Public Services (Social Value) Bill

I support new clauses 1, 2 and 3 and the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas). They are excellent amendments that enable us to debate how we want to see things develop, even if the Bill passes today, as I hope it will, in its current truncated form. The Bill originally had five clauses. It contained a specific commitment to a national social enterprise strategy and strategies for local authorities. I said on Second Reading, some time ago, that I thought the Bill was small but perfectly formed, and that if it went through in that form, it could have a transformational effect on the commissioning that took place in our public authorities. This is no judgment on the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), but I am afraid that the Bill in its current form represents a huge missed opportunity to drive forward with momentum and impetus the growth and flourishing of the social enterprise sector. The original Bill would have tilted the scales in favour of social enterprise through social value and economic, social and environmental well-being. That would have sent a strong message to public commissioners that the Government really wanted to put their weight behind it as commissioners and would have produced quite a transformational effect. The hon. Gentleman's original clauses about a strategy have been deleted. I have no time for strategies that are just pieces of paper, because in my experience harnessing the full power of every Department requires a central spine that says to those Departments, ““This is what we want to do. We will hold you to account. We want to see what you have done over the past 12 months and how you can take it forward.”” I worry that without such a mechanism the push towards social value commissioning will be taken up only by the best local authorities, which are good at commissioning and understand, particularly in areas such as social care and education, that social value means more impact for the money spent. Good local authorities understand that and are becoming quite complex commissioners. They are commissioning with the users and clients involved and going out to the public and asking what they want to see. That is a holistic approach to commissioning. However, as I mentioned in Committee, I am worried about the local authorities that lack to capacity, skill and understanding to carry out complex commissioning. The Minister gave some assurance in Committee that there would be support for those local authorities to ensure that they can take this forward. What the Bill says is really good, but I fear that it will fall somewhat short of the transformational effect that the hon. Gentleman wants to achieve. The annual report proposed in new clause 3 might be dismissed by some as bureaucracy, but I know from my experience in government that requiring Ministers to come to the Dispatch Box once a year to report on what they have done and what the impact of that has been is a tremendous discipline to ensure that during the rest of the year they ask for regular reports and push for implementation. Unless there is a way of measuring and evaluating the social value achieved through a change in the commissioning process, I do not think that we will see the results that the hon. Gentleman talked about. The hon. Gentleman says that he is pragmatic and practical, to which I can attest. My view is always to get what one can and then build on it incrementally, and I think that that is probably where he is now. However, I think that he is also quite determined to make a change, so I ask him to press his right hon. and hon. Friends in the coalition Government to say how they will measure social value and assess what difference it has made. In a year's time, more commissioning will have social value at its heart. What work are we doing to hone in on how we measure social value so that we get a grip on this, because otherwise it will remain a fairly nebulous concept that is very easy for people who do not share the values to wriggle out of, and I am sure that that is not what he wants?