§ Lord Lester of Herne Hillasked Her Majesty's Government:
Which executive non-departmental public bodies and which advisory non-departmental public bodies respectively are outside the jurisdiction of the 241WA Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration; And [HL4652]
Whether they propose to bring all executive and advisory non-departmental public bodies within the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration; and, if not, why not. [HL4653]
§ Lord Falconer of ThorotonThe Government arranged on 15 March 1999 for the largest single extension of the Parliamentary Ombudsman's jurisdiction, bringing an additional 111 executive and 47 advisory non-departmental public bodies within his remit.
There are now only a very few executive NDPBs, out of over 300, which, for exceptional reasons, are not within the Parliamentary Ombudsman's jurisdiction or that of another Ombudsman or external adjudicator. These and the reasons for their exclusion from jurisdiction are set out in the Government Response to the First Report from the Select Committee on Public Administration on the Report of the Parliamentary Ombudsman for 1997–98 (HC 817), published on 19 October.
The majority of advisory non-departmental public bodies have no dealings with the public and it would therefore not be appropriate to bring them within the Parliamentary Ombudsman's jurisdiction. Only those bodies with significant dealings with the public have been brought within jurisdiction.
Task Forces established since May 1997 Members Name of Task force Date Established Date Reported/Due to Report Report Details (if applies) Date Wound up Ministers Civil Servants Wider Public Servants Voluntary/Charity Sector Private sector Total Name of Chairperson Cabinet Office Modernising Government Quality Schemes Task Force—sec note (a) Jan 1999 Dec 1999 —see note (a) 0 7 0 0 6 13 Steve O'Leary. Cabinet Office Notes: (a) To report on how the four major quality schemes (Charter Mark. the Excellence Model. liP and ISO 9000)can work together in the public sector to enhance their overall impact. Department for Culture, Media and Sport Creative Industries Task Force—see note (a) Jul 1997 Nov 1998 "The Mapping Document" measured the contribution of the creative industries to the National Ecomony (Nov 1998) 10 20 3 0 10 43 Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Notes: (a) Established to look for ways of maximising the economic impact of British good and services in the creative sector. Library and information Commission Education Task Force Sep 1999 Dec 1999 0 2 5 0 6 13 Mark Wood, Reuters Tobacco Task Force Dec 1998 1 0 0 1 5 7 Minister for Sport (Kale Hoey MP)