Speeches by Osborne.

“The Report says at paragraph 1.12 that there is no cross-Government budget, and at paragraph 2.5 that no one accepts responsibility for governance. Would you accept that because you are the one making the savings, it is a Home Office responsibility to co-ordinate this whole-systems approach?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank those who have led the debate in our communities, including my hon. Friends the Members for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) and for Brent East (Dawn Butler), and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith)…”

“Okay. I appreciate that clarity, because part of this Report shows really clearly—I think Paulette mentioned this earlier— that, in my view, there is a glaring red light about finances. It is not only about financial sustainability; we are in a financial distress moment now. Quite a lot of hospices are closing beds dow…”

“I picked up on your point earlier that you are not aware of any hospices that are in financial distress. I mean, that—”

“If there is not a perfect model, we are going around in circles. Is there one used in other countries that we think might work?”

“Very briefly, would you suggest more long-term funding models? In local government, we have a three-year settlement cycle now. Lastly, on ICBs, in my area the ICB is supporting the Wisdom hospice. I am very lucky to have an NHS-commissioned service there, but it is a postcode lottery around the country. Is there an exa…”

“My question is on the modern service framework is slightly changed, because this Report was commissioned in October and since its commissioning the Minister, Stephen Kinnock, has delivered the framework in November. However, given all the issues that you have just raised and that are in this Report, does the Minister’s…”

“My point to you, sir, is that if they are making redundancies and reducing bed numbers, that suggests to me that there is financial distress within those organisations, because they are having to go through those processes, including redundancies. Obviously, if they were expanding headcount, that would be because they …”

“I am conscious of time, but I will summarise some of the cases that I have seen. Prospect hospice in Swindon, Birmingham hospice in Birmingham and St Giles hospice in Lichfield are all individual cases that have announced redundancies in the last 18 months and have closed in-patient beds. Those are just three examples …”

“Lastly, as a follow-up, do you accept that the number of beds is reducing in certain parts of the country? Given that the Report indicates that there will be increasing demand, as Paulette highlighted earlier, right now it is going in the wrong direction: we are seeing redundancies, bed closures and reductions in the n…”

“The reason I suggest it might is because, clearly, this programme—as my colleagues have suggested—is not only delayed; it is over-budget. You are right that you are hitting your current key delivery metrics—I know you keep going back to that; as you are a monopoly service, it is good that you are—but the concern is tha…”

“Okay. I have a series of questions specifically on the success of the future programme, including this element on recruitment. Your current delivery metrics show strong performance in net financing, customer satisfaction and value to taxpayers. Do you think that the metrics you currently have are a fair way of measurin…”

“I asked that because paragraph 20 of the Report indicates that there is “more work to do” on governance arrangements and risk management processes. It recognises that “arrangements for managing Programme risks and issues were inadequate” and that that has a potential knock-on effect: “an extremely high level of risk be…”

“Okay. I will move on to contingency around supplier risks in particular. Looking at Atos, and financial and other organisations—you are moving to multiple platforms—is supplier risk, or mitigation of supplier risk, a concern for you?”

“If I may follow up on that, let’s say there are 20 people in house who are dealing with the programme change and hundreds who are not in house, you are basing your judgment of the culture on just those 20. Is there a risk that you are getting a particular view about the programme change from a small number of people, b…”

“To follow up on the cultural point, you said that there has been an employer survey. The organisational numbers are in figure 1, with 254 people. You have then indicated that you have 350 contractors. How many people internally have been asked about the culture in relation to the change programme, and have you also ask…”

“I might come back to that in my questions.”

“On risk, it says in paragraph 20 that you have introduced a new risk management framework. With the issues of supplier risk that we have just mentioned and the programme risks that I started with, do you feel that the risk management framework that you have introduced is cogent enough to pick up on some of those elemen…”

“I appreciate that clarity. You have admitted that you are at the interventionist end. Do you think that the organisation accepts that it is at the interventionist end? Does the public understand that, given we are where we are, there is a systemic issue that needs to be identified within the risk profile of the organis…”

“You have spent £43 million on external consultancy contracts. I have probably not read many Reports where there are so many different consultancies mentioned. There is Capgemini throughout—there seem to be a lot of external contractors highlighted, which then begs the question of whether they have been measured in the …”