Interview: Eleanor Goodison

In November, the Reform of the House of Commons Committee – appointed in July to examine the organisation of select committees and House business, and chaired by the respected Labour MP Tony Wright – published its first report.

Putting its recommendations into action, the report argued, would “boost the standing and authority” of the committees. But the committee will have disappointed some observers by remaining silent on the question of whether select committees should continue to shadow individual departments, or be restructured around cross-cutting themes and subjects.

There is a growing consensus that the major challenges for government – both in terms of threats such as climate change or terrorism, and of improving public services – require a cross-departmental response.

In some ways, the government is reacting. Cross-departmental Public Service Agreements (PSAs) are now well-established – although they are not yet fully embedded in civil service culture. The Total Place agenda, examining the range of public spending at a local level, is gathering momentum. But the select committee system is still primarily focused on departments, and it’s rare for a committee to hit the headlines with a major report on cross-cutting issues.

“Whitehall continues to be defined by departments,” says Sir Michael Bichard, director of think-tank the Institute for Government. “Targets and inspectorates have been designed to reinforce this silo culture, and parliamentary scrutiny via select committees and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is almost entirely lacking any attempt to focus on joined-up issues.

“The result is weaknesses at all points,” Bichard continues. “The frontline receives mixed messages; money is wasted; and people receive fragmented services.” In fact, he points out, the institute’s new report Shaping up: a Whitehall for the future“examines better ways to join-up government. Starting at the top, we recommend a new structure of select committees to spend more time joining up on cross-cutting issues. Departments can then be held to account for their performance on government-wide objectives, encouraging them to work more collaboratively and effectively.”

And Bichard is not the only one to be thinking along these lines; Professor Gavin Drewry of Royal Holloway, University of London, suggested last year at a Hansard Society conference – held to celebrate 30 years of departmental select committees – that the House of Commons “may have missed a trick” in 1979 by going for departmental rather than subject-based committees.

There are, of course, some select committees in the House of Commons with cross-cutting remits. Phil Willis, Chairman of the new Science and Technology Committee, cites the example of its current “evidence checks” on topics as disparate as literacy, homeopathy and drug enforcement.

“The departmental committees’ brief is very clear and they have more structure,” he says. “But the advantages of a subject-specific committee for science and technology vastly outweigh the disadvantages. We can shine a spotlight into any part of government, and we can compare the ways in which departments are using science”.

Meanwhile, Tony Wright says of the Public Administration Select Committee – which he chairs – that “it is implicit in our terms of reference that we do cross-cutting work”. And the PAC does undertake cross-cutting inquiries from time to time, although most reports focus on single departments.

Richard Bacon, a PAC member since 2001, says that many of its findings are applicable to most, if not all departments; he cites points such as the need for clear objectives and lines of responsibility, good project management, and consultation with staff and users.

One solution could be to add more subject-specific committees to the current department-based structure. The Communities and Local Government Committee has proposed a joint committee of both Houses of Parliament to keep central-local government relations under constant scrutiny, for example.

The idea has received considerable support – John Denham, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, told the Royal Society of Arts that “there is clearly a lot of sense in it”. But there is also considerable anxiety about the burden imposed on MPs by the increasing numbers of committees; indeed, this was a factor in the reform committee’s recommendation that the number of departmental committees be reduced to not more than 11. If anything, the new Parliament is likely to cut back on the range of committees, rather than invent new ones.

Tony Wright concedes that “simply looking at departments reproduces the silo-based structures of government”, but he judges that there is “no traction” behind the idea of subject committees. Instead, he suggests encouraging committees to engage in joint projects; a few members from several different departmental committees could come together to form a temporary topic committee, he says.

Wright sees it as the job of the Liaison Committee to explore this option, and to expand committees’ remit to follow policies through wherever they go. But Helen Irwin, former Clerk of Committees, pointed out to the Hansard Society conference that what she called “joined-uppery” – including scrutiny of topics such as PSAs and the new National Planning Statements – already requires that committees work together.

After the general election, the new government will have the opportunity for a major reorganisation of the structure of select committees. But if the new Parliament has other priorities, select committees could simply work together to hold departments more effectively to account on cross-cutting issues.

This approach would demand an equally joined-up response from departments. Too often at present, written evidence is prepared by the lead department with minimal input from other interested departments, which may give it a low priority compared to the preparation of evidence for their “own” committee. Departments frequently still prepare separately for select committee hearings, even when they know that witnesses from other departments or related organisations will be called.

Departments’ select committee liaison officers tend also to focus on their own departmental committees, and are less likely to scan the activities of other committees to pick up inquiries with implications for their department. This needs to change.

Alison Seabeck, chair of the South-West regional committee, says that she has picked up “through anecdotal evidence” that departments have been co-ordinating their evidence to the new – and wide-ranging – regional committees. She is “optimistic that there is some seepage between silos, and that is positive”. Co-ordination of responses to regional committees has been organised by the Government Offices in the regions; Whitehall needs to put comparable arrangements in place.

While the regional select committees – which were established in March 2009 – offer an opportunity to look at cross-cutting issues, their future looks shaky; the Conservatives have consistently expressed scepticism over their value.

Meanwhile, though, Tony Wright’s reform committee report aims to produce leaner, more effective select committees which are less closely managed by the parties and more engaged with the public. If this is indeed the outcome, we could see a step change in their impact – regardless of whether the current structure of departmental committees continues or not.

With the greater confidence this would give committees, combined with the enthusiasm of large numbers of new members taking their seats after the election, they are more likely to explore new ways of working – including greater cross-departmental collaboration. That will require not just better preparation among government departments for select committee enquiries, but also a real improvement in cross-cutting working across the board; the alternative is a spate of critical reports. Given this, an improvement in cross-cutting working would have benefits for everyone.