50
3 May 1989]
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE
Sir PATRICK Wright, kcmg, Mr D BLATHERWICK, OBE, Mr D Moss, CMG, Miss C PESTELL, CMG, Mr G Griffiths and Mr AR PAUL
[Chairman Contd]
and from that meeting a number of secondments flowed. As I say, I should like to do more. The difficulty frankly is much more on the side of pri- vate sector than on our side. Companies find it difficult to release good people for secondment and individuals are, I think, nervous of leaving the private sector for a spell without the sort of assur- ance that a bureaucracy can give its employees that they will come back and continue their careers.
101. The pattern of the labour market is chang- ing, of course, with something approaching half the people in the labour market now not working for large companies and many people finding that in their late forties they want a change of career. I understand from the latest figures that this is tend- ing to become almost the norm with more than half the population thinking in those terms. Are you confident that your officers are sufficiently in contact not just with the great corporations but with the smaller end of the labour market where a lot of very talented people complete one career in their early forties and look round for something
else to do?
(Sir Patrick Wright) I think it is very much with this in mind that the age limit for fast stream entry has been raised. It is early to see what the effect of this will be. I do not want to give the impression that either our secondments or our contacts are only with large businesses. Indeed, you will find that most people who have engaged in commercial work in the service have probably had more con- tact with small business than with large ones because it is very often the small business that tends to come for help to posts and one gets, through that, a pretty wide series of contacts with small businesses throughout the country.
Mr Temple-Morris
102. I want to underline a point upon which Sir Patrick touched a few moments ago. An admirable scheme such as this, which I am sure we would agree is worthy of expansion as much as is practi- cally possible, depends on both sides on the people involved seeing it in their own career interests to take advantage of such a scheme. I believe you are intimating that it is easier for you to guarantee your boys that their future within the service is safe than it is in the private sector. I take it from that that many people in business do not like to be away from home base for too long or they tend to lose their positions?
(Sir Patrick Wright) I think that is the problem. We have drawn to the attention of companies that if they are going to second people to us it really is important for the future success of the scheme that secondee is seen to benefit from this and that it enhances his position and job in the company concerned.
103. Is there anything you can do to help in this way in what you do, where you place the various people that come in from industry?
(Sir Patrick Wright) We try very hard, and I think and hope we succeed, to give our inward
[Continued
secondees good, challenging jobs which will give them an insight into how service in the office works. They are put to work the moment they come to us, usually at home, but by no means always. I think I may also have referred in this Committee in the past to the fact that two success- ive inward secondees filled the post of commercial counsellor in Mexico City, both from the same company, and a very considerable success they
were.
Chairman: May we now turn to the important issue of training.
Mr Jopling
104. Sir Patrick, you may remember that last year I asked you a number of questions about training. You told the Committee that it was "deplorable" that shortages of staff meant that you were not able to spare people for the sort of training which they needed. You sent us further infor- mation later with regard to language training by submitting an annex which indicated that without manpower constraints language training could be expanded by 16 per cent and non-language training by 22 per cent. Is that situation as bad now as it was then or have you improved?
(Sir Patrick Wright) No, it is not. I do not know what adjective I should use this year, but it is better. This is partly accounted for by the drop in the shortfall. We have therefore a slightly bigger mar- gin to play with. We have managed to increase our training performance and improve our training performance over the last year. I am told-I find it difficult to envisage quite what this means— that we have done 64 man years of non-language training in the last year, which is up by six man years over the previous year so that is a 10 per cent improvement in non-language training.
105. Does that then mean that without man- power constraints non-language training could be expanded by last year's figure less 10 per cent, namely, 20 per cent?
(Sir Patrick Wright) If we eliminated the short- fall I think it would undoubtedly have a good effect on the overall training level, but the improvement is accounted for not only by the improvement in shortfall, that is to say, we have put a great deal of effort in the last year into increasing the number of courses available and exhorting managers to release people, including themselves, for training courses, and I think we are seeing quite a satisfac- tory result from that.
106. Can you this morning update those two figures that you gave us last year of 16 per cent for language training and 22 per cent for non-language training? I gather from what you said that the non- language training would be reduced to the extent of 20 per cent?
(Sir Patrick Wright) I am sorry, Mr Chairman, may I send a note on that. I am not sure I have the comparable figures. What I can tell you, as I have already mentioned, is that non-language training is up by 10 per cent in the last year from the
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