Maximising synergies?

 

The Public Administration Select Committee pioneered pre-appointment hearings. Sir David Normington is applying for two posts that are currently undertaken by two people. Will it mean a dumbing-down of past reforms 

 

Paul Flynn: How do you strengthen the role by making it half a job?

David Normington: I’ve asked that myself, because I am not accepting this on the basis that I’m making it half a job.  It’s two roles in one person, but doing it three days a week.  I’ve tested quite hard with people, “Can I do it over three days a week?” and they assure me I can.  I think I will have to show some flexibility there; particularly when you’re starting out in a job, you always put more time into it than when you’ve got it under your belt, as it were. 

 

Paul Flynn: You say that you employed a coach to improve your chairmanship skills?

David Normington: Yes.

Paul Flynn: Why?

David Normington: Well, because I thought I could get better.  I had a—

 

Paul Flynn: What was wrong with your chairmanship skills?

David Normington: Well, let me explain.  I had a Home Office board that was made up of people who had all, bar one, been chief executives in their own right, and chairing a group of very highly independent people is quite an interesting challenge.  We had a few sessions with a coach who observed what we were doing and tried to get us to work better together and worked on my chairmanship.

 

Paul Flynn: You pray in aid your job as supremo of the Home Office for the last three years.  The Home Office is in charge of drug policy.   Do you take responsibility for the fact that, having spent billions of pounds, cocaine use in Britain is the highest in Europe?

David Normington: By the way, I’ve done the job for five years.  I have appeared before the Public Accounts Committee on this very subject and I believe that we’ve been making progress in tackling drug use in this country but we’re doing it against a background where the drug trade is very active, particularly in the international sphere.  I take responsibility for the performance of the Home Office overall, the good things and the bad things.  I can’t always stop what is happening in the world out there.

 

Paul Flynn: There are great changes ahead.  There’s a case for saying the work load for both jobs is actually increasing; there’s demand possibly for more senior—

David Normington: I don’t think so actually, but I’m happy to come back in a year’s time and tell you of my experience. Obviously if I’ve had to work five days a week then I will want to tell you about that. 

 

Paul Flynn: Okay.  But doing two jobs for the price of one is nothing at all to do with reducing public expenditure; it’s all to do with maximising synergies? 

David Normington: I guess it is also about reducing public expenditure, yes, which we 

Paul Flynn: The appointment to the National Security Council by this Government was a senior civil servant who was responsible for foreign affairs, so effectively he was making judgments on his own decisions.  Having had a succession of independent people doing your job, is the Government doing the same thing with appointing you now as a civil servant to examine your chums and your past record?  Isn’t this incestuous and a characteristic of the present Government—that they fear independent people in these appointments?

David Normington: No, I don’t think it is.  I don’t see any sign that that is what the present Government wants to do. 

 

Paul Flynn: How do you hope to go through a metamorphosis in these three months from being a civil servant to being an independent person?  Is this possible?

David Normington: Yes, it is.  I wouldn’t have applied for the job if I didn’t think I could do it.  As for the National Security Council job, it was decided that the first appointment should be a civil servant who had experience in foreign affairs and that is why the current incumbent was appointed.  I have gone through an open competition for a job with a statutory base and I’ve had to convince people that I can do that job as an independent person.  I think that because I know a lot about what happens in the system, although it’s a poacher turned gamekeeper role, I know how to do that. 

 

Paul Flynn: It might be a poacher to super‑poacher.  Are you critical of the role of the independent predecessors?

David Normington: No, of course not.  No, I think that they’ve done a good job, of course.  If you’re going to have an open competition, presumably you’re going to appoint the best person before you in that competition. I don’t know who else was in the field but it was a fair and open competition, no doubt with people from inside and from outside.  The panel wasn’t just made up of civil servants; it was made up with equal numbers of external people as well. 

 

Paul Flynn: Your appointment for the second post, the Commissioner for Public Appointments, was set by the Nolan Commission after a very unsatisfactory period by the previous Conservative Government in 1995.  Are they now trying to make the job less effective by—

Chair: I think that’s a question about combining roles, which comes later, Mr Flynn.

 

Paul Flynn: Okay.  One of your responsibilities will be to represent the views of both these offices to the Government, to Parliament, and to the public.  How can you, as one person, be as active in doing this as two people would be?

David Normington: Because I’ll be able to talk about both roles wherever I go, I think.  So in a sense I think it will be an efficient use of time that I’ll be able to do both things.  So if I’m going to talk to a group of civil servants, permanent secretaries, about the Civil Service Commission role I’ll be able to deal with the Public Appointments role at the same time.

 

Paul Flynn: What do you hope to achieve in your first year in the job and how would we measure your success or failure?

David Normington: I think that my proposition would be that I should focus particularly on the public appointments side of the job and see what we can learn from what has been working in these two systems and try to pick out the best things and apply it to both, but to particularly the public appointments.  So judge me on whether we have made progress in streamlining the public appointments side of this job.

 

Paul Flynn: Your job is about change.  Can you tell us about the change you’ve imposed on the Home Office, particularly in the area of immigration in the last three years?

David Normington: Yes, the job at the Home Office has been a job of recovering from what, in 2006, was a very, very low point for the Home Office and for the UK Border Agency—the immigration system in particular.  The Home Office was, as you remember, not fit for purpose and it was at the bottom of all the leagues.

 

Paul Flynn: I’m aware of that situation, but as a Member of Parliament half my workload is immigration asylum seekers.  

David Normington: Yes.

Paul Flynn: It has not improved. In fact it’s probably more than it was three years ago, particularly with the legacy cases; I have one who rings me up every day and his case will not be considered until next year.

David Normington: Well, if I can take the legacy cases, that was a situation that was completely unacceptable. We had 450,000 cases in 2006 when I took over.

 

Paul Flynn: You’d accept that the situation has not improved—that it has deteriorated in your three years?

David Normington: No, please let me finish.  I am accepting that over the last five years we have dealt with and cleared 350,000—I think that is the latest figure—of that 450,000‑case backlog and we are going to finish the rest by next June.  Then there will be no cases in that backlog and every one of them will have been dealt with and, of course, it’s because we’re dealing with them now that there are so many cases coming into your post bag.  It’s completely unacceptable, of course. That is why we have had hundreds of civil servants—and this is one of my initiatives and that of the Chief Executives of the Agency—sorting that out.  It is, of course, completely unacceptable to have those backlogs, but it is almost sorted.

 

Paul Flynn: I don’t want to press the point; I think all Members of Parliament will have an opinion on how effective the changes have been in the last three years.  Do you have difficulty differentiating between a verb and a gerund?  You misused one in your earlier evidence—

David Normington: Did I?

 

Paul Flynn: You referred to “me applying” when it should be “my applying”.  You couldn’t get a grammar coach in?

David Normington: I apologise for making—

 

Paul Flynn: It’s the sort of question I’d ask someone if they were applying for a job as a secretary in my office; it’s only fair to ask the same questions of someone applying for a job here.  Do you think the impression we’d be getting—

David Normington: To answer your question, I obviously do have difficulties since I misused it, but sometimes, as long as I’m clear, I think that’s probably what matters. 

 

Paul Flynn: Well I’m sure there’s room for improvement there and we look forward to it the next time we meet you.  With all this strange language that’s used, do you think that, in your role as a senior civil servant, if you went up to a junior civil servant and said, “You’re doing one job now and next week you’re going to do two jobs so that we can maximise the synergies,” they would understand what you were talking about?

David Normington: No, they probably wouldn’t. 

 

Paul Flynn: Why do you expect us to understand it? 

David Normington: Well, I can explain it again if you like.

 

Paul Flynn: Perhaps we will rely on your previous explanation.  But isn’t there a suggestion here that we have a government who are desperate to reduce public spending, saying, “Well, instead of having two people on a wage of £85,000 each we’ll have one person on a wage of £85,000, because £85,000 would buy two photographers,” for instance? 

David Normington: The previous people were paid £125,000 and £93,000 actually, so this is quite a big saving and I believe the job is—

 

Paul Flynn: What is the saving, if you can correct me?

David Normington: The saving is about £120,000, something of that sort.

 

Paul Flynn: It’s not plausible.  It doesn’t make sense.  We know when the Government are desperate to save money.  So they take a job that was appointed because of the embarrassment of what the Nolan Committee exposed and it’s now going to become half a job.

David Normington: Well, I didn’t take that decision— 

Paul Flynn: Indeed you didn’t—

David Normington: That is not the basis on which I have accepted this job.  I intend to do both jobs properly.

 

Paul Flynn: You can do the two jobs better than two people could do?  Is that the preposterous notion that is being put before us?

David Normington: I don’t know that and I promise to come back—

 

Paul Flynn: Is it likely that two people can operate and do two jobs better than one person, just generally speaking? 

David Normington: It is possible—

 

Paul Flynn: Doesn’t common sense tell us that?

David Normington: The number of jobs that we’re talking about in both these fields is reducing, so it is also possible that the jobs are getting smaller.

 

The Committee approved the appointment with reservations including:

There is a view that these roles need to be perceived as independent if they are to enjoy the confidence of civil servants and of the public more widely. We are satisfied that Sir David has the professional competence and personal independence for the posts of First Civil Service Commissioner and Commissioner for Public Appointments. However, these two posts regulate recruitment into public service and are, respectively, the complaint authorities for breaches of the Civil Service Code and the Code on Public Appointments. Therefore, we have reservations about the desirability of moving away from the recent practice of appointing from outside the Civil Service, instead appointing a career civil servant to these posts, who is in this case, moreover, being appointed directly on his retirement.

Conclusion

24. In the circumstances we believe both posts should remain under particular scrutiny from this Committee. We invited Sir David to report on progress within a year to assess the impact which the creation of this dual post has had on the management of both Offices and we are pleased that he agreed.

 

 

Comments

[Paul Flynn]

I know that no-one under 40 understands gerunds. But Sir David is 59 and should have had a proper education. Possibly, again, he was the victim of a public school.

[Kay Tie]

"These cuts that the Tories are making to public services will put a lot of people out of work and on to benefits."

The word here is "most". There are an awful lot more people that are coining it via tracker mortgages than those who lost their jobs.

"I don’t return home till nearly 4pm in real terms I’m worse off than this time last year, with paying extra in travelling costs and time involved getting to and from work."

Do you think that you should be immune to what's happening to everyone else just because you work for the state? I've not had a pay rise in three years. Who do I piss and moan to? My employer, who is strapped for cash?

[BJ]

I watch your interview on BBC news 24 this evening. About the comments that lord young made with regards to “that most of the public had not had it so good”.
I thought that what you said was totally right. These cuts that the Tories are making to public services will put a lot of people out of work and on to benefits. They claim they want more people off benefits and in work. How will this work if there are less jobs available?

I work for Royal Mail, my work has been relocated some 35 mile away. I’m now having to get up for work at 4am. I don’t return home till nearly 4pm in real terms I’m worse off than this time last year, with paying extra in travelling costs and time involved getting to and from work.

Thank you for speaking out.

I just wanted to show my support.

[Paul Flynn]

We did our job on PASC. Sir David was seeking a retirement job paying £100,000 on the basis of his past record as supremo of the Home Office for 5 years. It's an appalling story of failure on prisons, drugs and immigration. He was the only continuous senior person in the Home Office and, while not responsible for policy, was a great influence on it. while not responsible for the combining of two jobs, he tacitly give it legitimacy by applying for the two jobs.

[HuwOS]

Your grammatical nitpicking was certainly minor Paul, but was most definitively not useful, never mind vital.
If you do mean to say that he has an abominable grasp of English then say so, but be prepared to offer more evidence than one slip in answer to a question,
if on the other hand it was a slip in speech such as we all make from time to time then you need to find some justification to have wasted time on attacking it, do you have some personal animosity towards this man or were you just cranky at not getting the responses you hoped for from him.

You then say he failed on immigration and drugs, he did not make policy on either and you have many times made it clear that the policy on drugs is ludicrous, untenable and impossible to make real progress on, so if he did fail there, you are fully aware that the failure is one of policy and not under his control.
As far as his failure on immigration matters goes, you have not made it clear how you believe he failed, you mention backlog, he put forward the progress made on that particular backlog, that it had been reduced from 450,000 to 100,000 since he took over in 2006 and it was expected to be cleared completely by June of 2011.
Due to the lack of detail I do not know if new backlogs have been created or if you were intending to highlight other areas of failure.
Perhaps if you could have avoided your needless attack on a slip of the tongue in unscripted speech you could have questioned him more closely about it and/or actually explained what you believed the failure was.
Rather than making vague assertions without any detail that you might run the risk of being corrected on.

You should also hope that in future you make no errors in speech yourself and find yourself being attacked for those, rather than being asked the kind of sensible questions that you would hope people would be interested in, relating to your actual performance, plans or ideas.

It is very disappointing to be writing this, I have a generally high opinion of you Paul but in this particular instance
you come close to the situation at the inflatable school,
where the inflatable teacher said to the inflatable student who went on a bit of a spree with a pin, you've let me down, you've let the school down, but worst of all you've let yourself down.

[Kay Tie]

"No mention on why someone who has failed on immigration and drugs should be rewarded with another job"

Yeah, but how can you possibly succeed with the two most intractable problems created by bad law?

[Paul Flynn]

The correction of the grammar was a vital but minor part of the cross-examination. You have missed the vital dumbing down of a reform of 1995.
No mention on why someone who has failed on immigration and drugs should be rewarded with another job> These are the important issues.

[The Man from the Moses Room]

HuwOS puts it in commendably temperate terms.

My take: what a pompous little prat you can be. And what flawed judgement to elect to reproduce such a petulant display

Memo to self: needs to be kept under particular scrutiny

[HuwOS]

And you are a member of parliament representing a constituency of tens of thousands of people and it does neither you nor us any service pouncing on a minor grammatical misspeak by an employee during a question and answer session, whatever the pay grade of the job.

Assuming that you do not honestly believe that David Normington has a poor command of English and further assuming that you are not seeking to convince us of that either, it was petty and beneath you Paul and it is sad that you are not simply acknowledging that.

We do however all make minor errors in judgement.

You could take a cue from David Normington and simply apologise for your unnecessary pedantry on that issue, as he immediately apologised to you for a misspeak that he was utterly unaware of having made.

We are after all taking your word for it, as he did, that it happened at all.

You need not go so far as an apology as you certainly don't owe one to anyone except perhaps David Normington, but you could at least acknowledge that you were being gratuitously pedantic.

I can only assume that you were in a bad mood at the time and that mood does not seem to have improved since.

[Paul Flynn]

This blog can be -and has been-corrected. This is a blog free of gerund abuse. SirDavid was applying for a job that pays £100,000. Why not expect decent command of grammar?

[HuwOS]

"Do you have difficulty differentiating between a verb and a gerund? You misused one in your earlier evidence—

David Normington: Did I?

Paul Flynn: You referred to “me applying” when it should be “my applying”. You couldn’t get a grammar coach in?

David Normington: I apologise for making—"
-Paul Flynn

Nothing more than cheap point scoring, for someone who is on remarkably shaky, often non-existent ground when it comes to errors in language, whether spelling or grammar.
In fact this blog entry is headed with a fairly horrendous misspelling "Maximising syngeries".
That you have at least found common ground with KayTie, in the charming little hamlet of pedantry at sea, may somewhat make up for coming across as a pointless and somewhat ridiculous bully while shifting attention from the perfectly valid points you were trying to make about the roles being kept separate and independent.
Although surely those points that you did labour somewhat would be more appropriately made to the people offering the job and not the person applying for it.

[Kay Tie]

"Do you have difficulty differentiating between a verb and a gerund?"

Ooo! That's sharp! Criticising grammar mistakes isn't allowed anymore. Didn't you get the memo? It's all about "expressing yourself".

I'm afraid you'll never ever find a secretary in the next generation who knows what a gerund is: English grammar isn't taught any more (not since the 80s).

(By the way, I'm still in a miserable mood today after finding Chistopher Booker hasn't been making up his stories - I don't have kids so this shouldn't affect me but injustice burns me all the same).