Departmental Efficiency (Hansard, 7 February 1994)

§ 7. Mr. Thurnham
To ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what steps he is taking to improve the efficiency of his Department.

§ Mr. Brooke
My Department has contracted out nearly all its new central services and installed a departmental-wide computer network. Those and other arrangements will support improvements in departmental efficiency.

§ Mr. Thurnham
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the steps that he has taken. Will he ensure that the national lottery is run efficiently and effectively? Does not the country expect the highest standards of efficiency from its public services?

§ Mr. Brooke
Section 4 of the National Lottery etc. Act 1993 makes clear the responsibilities that fall to the director general. I am confident that he will fulfil them in making the lottery a tremendous success. I share the view that my hon. Friend expressed in the second half of his question.

§ Mr. Callaghan
In terms of the efficiency of his Department, will the Secretary of State tell the House when 8 he will reply to the two submissions from the Select Committee on National Heritage—one on the BBC and one on the invasion of privacy by the press? Those reports have been with him for some considerable time. When will he report to the House?

§ Mr. Brooke
The hon. Gentleman has asked two fair questions. I hope to issue a White Paper on the press shortly, in response to the Select Committee's report. The Select Committee will recall that it asked me to delay any action on my side until it had a chance of reporting. As to the BBC, my duties flow out of a consultation paper that we issued last year. It has been helpful to have the Select Committee's observations on that as well. It might be a bit later before I reply to the report on the BBC.

§ Sir Thomas Arnold
Has not the time come for my right hon. Friend to exercise closer supervision over the activities of the Arts Council?

§ Mr. Brooke
The examination that Price Waterhouse conducted of the Arts Council last year, at my suggestion, made a number of suggestions on how the Department and the Arts Council might behave. One of the matters to which my hon. Friend may have been referring was increasing the sense of accountability of the Arts Council. The Arts Council has come forward with suggestions of ways in which that accountability might be made more public.