HC Deb 10 May 1993 vol 224 cc491-2
32. Mr. Legg

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what steps his Department is taking to ensure that individual charters are systematically reviewed and strengthened.

Mr. Robert Jackson

Charters are a baseline for continued improvement. As standards are met, they are reviewed and raised and new standards are developed as appropriate. Delivery is for the service providers in the first place, but my Department keeps a sharp eye on it through, for example, the Prime Minister's seminars and our published reports.

Mr. Legg

I urge my hon. Friend to ensure that the parents charter is regularly revised, and in particular to take account of the additional information that will be available to parents once full testing of the national curriculum is introduced.

Mr. Jackson

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of testing and the connection between that and information. The recent polls show that parents want more information about the performance of schools and their children. They have not yet seen perhaps as clearly as they should the connection between testing and that information. We have to explain that connection, but it is vital that we continue with the testing programme to ensure that the information that parents want is available to them.

Mr. Kaufman

Will the hon. Gentleman say what remedy the charters provide against the squandering of taxpayers' money by the Benefits Agency? For example, £2.1 million has been spent on health screening programmes in private clinics for staff aged 35 and over, 86,000 individual items of corporate clothing costing £2.1 million have been provided and £6.8 million has been spent on overtime because of the total incompetence with which the disability living allowance system has been administered. That makes a total of £10 million already, which could have been spent on benefits instead of nonsense. Will the hon. Gentleman now sack Mr. Michael Bichard and restore parliamentary accountability for the Department of Social Security?

Mr. Jackson

I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman regards expenditure on health screening as squandering money. I am also surprised that he has attacked good employment practice in the civil service. He asked about the relationship between those factors and the charters, which focus on outputs from public services. There have been problems with the DSS agency's outputs— they have been clearly recognised and are being tackled. The charters do not involve the sort of expenditure to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, as that would not be sensible when trying to manage an organisation that provides good outputs for patients, clients and customers.