Q101 Stephen Barclay: To put it a different way, are there any Departments with a bigger press office than Mr Pitchford's?
Mr Bacon: There are county councils with a bigger press office than Mr Pitchford's team.
Stephen Barclay: It gives us a benchmark, doesn't it?
Sharon White: The conversation we would be having with the Cabinet Office-the one my spending team will have with Melanie Dawes-is, "What is the right allocation for the Cabinet Office?" Within that, my folk will certainly be saying, "We have had the MPA for two years and there is the spending review next year for three years. This is our view on the value." The Treasury will not be there, saying, "You should allocate X to Mr Pitchford's team, Y to the constitution unit, and Z to the ICT unit", but we are certainly supportive of its impact.
Q102 Meg Hillier: I cannot resist saying, in passing, that if you add up the Ministerial office support in any Department, you get close to 30 or 40. We were going through figure 3. You got as far as number 5 on the scorecard, and I am interested in transparency and the publication of information. Will you comment on numbers 6, 7 and 8? It is small print-number 6 is "To require publication of project information consistent with the Coalition's transparency agenda." It is on page 16.
David Pitchford: In relation to the publication, we are not at the point where it is agreed public policy to publish it yet-I will come back to that and explain it-but what we are doing is reporting this information, the outcomes of the GMPP quarterly processes, what we have discovered and what the analysis shows to Departments, permanent secretaries and Secretaries of State. We are reporting internally in a very similar way to major corporations, like Marc Van Grondelle-the Shell corporation, for example. They report internally, but not externally, so we are doing that quite effectively. What we are now doing is reporting to the permanent secretary, asking for a whole range of things, but particularly a dedicated action plan in terms of projects that we rate as red or amber-red. Then, we meet directly with them to work out how to apply and retain there. We have not scored a good score in relation to the full-scale publication in a public sense, because the Government have not yet determined their position in relation to the release of this. I mentioned to you in the private session that the Government are trying to strike a balance between protecting sensitive commercial information and matters of state security, as opposed to the publication of performance data. That process is still under way. We do not have a determination on that, and until such time as there is one, there will not be a publication.
Q103 Chair: Have you got a time frame?
David Pitchford: Yes. I hope that it will be by the end of the summer, after the recess, but it is a very complex process. I do not know an exact date, but the idea has been expressed to me that the Government will look at this. Once I know that there is a target date, I will convey it to you, but the process-
Q104 Chair: Will you write to us about that?
David Pitchford: Yes, if I am told that information, but these discussions are going on right across Government, and they are informed by the release of the reform paper the other day. A whole range of things are coming in next week-or is it this week? Later this week, there is the Government White Paper on open data as well, so it is a very volatile, dynamic environment at the moment. Until the Government arrive at their full policy position, we will not be publishing.
Q105 Meg Hillier: It is conceivable though, from what you are saying, that there could be exceptions to full public publication, for security reasons for example. There are some provisions under the Data Protection Act anyway.
Chair: I don't think this is about security.
Q106 Meg Hillier: I am wondering about the general, overall picture, if you envisage a situation where, whatever is agreed, there may be some exceptions. That would be quite an interesting area of debate if there were any exceptions.
David Pitchford: That debate needs to be had. There will be some areas, given the timing in some major projects in relation to state security and commercial sensitivity, for which an exemption for a certain point in time would be most appropriate. That debate needs to be had once the Government have determined their policy.
Q107 Chair: To put it on the record, this Committee's very strong view is that, where a private company is delivering anything out of public money, openness and transparency are key. In fact, we are very frustrated far too often by private companies hiding behind commercial confidentiality and not letting us know whether we are getting value for money. We will say that in our recommendations.
Q108 Meg Hillier: May I add-we need to put this on the record for consideration in our recommendations-that I visited a major defence supplier who advised me that some of the sub-suppliers and sub-contractors would ramp up the price of things if they had grey paint on them, as they put it? They would then go back and negotiate it back down, saying, "That bit of pipe without grey paint on it last week cost this much. Why are you trying to charge us this much for it with grey paint on it?" They say that people try to play that game. To back up what the Chair has said, we have seen too much of that through this Committee, certainly during my time on it, and before my time on it. That sort of deals with number 6. We appreciate that you are not in a position where you can make all those decisions. Number 7 notes the objective "to work with departments to build capability in project and programme management". You have probably covered that already. What score would you give yourself out of 100 for number 7?
David Pitchford: I am tempted to give us 90.
Q109 Meg Hillier: We have heard some interesting things. What about number 8?
Chair: Will you publish your annual report as soon as you are able to?
David Pitchford: As soon as we are able to.
Q110 Stephen Barclay: Will you report information to this Committee at other times of the year?
David Pitchford: As I said in response to a question from the Chair last time, I would be happy to return as often as possible. In advance of the annual report, once the policy is in place and the reporting programme is set, I would certainly be happy to do that.
Stephen Barclay: I did not mean in terms of coming back to give evidence. I meant in terms of putting a process in place where there was a periodic update to the Committee.
Chair: What we will want to do is, in the same way as we have come back on the major projects in MOD, come back to this annually. It is a lot of dosh.
Mr Bacon: A lot of dosh-a technical term.