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Tag: Andrew Smith

  • Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Smith on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect on people detained in immigration removal centres of there being no time limit on immigration detention.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    Although there is no formal time limit on detention for the purposes of immigration removal, individuals cannot be detained indefinitely. However, the Government commissioned Stephen Shaw to carry out a review of the welfare of vulnerable people in immigration detention and, as part of this, Mr Shaw commissioned Professor Mary Bosworth to assess the evidence in respect of the impact of immigration detention on mental health. The Government has been taking forward reforms of immigration detention in the light of Mr Shaw’s report.

  • Andrew Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Andrew Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Smith on 2015-10-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of substantive replies to hon. Members her Department has answered within the targets it has set for such correspondence since May 2015.

    Karen Bradley

    The proportion of substantive replies to hon. Members answered within target since 1 May 2015 is 95%

  • Andrew Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Andrew Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Smith on 2015-12-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 22 October 2015 to Question 12325, whether encouraging UK military exports to that country form part of the Defence Attaché’s duties in each case.

    Mr Julian Brazier

    Yes, Defence Attachés are to support and promote UK Defence Exports.

  • Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Smith on 2016-02-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make representations to his Indonesian counterpart on freedom of access by journalists to West Papua.

    Mr Hugo Swire

    We welcome the Indonesian government’s commitment to improving the situation in the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua. President Joko Widodo has visited 3 times since his election, most recently spending New Year in Papua. During his visit in May 2015, he granted clemency to a number of prisoners and announced the lifting of travel restrictions for foreign journalists and international organizations. Since then, a number of foreign journalists have successfully visited and reported from Papua and West Papua. Our Ambassador in Jakarta last visited Papua in January. As well as raising these issues, he also discussed ways to ensure the sustainable and equitable development of the provinces with members of the police, and religious and community leaders.

  • Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Smith on 2016-04-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the total number of visit visa applications was from Sri Lanka in 2015; and how many such applications were refused.

    James Brokenshire

    The information requested is as follows:

    Applications: 16745

    Issued : 10940

    Refused : 5785

    *These figures are based on Management Information, not published statistics, and are therefore liable to change.

    *These figures relate to all visit visa applications made via the Visa Application Centre in Columbo, Sri Lanka, in 2015. It will therefore incorporate applicants other than Sri Lankan nationals.

    *Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 5.

  • Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Smith on 2016-05-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has service standards for considering applications for the change of conditions of leave granted on the basis of family or private life.

    James Brokenshire

    There are no service standards for a change of conditions application.

  • Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Smith on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to introduce a maximum time limit on the length of time for which a person can be detained under immigration powers.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The Government does not believe that it is appropriate for there to be a formal time limit on immigration detention. A statutory time limit would serve only to encourage individuals to frustrate asylum and immigration processes in order to reach a point at which they have to be released.

    However, the Government is committed to ensuring that individuals are detained for the shortest period necessary and is introducing a range of reforms to the way in which immigration detention is managed, including greater judicial oversight of immigration detention through the Immigration Act 2016. Section 11 of Schedule 10 imposes a duty to arrange consideration of bail before the First-tier Tribunal at four months from the point of detention, or the most recent Tribunal consideration of bail, and every four months thereafter.

  • Andrew Smith – 2001 Speech to the Better Public Buildings Conference

    Andrew Smith – 2001 Speech to the Better Public Buildings Conference

    The speech made by Andrew Smith, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on 6 February 2001.

    Good Morning,

    It is important that we involve people across the whole of the public sector in promoting good design, and I am glad to see such interest at today’s conference.

    It is important to recognise that well designed buildings can reduce the overall costs of providing services, and they can increase the effectiveness of those services. Good design is fundamental to value for money. If we thought that ?best value? meant ?cheap?, and ignored the long-term savings good design can bring, we would be making a false economy. Best value is not the lowest price, but the best combination of whole life costs and quality. That doesn’t mean, of course, that the highest cost is best value either.

    Modernising Public Services

    The benefits good design brings are more important now than at any time in the last twenty years: Public services have faced years of neglect by previous Governments, and we have been faced with the challenge of investing in these services and in Britain’s infrastructure.

    When we took office, we faced both a record of chronic under investment in public services and a £27 billion deficit on the public finances, so our first task was to create stability and sustainable public finances. We have made the tough choices we needed to. We have set clear fiscal rules over the economic cycle: and today we not only have low inflation and stable growth but sound public finances and the national debt falling towards 30 per cent of GDP.

    It is this sustained improvement in our public finances that makes possible the prospect of sustained investment in our public services. In the three-year spending review last summer, we announced an additional £4 billion of capital spending this year, and net investment by the public sector is set to double over the next three years.

    This is a massive investment in rebuilding public services, and we expect a return for that investment. The public expects and deserves high quality services to be delivered on time, and the taxpayer deserves that they are delivered at the best value and to budget. Our overriding aim is always to secure better value for money in all forms of procurement – not as a cost-cutting exercise, but as a way of delivering more, better services and facilities from public investment.

    Benefits of Good Design

    Good public buildings are a demonstration of our respect for public spaces and communities. Landmark buildings, like the Tate Modern, can give new life and new identity to areas, and create new and valued public spaces. But there is room for better design in all public buildings, no matter how small.

    I am particularly interested in the role of good design in regenerating our most disadvantaged communities. The air of neglect, abandon, and hopelessness which blights poor areas is both a consequence and a cause of poor design as well as low investment – a vicious and debilitating circle of degeneration.

    Turning this into reverse in partnership with local people and businesses is one of our most urgent priorities. Good design, coupled with investment in everything from primary care facilities, to children’s play areas, to business start-up units will send a powerful and confidence-boosting signal that we care, we are listening to them, we are involving them and that we are making a difference.

    The benefits of good design are not just skin-deep. Well designed buildings can better serve the needs of the people who use them.

    They can reduce the costs of providing services over the whole life of a building, they can have a positive impact on the welfare and the productivity of the staff who work in them.

    There is a strong correlation between a high quality learning environment and good teaching, attitudes and behaviour. Well designed schools can have lower truancy rates and improved attendance, and better design in schools can also free staff and resources for the activities that matter. For example, one primary school found that by building a new one-storey building, it needed fewer teachers monitoring breaks, and three fewer lunchtime assistants. These are savings which can be put into educating children instead.

    Another study, by the University of Sheffield, of a purpose-built psychiatric unit in Hove, found significant improvements in outcomes for patients. Treatment times were reduced by 14%, patients spent less time in enforced isolation, and there were far fewer attacks on staff. Good design has added a great deal of value for both staff and patients, and this has delivered a significant improvement in terms of cost.

    Good design can actually save money. Well designed buildings are appropriate to the use they will be put to: their staff have a better working environment, and at the early stages, designers can take account of the costs of operating the building over its whole life.

    By taking account of the whole-life costs of a building at the earliest design stages, we can reduce them. Design improvements which improve the effectiveness of staff, or decrease the costs of running and maintaining a building, can pay for themselves many times over during the lifetime of the building.

    Taking an example from the private sector: BAA’s (British Airports Authority) office buildings had design and construction teams working together from the outset, and the result is an overall saving of 30% of costs. The public sector can and should learn from private sector projects like this.

    To make the most of the benefits of good design we do need a new approach to procurement, and a commitment at the highest. We need committed and aware procurers, well-constructed specifications, and integrated teams of designers and constructors, who can work together to ensure the final building does its job well, on time, and on budget.

    What Government is doing to promote good design

    PPP and PFI have also forced the public sector to raise their game, and become a better partner and a better procurer of public services. To get the right outcome for the citizen and the taxpayer, the public sector needs to be able to specify its requirements clearly, to negotiate with the private sector on equal terms and ensure the best value for taxpayers. And because PPP and PFI are not appropriate in all circumstances, we need to draw on our experience to deliver better deals and better buildings when using conventional procurement options.

    The Office of Government Commerce has been set up by this Government to promote best practice in all sorts of procurement across the public sector: the OGC has already produced the Better Public Buildings document with DCMS. It will help departments with their own projects, and where a Government-wide approach is needed it will manage or facilitate commercial relationships on behalf of departments.

    If the public sector is to make the most of good design, it is important that we are able to accurately asses the benefits of proposed designs. The Treasury’s ‘Design in PFI’ guidance has improved understanding of these benefits.

    The creation of CABE, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment in 1999, was another important step, and we welcome the work of the Construction Industry Council and CABE in developing key performance indicators and in providing help and advice on design and design procurement to public sector organisations.

    Prime Ministers Award

    Procuring better designed public buildings needs a strong commitment to good design from the very top. That applies to central Government, as well as to individual agencies and authorities. The Government is committed to better design, and that commitment will be carried forward by fourteen Ministerial Design Champions, who will drive forward better design in their departments.

    The number of public buildings which are outstanding examples of design, construction, and delivery, is growing every year. These embody high quality at reasonable cost and represent best value to the procurers, the users, and the public. To recognise these achievements, and as another sign of our determination to improve design, I am very pleased to announce today the ?Prime Ministers Better Public Building Award.”

    This award reflects the Prime Ministers personal interest in excellence in public buildings, and his commitment to raising the standard of public building projects by identifying and rewarding high-quality design and construction. The award will made to the most outstanding public building, and will be announced at the British Construction Industry awards on 24th October, the UK’s premier accolades for all-round excellence in design, construction delivery and performance.

    The award will be sponsored by CABE and OGC on behalf of all of Government, and it will be administered and judged under the aegis of the BCIA. The British Construction Industry awards have been made annually since 1988. They are promoted by the Daily Telegraph and the magazines The Architects Journal and New Civil Engineer, and have an extremely rigorous judging process, culminating with detailed visits to the short-listed projects during which all those responsible – client, designers, and contractor – are put through their paces. – The Judging panel is made up of eminent architects, engineers and contractors and always chaired by a heavyweight representative of the client sector – this year, it will be Sir Stuart Lipton, chairman of CABE.

    Entry forms will be available from the 22nd February, so I would like to invite you to enter for this important new award, any new public buildings projects of any size which you are proud of, whether as a client, a designer, a builder or a user. To qualify they need to have been completed and brought into use in 2000.

    Conclusion

    Prudent, targeted long-term public investment is not only a social good, but, in a changing and often insecure world, it is an economic necessity. It is only by investment in our frontline public services and infrastructure that we can equip ourselves for future economic challenges.

    The Government has already substantially increased capital spending, and we are determined that this spending should go as far as possible, to give the public the high-quality public services they deserve, and to create buildings and facilities we can all be proud of. There is a great deal we can gain from better designed buildings, and with your help and your commitment, I look forward to seeing many more outstanding public buildings in the future.

  • Andrew Smith – 2001 Speech at the Public Sector Expo

    Andrew Smith – 2001 Speech at the Public Sector Expo

    The speech made by Andrew Smith, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in London on 3 April 2001.

    Good Morning everybody. Nice to welcome you all here today. Procurement isn’t always the most exciting aspect of the government’s work but the message today is that it is vitally important and good progress is being made. In the past I think too little attention has been paid to procurement both by policy-makers and by the public and when governments have paid attention to procurement they frankly haven’t always got it right, and that has proved a very costly mistake. Good procurement is essential to the success of the government’s programmes, it is a vital link between policy and delivery, ensuring that we are able to deliver the improvements to public services which we have promised. And getting procurement right is a greater priority now for government than it ever has been in the past.

    When we took office we faced chronic under-investment in public services and a £27 billion deficit on the public finances. So our first task was to create stability and sustainable public finances and we have delivered both – inflation on target and at its lowest for 30 years, the lowest long term interest rates for 35 years, the lowest unemployment since 1975 with more people in work than ever before and sound public finances. This government inherited debt at an unsustainable 44% of national income. Four years later we are making the biggest net cash repayment in one year ever by a British government – £34 billion – and we have reduced debt to below 32% of national income. Because we have cut debt and cut unemployment, and achieved higher growth and earnings, we are freeing up resources for priority areas in a sustainable way and by 2003/4 debt interest is forecast to be £6 billion a year lower than it was in 1997.

    And as the fundamentals of the economy are stronger, so we are able to make sustained investment in our public services. In the Spending Review last summer we announced an additional £4 billion of capital spending this year and the doubling of net investment by the public sector over the next three years to £19 billion in 2003/4. And so we are carrying forward the biggest hospital building programme in the history of the National Health Service, the 10 year modernisation of our transport infrastructure, the replacement or refurbishment of some 650 schools and we are making a massive investment in rebuilding public services more generally and we expect a return for that investment. The public deserves high quality services, delivered on time, and it is in everybody’s interest that they are delivered to the best value and to budget, because the quality of the services of course depends not just on how much government spends but on how effectively we spend it. So it is crucially important that we get procurement right. There is political will on this right at the top of government and the full commitment of all of the Permanent Secretaries to driving best practice forward in procurement to ensure the reliable delivery of projects.

    Now last April we set up the Office of Government Commerce to act as a catalyst for improving government procurement. One year on we can all see the impressive progress which OGC has made. It has demonstrated a clear vision of how to deliver our goal of £1 billion value for money improvement from a total central sole procurement budget of £13 billion a year. It has achieved many significant gains for the public sector already and has laid the framework and established the practices which will lead to even greater gains in the future. Better procurement is at the heart of our plans for improving public services, so the OGC has a very wide role – getting better value for money from government-wide contracts, ensuring the adoption of best practice in procuring major projects right across government and at the same time meeting other government objectives such as delivering services electronically and the greening government agenda.

    OGC is a valuable resource of expertise for government departments to draw on with dedicated and skilled professionals working to tested and effective commercial practices. It is working in partnerships with departments to help deliver their spending plans both by helping departments with their own projects and where a government-wide approach is needed it is managing commercial relationships on behalf of departments.

    OGC began to deliver real improvements very quickly. Last August they brokered a deal with Vodafone to supply the government with mobile phones which will save the government £38 million over the next two years and it is not often a government body can make savings on that scale in the first few months of its operation. The Watermark Project, which began in October, is another example of the savings which OGC can bring. The project will provide information on water use by public sector organisations and if that information is used effectively it has the potential to deliver savings of up to 10% of wider public spending on water, as much as £60 million a year, and of course at the same time reducing pressure on the environment.

    These are important gains for government and the Office of Government Commerce is continuing to deliver. The introduction of a new web-based electronic tendering system – Tendertrust – to replace the traditional paper tendering system in central government, is intended to produce savings for the taxpayer in the region of £13 million over four years. The system will deliver significant savings for both the public sector and our suppliers and will help the public sector advance our objectives for electronic service delivery, making the UK government a leader in the development of electronic tendering.

    And today I am delighted to announce the OGC’s latest achievement – a strategic partnership with Expotel that will drive down the cost to government of hotel accommodation by reductions in room rates, booked agency charges and the costs of online booking. We expect this to deliver savings of £18 million over the next three years and the scope for further savings still on conferences. There are clear benefits for government from entering strategic partnerships with major private sector providers of government services and products in this way and this agreement makes available Expotel’s best value for government, it makes that available to the whole of the public sector.

    So this latest quick win initiative for hotel accommodation is another example of the way OGC is making a real difference in the way government does business. The £18 million savings demonstrate what can be achieved by optimising the purchasing power of government.

    Negotiating government-wide contracts is only one of the ways the OGC is adding value. Its mission is to drive best practice in all forms of procurement to ensure the reliable and cost-effective delivery of major projects. The Gateway Review process, which was launched in February, is an independent authoritative review mechanism to improve the management of large complex and novel projects in IT, in construction and in property procurement. Gateway Review is proven in industry as a valuable tool in improving management of all aspects of projects, organisational, risk management, business case and technology. Projects will only pass through each gate when rigorous tests have been met, ensuring all aspects of the project are well structured. We now have a commercially-minded reliable measurement system that can be applied to every major government project to ensure that it is properly procured.

    We all know failure in big projects doesn’t come cheap and it is no longer a concept that the public is prepared to accept in the development and construction of major government projects. The Passport Agency – Episode – shows the overruns in both time and cost that can happen when we pay too little attention to procurement. The Gateway Review process would have prevented those overruns, releasing money which could otherwise be spent on fighting crime, on schools and hospitals, the other frontline priorities, and that is why the Gateway makes not only commercial common sense but common sense in terms of value for money and services for the citizen.

    But the Gateway isn’t just a way to prevent errors and overruns, it will add value to the many successful well procured projects which the government manages. Projects like the Passport Agency are exceptions. As a rule the public sector is a good procurer, but what we are saying here is there is further value that can be added.

    The Gateway process is not designed simply to rescue projects which are in difficulties. If we are to realise the full value of the process, the Gateway must be involved throughout the life of the project from the earliest stages to set projects on the right path and begin a cycle of success. And I have to say it is simple good sense to have a proper, trusted, commercially minded process for managing government procurement.

    The capacity for Gateway to add value is enormous. The Gateway Review has already been applied to 16 pilot projects worth a total of £3 billion and we are still seeing the results of these projects but they indicate that through using the Gateway process we can expect to see savings of 5% of procurement costs, or £150 million, on these pilot projects alone. The government-wide contracts and partnerships the OGC has negotiated will add nearly £90 million per year in savings to that total.

    The savings the OGC has delivered in its first year will be enough to build two new hospitals or more than 20 new secondary schools. The achievements the OGC have delivered are already therefore very significant indeed.

    And let me just stress, these aren’t savings which are clawed back to the Treasury, these are savings which are then available for expenditure elsewhere by departments and agencies on frontline services.

    In the long term, extending Gateway Reviews throughout government procurement, with the OGC involved from the start of projects, we would expect to see the level of savings we have made in the pilot projects extended to a wider range of projects. And that means the Gateway could save government £500 million a year, and as I say, every pound we save on procurement is a pound that can be invested in frontline public services, that is £500 million more per year that departments can spend on new schools, on new hospitals, on fighting crime and rebuilding our transport system.

    The OGC will be driving forward best practice in both conventional procurement and in public/private partnerships. PPP is delivering real benefits and is modernising the way government does its business. In the last four years the number of PPPs has been growing. Projects worth some £14 billion are in procurement and we expect to sign contracts worth £20 billion over the next three years. PPP is proving a very effective procurement tool but it is not some sort of easy way out for the public sector, we need to be an effective partner in these projects, we need to specify our requirements clearly and negotiate on equal terms to ensure best value for taxpayers and the best standards for the public. To build the capacity to negotiate good PFI and PPP deals for the public sector, we created Partnerships UK as a successor to the Treasury Task Force, combining private sector expertise with a strong public sector mission to work alongside public sector authorities and help them deliver better value for money PPPs. And yesterday we successfully completed the sale of 51% of Partnerships UK to the private sector, making it a PPP in its own right. And I am delighted I have to say at the signal this sends not only about Partnerships UK but about the future of PPP and PFI. The placement of shares was over-subscribed by nearly 30% and this represents a statement of confidence in Partnerships UK and I believe more widely in the whole PFI industry and wider markets initiative in which Partnerships UK is so centrally placed. We now look forward to their contribution towards our continuing programme of expansion in this market across government.

    Yesterday was also the date set for OGC to assume its new single identity incorporating the activities of the property advisers to the Civil Estate, the central computer communications agency and the buying agency, which has now become the OGC Trading Fund, OGCbuying.solutions, which you can find out more about from their stand in the centre of the exhibition. The new structure is designed to support the OGC’s key strategies, including building a more efficient and effective integrated organisation.

    So I think it is clear from the evidence I have referred to just how important the Office of Government Commerce is to delivering the government’s objectives. By improving procurement the OGC is not only helping to avoid costly mistakes of the past, ensuring that projects come in on time and to budget, it is adding real value to the investment we are making in public services and it is delivering significant savings, savings which we can redirect to frontline services.

    The OGC is already only one year old but is finding those real savings and making a real difference to the way we do business. The Gateway process pilot projects and the government-wide contracts the OGC have negotiated are delivering savings of over £200 million, and the work the OGC has done to produce best practice guidance and establish the Gateway process will deliver a step change in the effectiveness of public sector procurement more generally in the future.

    So the OGC is well on its way to meeting our goal of £1 billion value for money improvement and I would like to congratulate Peter Gershon and all of his team on the work that they have done. I look forward to seeing them build on their achievements further in the future.

    Prudent, targeted, long term public investment is not only a social good but in a changing and often insecure world it is an economic necessity. It is only by investment in our frontline public services and infrastructure that we can equip ourselves for future economic success and ensure that publicly funded universal services are available to all. The Office of Government Commerce is helping us to deliver that investment more effectively. That is good news for government, good news for the taxpayer and good news for the public and the services we thereby deliver.

  • Andrew Smith – 2000 Speech at the Electronic Government Conference

    Andrew Smith – 2000 Speech at the Electronic Government Conference

    The speech made by Andrew Smith, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on 5 October 2000.

    Good morning everybody, it’s a great pleasure to be here and great to see so many people here. The new information economy presents us all with terrific opportunities and important responsibilities and I think there is a very simple message here for Government, as for business, and it is that the information economy gives the opportunity to modernise Government, we see how industry and services are being revolutionised in the information age and the simple message is that Governments must do the same, we must move to on-line Government.  And it really goes without saying that that is about modern Government, it’s about improving the way that Government serves its customers, it’s about realising the huge efficiency gains also which IT makes possible.

    On-line Government isn’t therefore simply about the business which Government does internally, it’s about changing the way that Government does its business externally. It’s about more than improving the way Government does things and between Civil Servants and between departments, it’s how we deal with clients, with customers and with the general public and getting Government on-line is a crucial part of building the wider knowledge economy in the UK.  So we want to see the Government taking the initiative so that it can move into the lead and not simply follow what is happening in other sectors in embracing new technology and in order to achieve this we have set a number of targets that the United Kingdom should be the best place to trade electronically by 2002, that we should have universal net access by 2005 and that all Government services should be on-line by 2005.

    So what is the Government doing to make the UK the best place to trade electronically? Firstly, of course, our policies for economic stability that we have built since 1997, low and stable inflation, low interest rates, the long term framework for stability carrying forward economic growth in a sustainable way, a very important foundation. Secondly, what we have done on taxation. Corporate taxes at the lowest in our history are lower than any major competitors, capital gains tax now at 10% for investments held for more than 4 years, the research and development tax credits we have brought in, the other help we are giving to small businesses as well as larger ones. Thirdly, the establishment of a thousand centres where small businesses can find help and support with IT. The 100% capital allowances we have brought in for IT investment too.  And fourthly, and very importantly, ensuring that people have the skills which they and e-businesses need in order to be able to flourish in the information society.  So we are enabling adults to get 80% discount on basic computer courses, courses which will be free for unemployed people and through the schools providing a billion pounds for schools ICT over the next three years to deliver at least one computer for every five secondary pupils. We have also of course set e-commerce targets that we will have 1.5 million small and medium enterprises on-line by 2002, well things are moving so fast that progress has overtaken that particular target because we have got l.7 million on-line already. The target also to have 1 million trading on-line by 2002, we are presently at some 450,000.

    Now in moving towards universal net access by 2005 we have established UK on-line as a cross Government brand. We are putting in place 6,000 physical access points with internet access and assistance with technology. Many will offer training in IT skills. We are ensuring that the costs of internet access in the UK are amongst the cheapest in Europe and through last year’s budget we ensured that employees can borrow computers from their companies free of taxation.  And we are also developing a system in which poorer individuals can lease or buy recycled computers cheaply and 100,000 will be available by the end of next year.  So we are on the way to meeting our targets and in this year’s spending review we allocated one billion pounds to boost electronic service delivery in Government because we are very much aware that the public sector needs to be, not only a better operator but a better procurer of services. We need to be able to specify our requirements more clearly, to negotiate with the private sector on equal terms or better and we need to secure best value for the taxpayer as we establish the best standards for the public.

    So the Office of Government Commerce as you have heard was created to ensure that best practice in procurement is adopted right across Governments. The position of the E-Envoy was created to drive electronic procurement right across Government and to realise the benefits of properly joined-up Government.  And we now already have 33% of Government services on-line, a significant achievement but it gives us still some way to go. An example of what is possible is the Inland Revenue’s pioneering service offering on-line tax returns. That has already got more than a hundred thousand people now registered and indeed twenty four thousand have already filed their returns.  Through the Government’s secure intranet we now have 69 connections to departments, agencies, non-departmental public bodies, we have got 90,000 e-mail users, 55,000 web access users, the GSI directory which has been populated by 31 departments – this means that those civil servants know how to access colleagues right across Government.  So we can say that through the secure intranet we do have something of a success story in Government but it only really hints as to what more actually is possible.

    We can see too how the targets that we have set actually support and reinforce one another. For the UK to be the best place to trade electronically of course we need Government backing for e-business. That actually reinforces the way Government itself works as an e-business and as we get more of the population on-line then we are upskilling our employees and staff at the same time. So making Britain the best place to trade electronically, getting Government on-line and getting more people on-line are all part of the same drive and we are putting our money in this endeavour very much where our mouth is because through the cross cutting review of the knowledge economy, which was an important part of the spending review, we earmarked one billion pounds to improve on-line service delivery across Government. Money also will be available through the Capital Modernisation Fund for  priority services.

    Now the overall target for getting Government on-line belongs to the Cabinet Office, but all departments have their own targets and their own funds for electronic service delivery and they will have support from the centre in carrying their work forward working on three key aspects.  First, how Government deals with its suppliers through electronic procurement; secondly how it deals with the public through electronic service delivery;  and thirdly how Government procures major IT projects and we obviously need to get all of these three right if electronic government is to be a success.

    In the whole area of electronic procurement our aim is to use Government’s power as a purchaser to boost the markets and to encourage successful on-line business and also to make gains in the way Government procures by ensuring that electronic procurement makes joining up Governments itself easier.

    Now both the Office of Government Commerce and the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency have a central role to play in Government’s electronic procurement strategy. For example the OGC are working on ways to make electronic tendering more reliable and more wide-spread and there are considerable gains to be made there.  On-line delivery of services is of course the most publicly visible aspect of on-line Government and it has got great potential to improve the way that Government deals with and serves the public. UK On-line has been established as a single portal which will make it easier to access all the functions of Government and if people can meet their needs more easily and faster on-line, if the service is designed to be user friendly then we will carry forward the culture of doing things electronically. It can and will be more convenient and accessible to people. Access of course can be 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Services can be joined up on-line which can’t be joined up physically.  And the E-Envoy will be looking at Government on-line services to find and use the opportunities for joining up services from different departments and agencies.  And in the long term on-line service delivery should bring great gains in efficiency with lower transaction costs and less physical infrastructure, but for this to happen there needs to be improvement in the way Government goes about procuring IT projects. In the past there have been some pioneering projects, but these have not, if we are honest, always been managed well and one of the reasons we set up the OGC was to improve procurement powerfully right across Government.

    Peter Gershon will be saying more about this later on, but there is great scope for improving procurement in IT. The IT Projects Review is about helping departments to get large projects up and running and on budget and the OGC is already delivering great benefits. I mean it recently brokered a deal with Vodafone that will save the Government no less than thirty eight million pounds over the next two years and I would like to congratulate Peter Gershon and his team on that Vodafone deal. It’s not everybody who in their first few months working for the Government saves us thirty eight million pounds, so it’s an example to us all.

    How will OGC actually improve procurement? Well first it will help departments with their own projects and where a Government-wide approach is needed it will manage commercial relationships on behalf of departments. We faced a situation in the past frankly where very often big firms we are dealing with  know more about their business with Government than we know about our business with them. We need to change that for an intelligent strategy in procurement. Moreover the gateway  process which OGC is developing in a general way to handle large complex and novel projects, especially in Information Technology, offers great  potential gains. It’s proven in industry as a valuable tool in managing all aspects of projects, organisational, risk management and business case as well as technological aspects and it will also help spread best practice and because OGC will be working with departments they will be able to bring to bear the benefits of other departments’ experience and avoid reinventing the wheel or repeating avoidable mistakes.

    So in conclusion my message is today that OGC and the CCTA have had a relatively short time to sort of get up and running and drive forward electronic procurement, but they are already delivering and we can expect more, very much more for the future.  And for all of you here today there is a very important task in driving forward electronic procurement and e-service delivery in your own departments and agencies in partnership with industry, in partnership with other public services too, but I would just like to assure you that you will have very strong and committed support from the centre in this critically important endeavour.  So thank you all for coming today, thank you all for what you are doing and I believe that together we can and will build successful electronic Government in a successful on-line Britain. Thank you very much.