Housing Corporation, whose place it will take. However, in important ways the Bill gives central government new powers which I fear cross the invisible line and subtly change the relationship between the state and these voluntary bodies, the housing associations. On the one hand, powers are given to the regulator to establish standards that cover all and every aspect of each housing association’s behaviour and to enforce these standards even where there is no question of malpractice or misconduct. “Standards” could embrace the widest range of activities; for example, requiring adoption of any new initiative from central government, as at present with ideas for the Government’s respect agenda for combating anti-social behaviour in the neighbourhoods where housing associations are at work. On the other hand, as well as extending the regulator’s role, the Bill introduces the power of the Secretary of State to direct the regulator as to the standards it should specify and the details of those standards. This chain of command from the Secretary of State to the regulator and thence to the NGO, the housing association, will no doubt be used sparingly and sensitively by the current Ministers who, I know, have the very best of intentions. But the new Bill sets out a line of control which could be seen to enslave the housing associations if a future Secretary of State was so minded.
Perhaps the experience of the voluntary and often charitable housing associations will find echoes in other parts of the voluntary sector represented in this debate. In all cases, the relevant charities and the associations and federations, such as the NCVO and, in the case of housing, the National Housing Federation, need to monitor incoming legislation, blow the whistle when central government cross a line in the potential erosion of the organisation’s independence and, perhaps, look to your Lordships’ House to remove such hazards. One such piece of legislation is now in the wings, and I am grateful for the opportunity to alert the House to the possible need for amending action when the Housing and Regeneration Bill reaches us later this year.
My Lords, I count it a great privilege to speak for the first time in your Lordships’ House. To reciprocate the spirit of the opening words of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, it is a particular pleasure to speak in a debate initiated by my noble personal, if not political, friend. He and I entered the other place following the 1983 election and I took part in many debates there which he initiated, although it has to be said more often to oppose than to support him. That said, I can also say—and wish to say with appreciation—that as constituency Member for Orkney and Shetland for 18 years, I found the noble Lord one of the best Ministers to deal with when it came to understanding constituency problems and attempting to address them.
When I left Westminster I regularly answered the question, “Do you miss it?” with the response, “It’s people I miss”. One of the real pleasures of being here in your Lordships’ House is in re-establishing old friendships and acquaintanceships as well as making new ones. I have very much valued the warmth of the welcome that I have received and appreciate the genuinely friendly ambience of the House, its Members and not least the staff who, in addition to their friendly demeanour, could not have been more helpful in helping a new boy learn the ropes.
I received a particularly warm welcome from two Scottish Members of your Lordships’ House, who explained that my arrival meant that they would almost certainly no longer be in any danger of topping the annual travel expenses table.
I have the most northerly residence of any Peer in the United Kingdom. Indeed, my title reflects the Tankerness home where I have lived with my family for more than 24 years. I had the great privilege to represent the people of Orkney and Shetland in another place for 18 years, and to represent my adopted home of Orkney in the Scottish Parliament for eight years. They are very distinctive island communities, proud of their heritage, but ever ready to embrace new challenges. While much legislation affecting the isles now originates in the Scottish Parliament, I hope that from time to time it will be appropriate for me to bring a very northern perspective to your Lordships’ deliberations.
A key reason for wishing to take part in this debate is that two issues in which I have taken a keen interest, in the other place and in the Scottish Parliament, are freedom of information and human rights legislation. Both subjects have topical relevance to the accountability of non-governmental organisations providing public services. Next week, the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on the designation of additional public authorities under Section 5 of the Freedom of Information Act closes. I very much welcome the general approach of the consultation, which starts from the Government’s belief that,
“there are good reasons for reviewing coverage of the Act”.
Many organisations receive large amounts of taxpayers’ money to carry out functions of a public nature, but are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as public authorities to which the Act already applies.
Prima facie there is a very strong case for extending the coverage of the Act. However, having been responsible for taking the Scottish freedom of information legislation through the Scottish Parliament, with a similar Section 5 provision, I am well aware that this is not as straightforward as it may seem. As articulated in the consultation paper, there is a balance to be struck between the public interest and whether the burden is proportionate. The noble Lord, Lord Best, reminded us of the importance of housing associations in the delivery of services for the public service, yet we have a great breadth between very small and very large housing associations, which may have to cope in very different ways if freedom of information is extended. But believing that freedom of information is to be celebrated as a contribution to better governance, rather than a burden to be tholed, my preference is for the option that proposes a progressive widening of coverage. I recognise that any decision to extend coverage will require further, more specific, consultation, but I hope that that consultation does not become an excuse for unreasonable delay.
The issue that I want to raise concerns the Human Rights Act 1998 and follows the decision of the House of Lords, sitting in a judicial capacity, in the case of YL v Birmingham City Council, that private care homes, even when publicly funded, are not carrying out public functions and as a result an individual could not sue those care homes for an alleged breach of convention rights. Even before the YL decision, the Joint Committee on Human Rights had raised concerns about the inconsistent judicial interpretation of public authority. That matter was promptly raised in your Lordships' House by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, on 27 June, when she asked how the Government sought to protect the human rights of vulnerable people in care homes in the light of that decision. The reply from the now Leader of the House, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, was encouraging; and in fairness the Government have expressed disappointment at the judicial decision.
Notwithstanding that, and assurances given after the decision, there is a continuing concern about the position of private care home residents. There have been suggestions that this issue is best left to a Bill of Rights at some unspecified date, but that is less than satisfactory. Using the Health and Social Care Act to strengthen the regulatory framework may help, but I note that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has questioned the effectiveness of such an approach. Individuals will still not be able to enforce convention rights against private care homes; the proposal will not directly affect the scope of the Human Rights Act to cover care homes; and the new Care Quality Commission will have no power to investigate complaints from individual residents and provide them with remedies. I ask the Minister to respond to these concerns when he winds up. Each of these topics could command a short debate in its own right and I suspect we shall return to them.
My Lords, I am delighted to have the honour and privilege of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on his thoughtful and well delivered maiden speech. I have not had the pleasure of meeting him before now, but I know that the excellence of his maiden address to your Lordships, and the progressive ideas contained in it, will come as no surprise to noble Lords who knew him in another place, where I am told that he had a strong, authoritative and much respected voice for more than 18 years. He also played a part in the development of the Scottish Parliament as a member of the steering group leading to its establishment, and he served the Parliament with great distinction as its Deputy First Minister, as well as holding other ministerial offices. I know that we shall hear from him many times in future, as he gives us the benefit of his experience and wide-ranging interests, and we look forward to that. On a personal note, I am to pay my first visit to Orkney this summer and I hope to consult him about my itinerary. I understand that the lochs, and the views from Tankerness, are not to be missed. The noble Lord’s future contributions to this House are likewise not to be missed.
I, too, want to concentrate on the charitable sector, because that is what I understand “NGO” to mean. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for securing this short debate. As somebody who has also spent a long time working with NDPBs, I should perhaps remind him that appointing processes have long been rigorous, open and well prescribed. I know from personal experience that people who work for NDPBs are closely appraised and rigorously monitored.
Anxieties expressed by noble Lords about non-governmental organisations delivering services should be taken seriously, but we must keep a sense of proportion. The vast majority of charities are small, with annual incomes of under £10,000, and do not go anywhere near the delivery of public services, concentrating on helping their client groups. It is only among the bigger charities—those with incomes of more than £500,000 a year—that you find any major involvement in public service delivery, and even then only 60 per cent are major service deliverers. None of this is new. Arguments about short-term contracts, full cost recovery, mission creep, subsidisation and additionality have been around for as long as I can remember—and that, I am afraid, is a long time.
Many charities decide that they will only be campaigning charities and will not go in for service provision. That is a decision that we took when I led the carers movement. However, others take a different view, and for good reasons. Why should we want to get NGOs involved in service provision at all? It is not just because those services are cheaper, although they often are, as noble Lords have pointed out. The best public services are those that are based and have their origins in the needs of the user. No one knows that better than the charitable sector, as the noble Baroness opposite reminded us. Groups that work on the front line, in close touch with disadvantaged groups and individuals whom they represent, know what kind of services best suit their needs. They know what works and what does not. Their creativity, their innovation and their ability to build trust in their client groups have driven improvements in public services. The whole user-involvement, personalisation agenda that is nowadays seen as so vital to the provision of public services has been led by NGOs. That is a great tribute to the work of the third sector.
In order to make best use of this quality, a new partnership is essential between public and voluntary services. The energy, creativity, commitment and experience of NGOs must be properly recognised and harnessed, as well as constantly monitored, if we are not to fall into the traps that some noble Lords have set out.
I would be the last to claim that the difficulties in this area have all been solved. However, we cannot fail to recognise how much more attention and care the third sector receives from this Government than it has ever known before. I well remember the frustration of working with previous Governments, when you might wait weeks or even months for a meeting with a Minister or officials, and when you got there you might be patronised or even treated with contempt; you were rarely taken seriously. Now it is difficult to keep track of the number of initiatives that are aimed at making the third sector an equal and effective partner in the provision of services.
By any dispassionate measure, this Government have a proud record of co-operation with and respect for the charitable sector. The sector’s representative organisations, such as NCVO and ACEVO, together with many others, have a fine record, too, in ensuring that such co-operation is effective and always developing, so that, when NGOs now sit round a table with government, they have a much more powerful voice. The development of the compact, and now Compact Plus, has also helped. It may not be perfect, but it helps to ensure that contracts are properly negotiated and managed and that they are sustainably funded. We now have an Office of the Third Sector, a Minister for the Third Sector and an action plan for third sector involvement. These initiatives are well monitored and evaluated.
I would like to highlight two areas that have a great impact on the delivery of public services: commissioning and capacity building. The world in which public services are being delivered is changing and many of those who want to commission services from the third sector need to develop their skills, expertise and understanding of the sector. The National Programme for Third Sector Commissioning aims to do just that. I am sure that the training programme currently under way, which includes training not just for commissioners but also for elected members, will have a profound effect, not least on the sector’s bidding capacity.
All my life, I have been sitting round tables talking about the need to develop capacity in the third sector. Through the ChangeUp programme and the establishment of the Capacitybuilders organisation in 2006, we are now finally doing that. Especially welcome are the Capacitybuilders funding programmes that target rural, black and minority ethnic communities. I have also been involved with the Futurebuilders initiative, an investment programme for third sector organisations that want to deliver public services; the initiative has loans, grants and capacity-building programmes. In a recent round of visits to funded projects, my fellow panel members and I have been inspired by the innovative work that is being carried out.
When it comes to the third sector, I am and always have been a glass-more-than-half-full person. In spite of the gloomy scenario that we hear about in some areas, I want to conclude on an optimistic note. The Government’s commitment to the third sector extends far beyond their desire to see it as a partner in the provision of public services. It is important that the third sector should also be involved in the development of policy and, of course, fulfil its long-established role as a campaigner on behalf of disadvantaged groups.
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on his excellent speech.
My noble friend Lord Forsyth has today given us the opportunity to discuss the burgeoning number of quangos with their increasing costs. There are many concerns. Local democracy is being crushed by the explosion of quangos, with nine unelected regional assemblies imposed throughout the country, including the north-east in spite of the 78 per cent “no” vote to a North-East Regional Assembly in 2004.
They have vast budgets—£400 million for the London Development Agency alone, under the control of Ken Livingstone, where fraudulent funding of various organisations is now the subject of police inquiries. Why does the regional development in Northern Ireland have offices in 12 foreign cities? The Minister may not have the answer tonight, but can the Government let me know the figures for running these offices compared with the funds that they bring in on an annual basis?
Can the Government deny that there is an emerging pattern between the growing role for quangos, the taxpayer forced to fund them and their declining accountability—which is extremely important—in the accessibility of information?
The Sector Skills Development Agency has 25 sub-quangos, with their own websites, branding and staff premises. Do these not constitute an unfair tax-funded threat to private sector providers? Also, local quangos are wholly or largely self-appointing and very few are subject to ministerial or departmental oversight. Why should flood defences not be the responsibility of local authorities? The Milk Development Council, in 1997, had four officials. It now has 44 staff and spends £700 million taken from dairy farmers plus £5 from you and me. How many quangos have been closed down? There are now 94 different organisations and officials inspecting hospitals. The story grows. On the Olympics, why are there so many departments and agencies that cost £170 billion, which is five times the defence budget? The mind boggles.
On another note, I appreciate that we all want a cleaner environment, but the duplication of the Countryside Agency, Natural England and the Environment Agency creates higher costs, with separate websites, stationery and separate premises. Who decides what quangocrats—an awful word—should earn?
My noble friend Lord Forsyth mentioned Dan Lewis who, over a number of years, has made an in-depth study of quangos, which I have also studied. The list is endless. No doubt I have repeated some of what other speakers have already mentioned, but I feel very strongly that many quangos could be consigned to the dustbin, as I believe Mr Blair promised years ago. No matter who made that promise, perhaps it could now be carried out.
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on having secured this debate, which is both timely and potentially wide-ranging. The subject is potentially so wide-ranging that I did not know before the debate what angle the noble Lord might approach it from. In the event, it was even more wide-ranging than I had suspected. Like other noble Lords, I was expecting a debate on NGOs, but instead we got quangos. Never mind. At its widest, the debate potentially raises issues about the boundary between the state and civil society, which is something that would be good to have a debate about some time or other. That boundary is increasingly under pressure with changes in pension provision, student funding and healthcare provision, and now we are imminently expecting a Green Paper on social care, which will test the boundary still further. I was proceeding from the assumption that the state was in the process of shrinking in relation to the individual, but the noble Lord has put a valuable extra slant on that by indicating that there are respects in which it is at the same time encroaching on civil society. These issues have theoretical ramifications that are too wide to be traversed in six minutes, so I shall stick to more mundane and practical matters.
A year ago, the Public Administration Select Committee launched an inquiry into commissioning public services from the third sector. It has taken evidence from a wide range of individuals and organisations and we eagerly await the final report. While it is true that since 1997 the Government have increasingly emphasised the role of the third sector in developing and delivering better public services, it is unclear how far this process has actually gone. In all likelihood the volume of work undertaken by the third sector is much smaller than the rhetoric would lead us to believe. Does this matter? Do we want to see significantly more public services being delivered by voluntary and community groups? The answer to this question is complex and dependent on a whole range of additional questions to which the Select Committee is seeking answers. For example, have services taken over by third sector organisations shown improvements in quality? Are they more popular with those who use them? Is there a loss of accountability with contractual arrangements replacing direct political accountability? Is there evidence that the third sector is more likely to innovate in its delivery of public services?
There are no easy answers and often the evidence base is thin, but a number of distinctive roles can be identified where the third or voluntary sector is uniquely qualified to make a contribution. NGOs have a unique store of knowledge that enables them to identify and speak with authority about the problems of those with whom they work. They also often have unique insight into the solutions. A clear example is training for employment. In the field of visual impairment—noble Lords will understand my drawing examples from the field I know best, and I declare my interest up front as chairman of RNIB—state agencies have traditionally shown their lack of understanding both of blind people’s abilities and how to realise them. One can predict that the same might very well turn out to be the case with the generic private sector organisations to which these responsibilities are beginning to be subcontracted.
Other examples might include technology and how to make the street environment safer. The state should purchase this expertise through central and local government and the utilities rather than, at best, persisting with dead-hand solutions that do not work. Where NGOs have demonstrated that they have the answers they should be funded by the state to deliver them. When I say “funded”, like other noble Lords I mean funded in full. Contracting to the third sector should not mean service on the cheap. Quality services need to be paid for. In some fields solutions are either unknown as yet or only very partially understood. Research is needed to find what works. This is a major raison d’être of the voluntary sector.
For the rest of my time I should like to focus on innovation—new ways of tackling old problems. Traditionally the third sector has been able to innovate by using unrestricted charitable funds, trying new approaches and, where they can be shown to work, seeking to roll them out more widely. An example of this is the integrated low vision service covering Camden and Islington which the RNIB has developed together with the two social services departments and the local primary care trust. This provides a high-quality person-centred service to people with sight loss. It is truly innovative. However, despite the evidence of success, it has proved extremely difficult to get this model adopted in other parts of the country. The third sector can be innovative, but narrow and restrictive public sector commissioning policies can easily stifle this creativity. That is why the recent contribution to this debate from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Andy Burnham MP, is so welcome. He appeals to the commissioners of local services to innovate and break traditional patterns of local spending, to be more entrepreneurial and move money around if traditional areas of spending are not producing the goods, to be open-minded about who might be best placed to provide services and trust the voluntary sector as a partner, and to trust people to know what services best suit their needs.
Another way in which the third sector can make an innovative contribution to public services is in the development of policy and strategy. This does not have to be undertaken largely or exclusively by government through the traditional report/Green Paper/White Paper/legislation route. As the recent development of a UK vision strategy shows, the process could be much more inclusive. The draft strategy, led by the RNIB on behalf of the Vision 2020 UK coalition, with the support of Guide Dogs, Action for Blind People and the National Association of Local Societies for Visually Impaired People, was developed between April and November 2007, with input from national and local voluntary organisations, professional groups and central and local government. Consultation on the draft took place through to January 2008 and included a series of regional and country-based consultation events. We held a most successful event here at the House of Lords last week to celebrate what a success the whole thing had been. The comments from that process are currently being collated and reviewed, and the final strategy will be launched in April 2008. That is surely a far better way to develop strategy.
NGOs are not just service providers, research centres and think tanks. They have a crucial role to play in giving a voice to less visible sections of our society that typically lack a voice.
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but we are into the ninth minute and other noble Lords want to speak. Could the noble Lord bring his contribution to an end?
My Lords, I was right at the end.
In this connection I should like to comment on the view that an increased involvement in public service delivery inevitably threatens the sector’s independence and ability to campaign, or that delivering public services and remaining an independent campaigning voice must always be in conflict with one another. It is not clear to me why such a tension should exist.
My Lords, I begin by expressing the warmest welcome to my noble friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness and congratulating him on a distinguished beginning in this House. He and I were colleagues and friends in another place and neighbours in next-door constituencies. I wryly observe that there has already been a somewhat northerly slant on Scottish affairs in this House, but I shall welcome his championing of such issues in the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, is to be congratulated on raising the issue and beginning a debate that has ranged very widely indeed. It would be appropriate to express some understanding if the Minister found it impossible to deal fully in his remarks with the topics raised in the debate. I welcome the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, which was core to his message about the multiplication of quangos and the questions he asked about the diminution in the availability of information about those that exist. There is a need for a central point where information can be drawn down by those seeking to oversee their activities; the department-by-department quest is not always as fruitful as it might be.
That gives rise to the question of the suitability of our parliamentary oversight arrangements for these non-governmental organisations. The Public Administration Select Committee is doing a remarkable job in another place in bringing together the great issues, some of which have been touched on in this debate. I am not certain that we need another agency or oversight body for that purpose. Most of the departmental Select Committees look very closely at the activities of non-governmental organisations and it would be wrong to leave the impression that parliamentary oversight is not continuous and deeply probing.
The inquiry that the Public Administration Select Committee is conducting into the buying or commissioning of services from charitable and voluntary organisations for the public service is profoundly important. As the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, said, its report is awaited with eager anticipation. It is fair to say, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said, that no Government have given as much attention to the third sector as the present one, and the existence of a unit within the Cabinet Office devoted to this subject and a Cabinet Minister regularly speaking out about it is very much to be welcomed.
I take the point made earlier that the importance of the third sector in the delivery of public services is not to be exaggerated and is not to be seen as a substitution for the obligation of government and the public sector to provide those services. The statistic was revealed in a recent speech by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in another place that only 2 per cent of National Health Service public expenditure is spent on such bodies. That could, if left alone, give a misleading impression of its importance. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley pointed out, palliative care in this country is largely provided by that sector.
I have two concluding points. One is that if we are going to have proper scrutiny and oversight of third-sector providers of services, it is important to have better standardisation of the contracts that they operate. Our noble friend Lord Adebowale made that point in evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee and we should take it seriously.
My second point is about complaints. Nearly all third sector organisations ought to provide proper complaints procedures and mechanisms to deal with user complaints. It is surprising that the Charity Commission survey conducted last year found that 69 per cent of charities did not have complaints procedures at all, with 40 per cent of them providing public services. The independent complaints reviewer for the Charity Commission gave that evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee. He said that in this growing sector of public service provision the citizen remains unprotected by redress mechanisms other than the court. That is a matter to be addressed.
In conclusion, I am grateful that Ed Miliband, the Minister responsible, has strongly recognised the importance of the independence of these organisations not being put at risk by being contracted to deliver services. More important than the services that those bodies provide is influencing public opinion about the quality of service that could be provided and their immediate understanding of issues that are not often understood by some of the public sector, or even private sector providers, but which greatly enhance the scope and effectiveness of public service provision.
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean for initiating this very worthwhile debate, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed their knowledge and experience by speaking today.
In particular, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on his maiden speech. I share his recreation, according to his entry in DodOnline of what he modestly calls novice horse-riding, and I look forward to his future contributions.
When my noble friend requested this debate, his intention as he said, was to focus the spotlight on quangos—quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations or non-departmental public bodies. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle, among others, have also taken the opportunity to widen the debate to other NGOs. The noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, referred to the fact that NGO means different things to different people. I would very much have liked to deal with issues involving, for instance, contracting with government for the provision of services by charities. I have great sympathy with the argument, for example, that the promise of full cost recovery has, as the National Audit Office has reported, simply been broken. The right reverend Prelate referred to concerns over short-termism, shifting of goalposts, inconsistency over funding and concerns over trusts, among other things.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, talked specifically of his experience in the housing association sector. The noble Lord, Lord Low, too, raised some important questions, but in view of the constraints I doubt that I shall be able to spend more time on this area, and I apologise to those noble Lords because, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, these are very important subjects worthy of their own debates.
Following my noble friend’s lead, I shall focus my arguments on quangos. The new Labour Government’s definition of a non-departmental public body in 1997 in a Cabinet Office publication Public Bodies was:
“A body which has a role in the processes of national government, but is not a government department, or part of one, and which accordingly operates to a greater or lesser extent at arm’s length from Ministers”.
The paradox is, of course, that the more you encourage them to operate at arm’s length from Ministers the less accountable to Parliament they become. A cynic might say that that is sometimes the intention: if a policy is unpopular, or there is a failure in delivery, make sure there is a quango to blame it on. Likewise when a quango with geographically focused objectives is established by national government, it is almost by definition unaccountable to the local communities with which it operates. The regional development agencies are a classic example, and the problem is about to get worse. Ministers talk about strengthening the role of local communities in the planning process, yet they are proposing to transfer important housing and planning powers to the completely unaccountable RDAs. The noble Lord, Lord Best, also talked about housing and referred to different concerns regarding forthcoming legislation, which is likely to centralise power over housing associations.
A major criticism of quangos is that unelected officials have responsibility for performing central and local authority functions, without, as my noble friend Lady Sharples said, full accountability to elected politicians. Critics believe that quangos are insulated to a greater or lesser degree from direct ministerial involvement, weaken the scrutiny mechanisms of Parliament and remove control and responsibility at local level. Criticism has also been made of their escalating cost.
However, before I deal with that, I would like to highlight the difficulty in identifying the number of NDPBs—or quangos—in existence. A sleight of hand has been at work in the Cabinet Office figures, by, for example, removing from the list, after devolution, those for which responsibility has been devolved to Scotland and Wales. The totals, for 1997, of 1,128 and for 2007, of 883, are, quite simply, apples and pears. There has been so much criticism that the Cabinet Office has dropped its database and become increasingly reluctant to provide any figures or information.
Furthermore, even if there has been a reduction in the number, it has been achieved through amalgamation and reclassification—as well as by discounting those for whom responsibility has been devolved—and should not be seen as indication of a decline in their role or significance. That the very opposite is true is shown so clearly by the fact that NDPB expenditure is colossal and rising inexorably.
According to a recent report, quoted by my noble friend, from the Economic Research Council, which has aggregated the costs of the 883 public bodies in the Cabinet Office’s 2006 report, total annual spending on those public bodies was £174 billion. Removing the NHS quangos, the total is still over £40 billion.
Since 1997, this Labour Government have pursed an agenda of what they call partnership, which has prompted the increased deployment or creation of quangos, as a means of instituting new public policy initiatives. Yet speaking in 1995, as my noble friend Lady Sharples said, Tony Blair had promised to,
“sweep away the quango state”,
if Labour were elected at the next general election. As my noble friend Lord Forsyth pointed out, none other than Gordon Brown also said then:
“The biggest question … is … why there is not more openness and accountability … The real alternative is a bonfire of the quangos and greater democracy.”
What humbug!
As long ago as 2003, the Public Administration Select Committee, to which the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, also referred in such positive terms, concluded that there was a basic lack of information about which bodies exist and their roles and powers; that the Cabinet Office publication Public Bodies, did not include all bodies and was commonly subject to errors and omissions and that public mistrust in the quango state remained.
In conclusion, no reasonable person would, I dare suggest, say that there is never a role for any quangos. However, the extent of their use and purpose, their lack of accountability, independence or supervision and, importantly, their complete dislocation from the local communities that they serve as well as of their cost have, as my noble friend said, got completely out of control.
Messrs Blair and Brown both demanded a bonfire of quangos and now claim that there are fewer of them. Since Labour came to power, the amount of public money spent on quangos has soared out of control, from £24 billion to £170 billion per year. The Government’s reliance on commissions, task forces and quangos raises serious questions about accountability, democracy, independence, scrutiny and public trust in the way that this country is governed.
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I am replying to a debate in which, fairly typically, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, produced a magnificent firework display in his opening contribution. The problem with fireworks is that they can be experienced in two ways. The first is the enormous explosion—that was discussed by all those who followed the noble Lord—but the second is through their glittering stars; that approach appears in all the contributions that examined the role of the third sector and NGOs in advancing welfare in our society and improving the delivery of government services.
I will addresses myself to the bang in a moment—and will not sell the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, short—but will deal with the stars first. The first star was the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who hoped that this debate would be largely about the third sector and charities. She wanted to clearly identify where we could improve the Government’s relationship with charities and the success of the service they provide, while not compromising their many essential functions which are well beyond any concern of government. She was followed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle who emphasised that, as far as the church was concerned, this different and independent role must be preserved. It is bound to be preserved and appreciated. At the same time, the church has a role to play within the delivery framework of some services.
I emphasise that we take the criticisms voiced in the debate seriously. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, identified them first. There is a problem with contracting. The noble Baroness is right: short-term contracting puts any organisation under pressure, and charities often do not have the resources to cope with some of these challenges as easily as other bodies. Of course, charities are entitled to include the full costs in bidding for services, and we are concerned to train and develop those involved in the third sector so that the kind of issues that she—and the right reverend Prelate, in terms of the church’s role—identified should be addressed. In developing an intensely fruitful new government approach, we should make sure of that.
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, did not comment on charities, but he will have recognised that other noble Lords have taken the opportunity of his debate to emphasise that how certain services are delivered is changing because of the nature of our society: the move from the welfare state to the welfare society. That is an extremely graphic illustration of the fact that people relate to the necessary support they receive, underpinned by the state, in rather different ways if it can be provided by organisations in which they have trust and with which they relate closely. Charities fulfil this role in extensive ways. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Low, for identifying the crucial role of the charities in which he is involved.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, identified some of the most crucial aspects of the third sector: the housing associations. We know of his great expertise in the housing sector. I fear that what I received from him today was a trail of his contribution to the legislation when it appears in the House. He will forgive me if I duck the responsibility of replying to him in any detail on how the Bill will be handled and respond to the challenges he presents.
Of course, in circumstances identified by the noble Lord, the old mechanisms in which social housing had been provided—with resources for local authorities to provide local council housing—have been transformed in recent decades into a new form of delivery and service. That requires crucial issues of accountability to be taken into account. I recognise that the noble Lord, Lord Best, will have something to say about the potentially overweening power of those appointed to be accountable for public money in this area. Others will have the chance to respond to that in due course.
I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, chose this debate for his maiden speech. I am also delighted at his arrival here. The old canard for those of us who returned to the Pennines was that all the Scots got home a good deal faster because they got aircraft to Glasgow or Edinburgh, or fast trains to Aberdeen, while we struggled to get back to our areas.
I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that I had enough trouble with the broad texture of this debate, and the rather specific questions he introduced are a real problem for me to respond to. I can say only that the Government are concerned about the judgment with regard to the Human Rights Act and private care, and we are examining the position. The Government are wrestling with the problem of the Freedom of Information Act as it stands. Those challenges are still to be responded to. I appreciate that he sees merit in extending the Act further. I cannot promise an early and immediate response to that, but he has registered the fact that he will be campaigning strongly on it. We are therefore duly warned of the contribution that he will make.
I was, of course, enormously grateful to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for her contribution. The House recognises her expertise in this area. She was able to demonstrate the extent to which the Government, in shifting ranges of services to be delivered through the sector, have set out to wrestle with the significant problems of dealing with charities differently from other agencies—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, also emphasised. We have made substantial commitments. The Cabinet Office has a Minister for the third sector. That provides accountability but it also means that at ministerial level we have responsibility for effective liaison with the third sector and with charities, and that is a base on which we can work for the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, introduced this debate in his usual challenging way. What about the issues that he raised and the problems of the quangos? He asked where the promised bonfire of the quangos is. He will have heard the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, indicating that he thought that the Government are shifting their criteria somewhat—and he was not including devolved Assembly quangos in the criteria—but nevertheless, somewhat grudgingly, recognising that the Government are able to point to the fact that far from mushrooming, quangos are under control. Since 1997, they have fallen in numbers. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said that people cannot find out about these bodies and that doing so defies the wit of man. If it defies his wit, it would certainly defy the wit of many other people. Let me assure him that the Cabinet Office will shortly publish figures for 2007 that will show a further reduction in numbers. The Cabinet Office will shortly publish a report that covers quangos and their role in government. It may not be as extensive as some reports in the past, but it will contain information on the size, spend and membership of the quango sector, so that will save the noble Lord some searching on the website for elements of his research.
I think that the noble Lord was perhaps stressing the point too strongly, but it is the case that we expect quangos to be responsible. It is necessary that they are subject to regular and rigorous review. The noble Lord touched a rich vein of support with the Government when he lamented the fact that almost every Bill that goes through the House has an amendment about the annual report. I hasten to add that it is generally tabled by the Official Opposition, and we all wonder what its value might be.
I chaired a government quango for a while. We were well aware, as the noble Lord rightly said, that our circulation list included a large number of people whose filing cabinet for our report was a proverbial wastepaper basket. It was quite difficult, however, to suggest to people that they were being careless about the hard work you had done. I can talk about it freely now because it was the Further Education Funding Council, one of the bodies the noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, referred to, which has disappeared and now comes within the framework of the Learning and Skills Council, but that body appreciated the fact that all real stakeholders who took an interest in its work read this report and responded to it in a fairly rigorous way. So the question of the publication of official reports is not all a bonfire of the vanities. I would not for one moment want to dissuade quangos from publishing reports which are necessary for their openness and accountability. If others do not read them as extensively as they might, it is a salutary exercise for those who are consuming public resources and responsible for public resources, as quangos are, to compile a report which is defensible in terms of public scrutiny.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, asked about the pay for quangocrats, as she called them—people who serve on quangos. This is a matter for individual departments but she will know that a very large number of people who serve on quangos are unpaid. Many people serve quite unpaid on the boards of advisory bodies and across the United Kingdom thousands of men and women serve voluntarily on such bodies. I do not think all the issues which have arisen about excessive pay in the public sector are addressed specifically to quangos. There are one or two key government bodies which have had to adjust to the market rate. The Government have often pitched it at one level and not had enough takers. They have been obliged to increase the rate of pay in order to get somebody to fill the role.
This has been a fascinating debate and an extremely difficult one to respond to with any degree of coherence, but the themes that come through are clear. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, led the way by saying that it is enormously important that quangos and those who use public resources are accountable. He had a certain degree of reply to that. With a government department now concerned directly with these areas, certain aspects are becoming more explicit. I hope I take the House with me on this, but there is no doubt that Select Committees in the other place—I will say nothing about our own committees—have grown in competence over the years, exert a great deal more pressure on government, and have heads of quangos before them on a regular basis. If you are heading up a significant quango in the United Kingdom, it is very likely that you will appear before a Select Committee.
I appreciate that my time is up. I want to apologise to the House for the rather split nature of my response. That is a reflection of the fact that there was a duality to this debate. But there is coherence in that answerability must occur right across the sector. As far as quangos are concerned, we must guarantee that that is so. We must also welcome the development of the welfare society in which many of the state services are delivered more effectively through third sector organisations and charities and the church, rather than through the old models of the delivery of services.
My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers. Given the scope of the debate, if I did not, the officials would have to hire a small train.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.