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Friday August 2 2002 |
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Friday August 2 2002 |
By Nick Timmins
The government needs to become a vastly better purchaser from the private sector if it wants to achieve its aim of transforming services according to Rod Aldridge, executive chairman of Capita, the services company.
"Many public sector bodies lack the capacity to be effective procurers and to manage public private partnerships well," he says, writing in today's Financial Times.
His warning comes two years after the government created the Office for Government Commerce to improve public procurement and follows a string of high-profile failures ranging from PFI procurement and management to more conventional partnerships. Capita has run a string of successful projects, but was recently criticised for its role in running the government's flagship £260m individual learning accounts programme which became subject to fraud and was suspended. It also runs the Criminal Records Bureau contract where deadlines on criminal record checks for those working with children and the elderly have had repeatedly to be put back as huge backlogs built up.
But a Commons education committee report, while unhappy with Capita's performance over ILAs, was deeply critical of ministers and the employment department, saying they failed to draw up the contract properly or spell out what was expected from Capita.
The Public Accounts Committee this week also attacked public management of projects ranging from the Millennium Dome to the failed benefit swipe card and the Passport Agency's recomputerisation.
Writing in the Financial Times, Mr Aldridge acknowledges that the private sector too needs to change and accept new accountabilities to the public for partnerships to work.
But he says civil and public servants need far better training in procurement skills, need to set realistic targets and have better management skills. Mr Aldridge says that top civil service posts should only be open to those with operational and management experience and that the public sector needs "a new cadre of public service leaders who can do work across the public, private and voluntary sectors".