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Plenary, 03 Oct 2007

03 Oct 2007 · S3 · Plenary

Item of business

Crerar Review

Brown, Keith SNP Ochil Watch on SPTV

As the cabinet secretary said in welcoming the report from Professor Crerar, the report is an excellent and informed starting point. That is how I understand the report—as a starting point. Professor Crerar has done some of the heavy lifting, so to speak, in his collation and analysis of the extent and scale of scrutiny and complaints handling in the public sector. However, I want gently to disturb the consensus that is building by saying that I do not think that the report goes far enough in what it proposes. I hope that, in considering Professor Crerar's recommendations, Parliament and ministers will think radically. Although it may not be possible, eventually, to act as radically as we might, we should start by thinking radically about the possible solutions. We should also be prepared not to give in to special pleading from various bodies and organisations.

If anybody wants a countervailing view to the points that are made in the report, they should read the submission from Keir Bloomer, the former chief executive of Clackmannanshire Council. I say that with some bias because for years he and I railed against the increasing weight of public scrutiny on local government. He makes some compelling points. In respect of auditing, councils are different from other bodies because they have their own democratic mandate. I think that, increasingly, that is not being recognised by, for example, Audit Scotland, which is progressively going beyond public performance reporting and is involving itself in policy matters and democratic scrutiny matters, which are not within the remit that it was first given.

As well as being audited by Audit Scotland, every council must pay for external auditors, who are very expensive, and have its own internal audit section. I will give members an idea of the costs of all that. The smallest council in mainland Scotland, Clackmannanshire Council, in 2002-03 spent £171,000 on auditing by Audit Scotland. By 2005-06, that figure had increased by 35 per cent to £231,000. Audit Scotland is always good at telling councils to be more efficient, but it increases its fee annually, which local authorities have no choice but to pay. On top of that, there are fees for external and internal auditors.

On the sheer weight of scrutiny, Keir Bloomer says:

"The regime is widely perceived as punitive and has instilled a fear of taking calculated risks, thus reinforcing the innate conservativism of the public sector."

That is true and apparent to most people who work in local authorities. As I said, Audit Scotland has gone beyond public performance reporting.

An important point is that scrutiny of public bodies should lie with Parliament, so there is a question about the extent to which public performance reporting bodies are encroaching on Parliament's role. That is something for Parliament to think about. Perhaps it would be best if it was not a lawyer that considered that issue. I hate to suggest it, but it may be best if a political scientist or someone like that were to examine the balance between democratic and public performance scrutiny.

I am trying not to use the word "cluttered" about complaints handling, but it is extremely cluttered in the public sector. As Professor Crerar makes clear, it is confusing to the people whom the systems are meant to serve and, as Christine Grahame pointed out, people often feel at the end of the process that it has not served them well. That is partly because when each of the bodies were set up, what they could look at was tightly constrained: for example, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman—I share the concerns of Tavish Scott and others about it—can only consider maladministration, but the public does not realise that and thinks that the body has a far wider remit, which is why people can become frustrated.

The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman started off fairly well with the good intention of drawing in more areas, such as health, but it has lost its way. I have worked with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman's office for the past 10 years and it is not operating as people envisaged it would.

As I said, the public sector is under a huge burden. I have a final quotation from Keir Bloomer.

"Public service organisations are overwhelmed by the numerous and disparate exercises they are subject to. There is little evidence of co-ordination or joined-up working between the distinct scrutiny bodies demonstrated by discrete exercises occurring simultaneously or concurrently, including the recent audit of Housing"—

in Clackmannanshire Council—

"which coincided with the Best Value & Community Planning audit and a visit by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) with the Community Learning audit. A number of these separate exercises also replicate the work of others. For example, reviews of Psychological Services, Child Protection, Children's Services".

Clackmannanshire Council serves about 48,000 people. We are a country of 5 million people—I do not think that a country of our size should have the weight of scrutiny and audit on its public sector that we have. That is why this is the time to be radical. We could make real savings, although that should not be the first priority, which must be rationalisation that is understood and proportionate—another word that comes up time and again in the Crerar report.

Although some members have argued against it, we should have a single agency in mind when the issue is being considered and we should only consider as exceptions agencies that can prove that there is a good reason why they should not be part of the single agency. The savings in backroom staffing and other costs could be huge, and the agency could be much more understandable to the public that it is meant to serve.

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Plenary, 03 Oct 2007

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