Public Accounts

That was a good intervention. There is a tradition in our civil service. We never interview Ministers. Our witnesses are only senior civil servants, particularly Permanent Secretaries, and we often make the point that nobody is ever sacked. But things are changing a little. In the case of one or two people whose appearances in front of the Public Accounts Committee were poor—without going into detail; I do not want to become personal about it—their careers have been seriously compromised. The culture is changing and we are making progress. I was saying that the Treasury has made some progress in the measurements of savings, and I give credit to it. All this sounds basic, but savings claims are now required to take account of costs incurred, which they did not originally—a fairly obvious point. I also firmly support the proposal for the National Audit Office to review value for money savings Department by Department. I note that the Government intend to look at all major areas of public spending to identify scope to improve value for money. All this is good stuff. A good start would be to examine the back catalogue of the Committee. We spend years looking into such matters, and we have a real contribution to make. Spending taxpayers' money is what Government do, but we know that spending money is the easiest thing in the world: getting something for it is harder. Government spending on the NHS has nearly trebled over the past 10 years—we want to give them credit for that—and is set to grow still further. Where there has been such an increase in Government spending, it is important to look carefully at productivity. It is not for me to question the level of spending, but I am entitled to voice my suspicion, based on several of our reports, that we are not getting enough bangs for that barrage of bucks. It is lazy thinking to increase spending rapidly on a service, point to more doctors, nurses and operations—I agree that there are more doctors, nurses and operations—and not to insist at the same time on maintaining improvements in productivity and efficiency, so that we pay back to the taxpayer who has contributed so much more to the service real, identifiable improvements in productivity on the front line. Let us take one example—the pay deal for NHS consultants. The aims of the consultants' deal were commendable, but so far generous pay settlements have been awarded without any increases in productivity being achieved. Consultants' pay has, on average, increased by 27 per cent., working hours have actually decreased and, as yet, measurable improvements in productivity have been notable by their absence. With GP contracts, on which we will report shortly, we found a similar picture. Pay increases of up to 56 per cent. have been accompanied by a 2.5 per cent. decrease in productivity, plus £1.7 billion worth of extra costs. We all agree that those who work in the NHS deserve to be paid a decent wage, but those one-sided deals have produced little in return for an enormous amount of investment by the taxpayer. Is there enough focus on making economies? In our second report on prescription drugs, we found that the NHS could save more than £200 million a year, without affecting patient care, by GPs prescribing lower cost but equally effective medicines. A further £100 million a year could be saved by reducing the amount of unused and wasted drugs. To give the NHS due credit, these are paths that it has already begun to tread, but there is still a long walk ahead. It is not just in the NHS that money could be saved. Our examination of sustainable employment showed that some £520 million a year could be saved if the Department could only break the debilitating cycle of insecurity faced by too many unskilled jobseekers bouncing back and forth between short-term jobs and welfare. I regret to say that our most recent look at the sorry saga of tax credits shows little sign of improvement for recipients or for taxpayers. The amount of tax credit being lost to fraud and error is still running at some £1 billion each year. The Department has accepted our recommendations on the need to set targets to reduce this, yet still no targets are in place. The system has also generated massive overpayment to claimants, £6 billion in three years, and £2.3 billion has been written off or is unlikely to be returned. I make no criticism of the concept of tax credits, and it may indeed be the right thing to do, but we are entitled to look at how efficiently the scheme is being carried out. About 2 million families a year have been placed in debt to the Government as HMRC seeks to recover overpayments. The vulnerable ones face a future of trying to repay the money they owe, with all the hardship that that involves. The taxpayer, in all guises, has been let down. The Government's response on tax credits is the one glaring omission from the Treasury minutes before us. I understand that the response will appear in June, which is more than four months since our report appeared. I am sure that the Minister, twice a member of our Committee, will recognise that that is not good enough, and I ask her to see that the delay grows no longer. If the Treasury cannot provide its own responses on time, it is hardly setting an example for the rest of Whitehall to follow. I trust that the eight-week deadline will be adhered to from now on. I thought we had an agreement with the Treasury that in order to make our reports and its response reasonably topical, there would be an eight-week deadline for the Government to reply. Let us turn aside from that sorry tale. I am proud to be able to say that our previous recommendations are now bearing fruit. In 2007, we identified potential annual savings of £500 million from better use across the public sector of external consultants. The Office of Government Commerce has launched a new programme to improve the value for money of spending on consultants. Several Committee and NAO reports on HMRC issues such as fraud, self-assessment and debt management led to savings last year of £200 million. Already, our report on prescription drugs is having an impact. I welcome the recent announcement by the Department of Health, in response to our recommendation, that it will commission research into the scale of medicines wastage and why people do not take their medicines. Our criticism is intended to be constructive. Government action is always necessary to deliver our recommendations. We rely completely on the Government. In that respect, as in others, our Committee is truly non-partisan. Change could be accelerated and spread more swiftly across Government, but what we have already achieved is testament to the positive value of public accountability. Money is saved and services are improved by our activities, and by our working in tandem with the Treasury, which we view not as our enemies but as our allies. We have the advantage of hindsight, of course, but hindsight also brings the foresight to do things better in the future. To paraphrase Confucius, a man who has committed a mistake and does not correct it is committing another mistake. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger in ““The Terminator””, Departments should know that we will be back, and not just on tax credits. We have looked on a number of occasions at the dome and at the 2012 Olympics. We are about to revisit the perplexing project that is the NHS programme for IT. That is the strength of the Committee. When the Government, through the Treasury, accept our recommendations, we increasingly ask, as the Committee for the National Audit Office, to look at that acceptance and see what has happened 12 and 24 months later. Furthermore, we are trying to get involved and have a genuine look at fashionable projects such as the academy programme. We have issued hard-hitting reports based not on ideology or whether we like academies—I know that the issue is controversial—but on what is happening on the ground. For instance, we found that literacy and numeracy levels are still too low among academy pupils and that the Department should ask successful academies to identify and disseminate good practice. We looked at cost overruns, which have been common because cost control is not robust enough and found that the Department should disseminate the lessons learned about project management and so on. We operate from the sound base provided by the staff and skills of the National Audit Office. Everybody knows that the Committee could not do its work alone and that it works so well because 400 civil servants work for it. We do not claim much of the credit; we are simply the voice of the National Audit Office, although it also relies on us to give our own parliamentary experience of what goes on. In that context, I must express our gratitude to Sir John Bourn, who retired as Comptroller and Auditor General in January after nearly 20 years of unstinting support for the Committee. Every member of the Committee shares that view. I also thank Sir John's successor, Tim Burr, under whose stewardship the NAO's independence and authority continue to be secure. I am also a member of the Public Accounts Commission, the body that oversees the National Audit Office. We have welcomed John Tyner's review of the NAO's corporate governance arrangements and have set out our own proposals for strengthening them. We agree with John Tyner and I think that the Government agree with us; there is no controversy about that. I thank the Government for promising to incorporate the necessary legislative changes into the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill. However, Mr. Burr's appointment is an interim arrangement; a permanent successor still needs to be found. Progress is not being made at the pace that I would want. I urge the Government to make a bit more haste; surely it is not good to have an acting Comptroller and Auditor General. The process of appointing a new CAG should not be unduly delayed. In conclusion, I should say that we are not only one of the busiest Committees of the House; I also like to think that we are one of the most effective. I pay tribute to the Committee's members, who continue to work hard to hold the Government to account. I thank the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who has left the Committee. I welcome the galaxy of stars who have joined: the right hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill) and the hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths), for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) and for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith). As ever, we thank our Clerk, Mark Etherton, and his team for their support and help. Finally, I should say that the Public Accounts Committee helps to give a voice to Parliament—and, through us, to the citizen—on the delivery of public services. When services fail those in greatest need, we provide a voice for the vulnerable. When inefficient spending fails those who contribute most in taxes, we provide a voice for the taxpayer. Furthermore, we serve the citizen in all guises by putting our bark and our bite into the pursuit of real change. I commend the motion to the House.