Oct 28 2009
Today there is a chance for government to come clean about costs and spending
EDMs are Parliamentary graffitti. Literally thousands of these unheard motions litter the Order paper. Some MPs keenly sign them, safe in the knowledge that they will never be debated and never come to a vote in anger. Unless, that is, the Opposition decides to table the contents of one of them as a proper motion for debate and vote.
Today is an Opposition day, one of those days when team Cameron can choose the topic, Today they have chosen to highlight the issue of disclosure of spending by every local Council and quango. The government said it was enthusiastic, but has proved very reticent about requiring all the quangos to do what Councils will have to do and what MPs have been made to do – publish their costs and spending and let the public see how wise and wonderful it all is.
A good number of Labour MPs were happy to sign an EDM to that effect when it languished hopeless on the Order Paper. It seemed a safe way to join the heroes. I wonder how many of them will convert their paper enthusiasm into a vote for the motion, now it threatens the government with an embarrassing defeat? Usually when the Opposition does this the Labour votes melt away, underlining that EDMs are just for show, and not serious.
Wouldn’t it be good if every item of public spending were set out on a website so press and public could see it and challenge it? Wouldn’t it make quango and Council chiefs more reticent about some of their bonsues, overseas trips, consultancy contracts and the like? The full publication of all public spending in all its inefficiency and incompetence would be worth a saving of several per cent, just through the impact it would have on the behaviour of the big spenders. That’s why I fear today Labour will recoil in horror from such transparency and commonsense. Their failure to transfer their vote from EDM to proper motion will just add to the cynicism about politics.
13 Responses to “Today there is a chance for government to come clean about costs and spending”
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Transparency is the best way to ensure understanding.
Understanding is necessary for control and prediction.
Control and prediction are necessary to manage risks.
One point – Government needs to be audited and TRENDS need to be tracked. It is important that auditing rules are defined independently of the political process so that meaningful yearly comparisons can be made.
All Government spending, and all contracts (that don’t compromise security) are published on one wesite in the same format.
I would also want to try to link COSTS to RESULTS. Whilst there is no revenue it is difficult to have double entry bookkeeping. We need some kind of double entry book keeping where revenue is somehow replaced with numbers (eg number of pupils, number of doctors – simple stats). These need to be simple numbers.
You can see the EDM at:-
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=38168
I take it JR, that selecting party groups and all signatures on this page shows “closed signatures” are MPs who have ducked out of the EDM???
The Whole Government Accounting Team has been applying budget codes to anything that spends a pound for years now. They must be able to publish that data in a lay readable form by now; see appendix 3 on the following:-
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/wga_guidance_index.htm
Full transparent disclosure of expenditure.
Like the idea.
Regarding the behaviour of Labour MPs, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, do they?
What interests me is that public expenditure has risen from 38% when Labour took office to an estimated 48% in FYR 2010/11. I know that there are recession related expenditures and that GDP has fallen 6% recently. However, even with the fall GDP is still higher than in 1997. So public expenditure is a bigger % of a bigger amount.
Can John Redwood – or anybody else – tell me where the main increases have been? If nobody knows, I will hunt the internet and find out for myself.
I watched the BBC2 programme on Warren Buffett this week and was not too surprised at his minimalist lifestyle and approach to business. He runs his empire from one floor of a modest building in his mid west hometown with a head office staff of 20. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, is worth more than the GDP of half the countries in the world.
Government has always been prone to excess cost by its very nature, but in recent times it has become obscene and unsustainable and in no small measure to the completely daft ways of the EU.
Whether DC and his Conservatives are “bold” enough to tackle this problem in the style of Buffett remains to be seen – we can only hope.
The programme is on iplayer currently.
If EDM are of limited value and a bit of a sideline for MPs could these not be partially given over to the public via something like the Number 10 petitions site.
EDM that attract a significant level of public support should be forced up the agenda.
I’m not suggesting that the decision on the whole issue be given over to a public internet vote but it might give the public a way to set the agenda of Parliament in a small limited way.
Power to the people and all that.
Can I ask why MPs waste their time on such stupid procedures as EDMs then? Streamline the process and replace it with something better. You could call it “public sector efficiencies”.
And if the Tories become the government next year, will they be as keen on this topic then? I do hope so.
I agree that every penny of public sector expenditure should be accounted for publicly, and very soon after the cheque is signed. Perhaps there could by a legal obligation on the government to publish within 30 days of expenditure, instead of the current system where they publish broadbrush figures and you have to FOIA to get the details.
And I don’t accept the excuse of “commercially confidential”. Anyone doing business with the government should do so on the basis that all financial dealings will be made public immediately (with law enforcement and national security as the only excuses for delays.)
Local district councils should publish their spending. As opposition members, we have asked the Leader of the supposedly Conservative East Herts Council to follow this policy, but, as with so many Conservative policies, he is unenthusiastic.
In this neck of the woods a blue rosette practically guarantees election. I do wish the Conservative party would take more care in its choice of candidates and make sure they choose Conservatives.
Someone has got to remove the bureaucracy very fast because it is doing huge damage, even down at human level, let alone up at the quangocat end.
1. Bureaucracy inhibits people. The sheer amount of paperwork, mostly not only unnecessary but actually stultifying paperwork, is ridiculous. For example, planning lessons too far in advance, as you have to, stops the teacher following their skilled instincts. You are no longer flexible. Lessons get boring.
2. It wasted huge amounts of taxpayers’ money. This is reflected in the national debt and the fall of the pound. Just look around any centre or school or hospital and see the huge amounts of people who are just standing around, or hidden away in offices.
3. It stops people getting into a proper job. There is far too much caring and sharing with people who, frankly, ought to get off their backsides and go to work (Did you see that programme last night about the breadline?) I have seen lots of this today.
This urgent reform could be affected by the transparency of which you speak. It could show up the fat quangocats for what they are. But then, is there the will to sack them? Is there anyone who is prepared to forego their little “pot”?
I think that every Tory MP in the next Parliament should be assigned 4 quangos to investigate. The largest quangos would have the scrutiny of more than one MP. They should be tasked with evaluating whether the quango can be closed down altogether, with no transfer of its activities elsewhere in quangoland or government, with its enabling legislation repealed (example: the new Safeguarding Agency, which is an inefficient tax collection vehicle which will do nothing for child safety, while providing a backdoor to the ID database project where mistakes, accidental or on purpose, will make citizens into non persons). Failing that, they should examine its remit and budget, and seek efficiencies.
For one thing, it would allow MPs to show that they were doing something useful. By all means enlist the help of voters and enforce more sunlight, but lead with the actions of Parliament.
Such as, for example, Margaret Doran, the Glasgow City Council’s former director of children and families, who was just given a combined redundancy package of £278,000. And who knows if she will pop up next month at another fat public sector job.
This is the sort of thing where I think a new Tory government needs to look at whatever legislative changes are necessary to protect the public purse from this sort of pillage.