The Civil Service: Training (Hansard, 26 February 2001)

§ The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Falconer of Thoroton)
My Lords, we acknowledge the importance of the joining up of government. We have in place training programmes to improve effectiveness in joined-up service delivery. There is an increased emphasis on the exchange of staff across departments, with an increase of 28 per cent in the past four years. There is a commitment that, by 2005, 75 per cent of senior civil servants will have experience in more than one department. From April 2001, the performance of the top 3,730 civil servants will be judged on a new competency framework which emphasises the importance of collaboration and working across boundaries. We have created cross-cutting units to join up policy development and we have supported this action with changes to budgets.

§ Lord Hunt of Chesterton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. However, should not the Government ensure that new recruits to the Civil Service learn more about government and Parliament? Perhaps they should follow the continental practice of having more extended Civil Service training, particularly as many people now entering the service have learnt very little about history, geography or politics at school.

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, that is a wide-ranging question. The important point is that people who join the Civil Service should realise that their commitment is to the public service generally rather than to one particular department. That is something that we seek to emphasise both in the competency framework within which civil servants operate and in the training that they receive subsequently—the training being not departmental but frequently cross-departmental.

§ Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, while I accept and am supportive of a number of the key proposals for reform of the Civil Service, does the Minister agree that it is logical to expect that the development of e-government will mean smaller government? In that case, what steps are the Government taking to adjust recruitment levels across the Civil Service?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, the important thing is to ensure that the Civil Service is able to deliver the public service to a level that the public require. We very much hope that e-government will reduce the size of the Civil Service, but the 937 important point is to focus on the fact that public service delivery is what people expect from central government; and we shall continue to work for that.

Lord Campbell of Croy
My Lords, whatever kind of training is prescribed for the Civil Service, does it not depend on Ministers whether or not government is joined up? As it is the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who is replying, does he agree that the Dome is not a very good example of joined-up administration?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I accept entirely that it depends on Ministers. The best way to ensure joined-up government is to ensure that the government of the day have shared objectives which they make clear—as this Government have done. So far as concerns the Dome, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving me the opportunity to say that it was the most popular paid visitor attraction in the whole country last year, and never fell below an 88 per cent satisfaction record.

§ Baroness Gardner of Parkes
My Lords, the Minister said that people entering the Civil Service should feel that they belong anywhere rather than in a particular branch. Will he comment on the situation that occurred a year or so ago, when many senior workers in the National Health Service were converted into civil servants? Was that a simple re-naming; or was there a need for a major transition in thinking on the part of those people?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I said that people in the Civil Service should feel a commitment to the public service, not to an individual department. So far as concerns the noble Baroness's question about the National Health Service, I am not aware of the particular matter to which she refers.

§ Lord Taylor of Blackburn
My Lords, is it not a fact that these days, as a result of cross-fertilisation between the Civil Service and the private sector, people are continually changing from the Civil Service to the private sector, and from the private sector to the Civil Service? Is not that what is really required?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, interchange is growing in the Civil Service, in the sense that people are moving from inside the service to outside, and are then returning. For example, the current head of Customs and Excise was in the private sector having once been in the Civil Service, and returned to the Civil Service to take up his current post. It is a good practice and it should be encouraged.

§ Lord Peyton of Yeovil
My Lords, am I right in thinking that by "joined-up government" the Minister means a situation in which Ministers and their departments talk to one another in a comfortable and friendly way? That seems a rather utopian conception.

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
No, my Lords, by "joined-up government" I mean all the departments in government and all government Ministers working towards a set of shared goals.

§ Lord Harris of Greenwich
My Lords, there are constant suggestions that the size of the Civil Service should be reduced. We have heard one such request this afternoon. Does the noble and learned Lord agree that if one is talking about the size of the Civil Service it might be a good idea to look—as the previous government did not do—at the remarkable expansion in the number of junior Ministers at a time when their responsibilities are being lessened as a result of the existence of executive agencies?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I do not know whether there has been an expansion or reduction in the number of junior Ministers. I am sure that every single junior Minister in this Government is fully engaged in productive work on behalf of the nation.

§ Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe
My Lords, does the Minister agree that while people move from one sector to another easily and comfortably, they still want their dustbins emptied? Does he intend to see whether there can be more flexibility in these types of jobs?

§ Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, as I said in reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, the critical thing that a government, their civil servants and all those engaged in the public service must achieve is public service delivery, in every single aspect.