Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I hope that in the remaining few minutes before the Committee considers wrapping up for the day we can deal with my two amendments in this group, which are quintessentially simple ideas. Amendment 56 suggests having a benefit regulator, and Amendment 113 proposes an office for social protection. I freely confess that these ideas can be criticised for increasing quangocracy, but before the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, attacks me for creating new quangos, it is certainly not my intention to do that. These are very simple quangos. I have tabled Amendment 56 because we are coming to the end of an important piece of Committee work that will transform the way that people think about benefit delivery in the future. I see in other aspects of my work that there has been a general increase in public discontent with the services that they are getting across the public waterfront. Complaints against doctors and public servants are increasing. That may be for the beneficial reason that people are more active in demanding a proper service. If you look at the changes that we are making—and the Government argue rightly that this is a culture change if it is to be successful—perhaps we should be looking at the provision of public services delivered by professionals within the Civil Service, in government departments and in the plethora of government agencies. It applies not merely to the DWP or the Child Support Agency, but to prime providers in the Work Programme. There is a very complicated set of hierarchies, which I am sure are doing their best, but they all need to be invested with a culture that underpins the ethic of good service to the public. A regulator may not be the right word and an office or new organisation may not be necessary, but I feel strongly that we should be looking to the Government and the department to set clearly some new paradigms about how they will deliver universal credit as we go forward. If I thought that previously, I was reinforced in that view by looking at the recent White Paper, Open Public Services, which contains some of the principles of good complaint handling in terms of the need for public services to be accountable to users and taxpayers, and to be responsive to the people whom they serve. That White Paper sets out the principles clearly for all to see and sets the high standard that we should all aim for. I also carefully considered the work of Ann Abraham—the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman—of whom I am a fan. Last month, she produced a very interesting report, Responsible and Accountable? It repays careful study for some departmental Ministers in the DWP because Work and Pensions and the subsequent agencies are at the high end of most of the complaints. There are two examples in here of Jobcentre Plus failures of public service that were dire in their effect on the individuals concerned. This can be used positively. What is so good about Ann Abraham is that she derives the driver to improve services through the complaints procedure. She is positive about how she attracts people to make their experiences known and she tries to encourage the Government at all levels to react positively to those complaints as a way of driving up standards in public service. Two sentences in her report caught my eye. The Parliamentary Ombudsman Service is well developed—you have to complain through your Member of Parliament—well known and well tested. I always thought that she had an oversight that went beyond the individual complaints that were placed on her desk through that route. However, given this quote, which I shall share with colleagues, that is clearly not the case. At page 3 of the excellent report called Responsive and Accountable? she states: "““In terms of measuring and improving performance, departmental complaint handling is not subject to any systematic external audit or similar scrutiny. As Ombudsman I consider complaints that reach my Office but I do not have the legal power to undertake systemic scrutiny on my own initiative. So I do not have the mandate or the mechanisms to provide assurance on complaint handling efficiency and effectiveness across government””." The final sentence is: "““Neither does anyone else””." That was news to me because I believed—wrongly—that she was, on her own initiative, able to work with departments, across departments and within departments to try to drive up the standards of public service that are currently being developed. We should be looking at that. The trouble is that Ministers are far too busy to do this. The textbook says that the Minister has oversight of everything and, therefore, he is the champion of making sure that the complaints procedures are coherent and work. This report shows that he does not because different parts of the department use different handling systems for complaints. There is a central complaints department. I know it works and I know that the people there earn their pay because they have a lot of work to do. However, I have no confidence that we are taking advantage of this change of culture to determine the leadership that is necessary to drive up the standards of public accountability. I am a lay member of the General Medical Council and medical regulation is completely new to me. However, it is fascinating to see—there are colleagues in the Room who know more about this than I do—how good medical practice and the sharing of best evidence goes on throughout the profession. It is probably easier with doctors because they are a more coherent group, but across civil servants a lot more could be done, not only in establishing a coherent, transparent and easily explainable procedure for handling complaints but in changing the practice and culture. That has to be driven at a ministerial level. If we cannot have a benefit regulator, can the Minister assure me that the questions behind the need for driving up standards and the questions that are asked annually by the Parliamentary Ombudsman will be addressed going forward? I would really like to have that assurance. Amendment 113 can wait until we get to the part of the Bill dealing with the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. However there is a strong case for it. I see it as an equivalent to the Office for Budget Responsibility. You would have an independent body saying to the Treasury, ““We have looked at your plans and we think this and we think that””, and you can measure that against what the Government of the day are saying. Social protection is an important, equivalent and equal part of the public policy domain and we should have an independent group of people. For me, the commission is not independent enough, but we can have arguments about that. We could do more to obtain a balance, particularly in relation to CPI versus RPI, over the long term. Someone will need to hold the ring and look at the long-term changes that will come into being as a result of these matters. If we cannot have an office for social protection then perhaps a body under the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission could be spun into the remit in a way that would give me the assurance I am trying to find without the bureaucracy of setting up an extra quango. I beg to move.