Q21 Meg Hillier: Are there any characteristics particularly of those Departments? It is interesting that you mention the MOJ, because there happened to be a big, Ministerial drive at the MOJ and the Ministerial champion for some of this work about three years ago. I wonder if it is that level of championing, because we have also seen quite variable engagement from the Treasury, I have to say, with four of the six top-level meetings being attended-I think that is right.
Sharon White: I will come on to that.
Chair: We will deal with Treasury's role separately and not at this stage.
Q22 Meg Hillier: Okay, I will come back to that. Is that a factor? Is it the leadership from Permanent Secretaries and at a Ministerial level, or is it down to individual project teams or lower-level people? What are the characteristics of the worst players in this?
David Pitchford: It is a function of what Mr Bacon and Mr Barclay were talking about before in relation to the culture of Departments. Some have embraced the concept strongly, while some have embraced it less strongly. One thing that I want to drive hard for in the MPA in its second year, as I was about to say, is to try and engage the Departments that are underperforming in relation to this, to engage as a management tool that can help them to deliver, rather than just a piece of work that has to be done.
Q23 Meg Hillier: We obviously have the power to make recommendations. What I am trying to drive at is, if you were to write a recommendation-that is not your job obviously-would it be that you want Permanent Secretaries or Ministers to take more of a lead? Do you want an embedded culture, as we heard from our previous witness, at all levels through the Department? In some of these Departments, it may be a big challenge to change the culture, or it may just be that the leadership is not focused. I know that Departments can be very defensive about an outside body like you coming in and telling them, as they might see it, how to do their job.
David Pitchford: The best response to that might be that the driving force behind this-being my Minister, the Minister for the Cabinet Office's view on this-is that these matters should be elevated to Departmental Boards, so that the non-executive directors are involved in understanding what goes on here. In relation to the importance to a board in reporting, a thing like this management tool could be very useful. We are working with Permanent Secretaries to bring that exchange of information.
My view is that we are starting to get traction on this. It is not that people are pushing back for pushing-back reasons, but it is a matter of convincing them that their priority of time needs to be this as well.
Q24 Stephen Barclay: Would it be unhelpful or helpful if, given that the personal objectives of Permanent Secretaries are now going to be published, a personal objective of a Permanent Secretary was the delivery of an integrated assurance plan?
Chair: Go on, Sharon. Have a go at that one.
Sharon White: The context of the civil service reform White Paper is quite important, and the Committee has had a view on interests on the accountability of Permanent Secretaries. That issue of Permanent Secretaries being accountable for delivery, as much as for the policy content of their Departments, is really important. Personally, I would not mandate an IAAP as a product, but I would certainly want to have traction on Permanent Secretaries' objectives in the delivery of projects. That is potentially a very powerful-
Q25 Chair: What does "have traction" mean? Define that.
Sharon White: As in, if I am a Permanent Secretary, I am as responsible for whether Universal Credit lands in four years' time and you have a power to recall me, even though I may have moved on from DWP to a new Department, which is one of the features that the Civil Service Reform White Paper gets into.
Chair: I think we've got there before them, actually.
Q26 Stephen Barclay: We have the power already and it doesn't work. One only needs to look at fire control and Sir Peter Housden to see that demonstrated. He was the accounting officer for five years, and it does not work for the same reason that NHS IT did not work with Sir David Nicholson. Any one individual project is only one of a number of things that an accounting officer is delivering, and therefore it does not have sufficient traction. I fully accept Mr Pitchford's position that he wants to keep the relationship, and the Committee is trying to assist with that. I am curious as to how we move from the generalities and the rhetoric to something measurable in 12 months' time.
Sharon White: My personal experience is that this has worked well in the last six months where you have a Permanent Secretary who is looking at the wider capability of their Department.
Q27 Stephen Barclay: I am interested in the ones who are not.
Sharon White: I know, but in terms of how the incentives for Permanent Secretaries work, there is a question here that that is as much about carrots as it is about sticks. Obviously, one route to go is naming and shaming the Departments.
Q28 Stephen Barclay: But I thought they get bonuses if they deliver their personal objectives. So there is a carrot, if this is one of their objectives.
Sharon White: There are bonuses and there are measures of their ability to manage their finances effectively, into which the Treasury has a strong entree. Again, this could be part of that.
Q29 Stephen Barclay: But Sir Peter Housden, in the CSR 2007-11, at the interim stage had delivered only 5% of his efficiency targets, as I am sure you recall. He also said in his annual report that he was not going to deliver the CSR 2007-11 target because of factors that he claimed were beyond his control, and which were known at the time the objectives were set.
Sharon White: As I say, one of the things that we are looking to do is have a much stronger performance management system. That, as you say, partly reflects comments from the PAC in the past that for Permanent Secretaries, as for other civil servants, there will be a clearly identified bottom 10% of performers, based on objectives that will include their ability to manage their finances and deliver their projects effectively.
Q30 Stephen Barclay: To assist Mr Pitchford's important work, would this not be a good specific example?
Sharon White: My own view is that delivery implementation ought to feature as part of Permanent Secretaries' objectives and performance-related pay. Personally, I would not make an integrated assurance plan, which is very specific and very concrete, necessarily key to all their objectives.