Downing Street Says » Government Contracts

Asked if the government was happy that Capita had not received preferential treatment, the PMOS said that contracts were dealt with in the usual way, which was by officials not ministers. Asked why then had Rod Aldridge resigned if he had not thought his loan would affect Capita contracts, the PMOS said that it was up to Mr Aldridge to explain why he had resigned. All companies were treated in the same way when applying for contracts, which was through a tendering process.

Put that this resignation added to the impression that something was not right, the PMOS said that one of the problems that this highlighted was that if people were going to end up with this degree of media scrutiny it acted as a deterrent to anyone who was thinking of donating to any political party. This was why we needed to have an objective assessment by Sir Hayden Philips of how we dealt with party funding. If you were going to have a democracy you needed to have parties that were funded in some way. However, recent events had clearly illustrated the problems that individuals faced if they came under this type of media scrutiny.

Asked if he was suggesting that the scrutiny was unwarranted or invalid, the PMOS said that there also had to be a recognition that it was perfectly legitimate for anyone to contribute to any political party they wanted. If the immediate assumption was that someone who had contributed to a political party had done something wrong, which had been the underlying assumption by some of the media coverage, that was not only wrong, it was also a deterrent to those who wanted to contribute. People needed to think very seriously about the impact that had on democracy. If journalists were seriously suggesting that somebody who donated to any party should be automatically be barred from competing for government contracts in the same way as everyone else, that would be a very strange world.

Asked what role ministers played in contracts, the PMOS explained that ministers formally signed off contracts but that they did not actually decide anything in the assessment process, this was done by officials. Asked what the Prime Minister would do to allay concerns of businesses bidding for contracts, the PMOS said that you had to ask the question should people who contributed to any political party be barred from bidding for government contracts. You only had to pose that question to know the answer.

Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with the Chancellor who had said that this had shaken public trust, the PMOS said that we had acted. We had, today, appointed Sir John Bourn. We had set out that the Prime Minister had relinquished his role in honours nominations. We had established the Sir Hayden Philips role to seek consensus amongst the parties on funding. So in terms of responding to the perception we had addressed this. There was no doubt that there were perception problems over party funding, however, what we had to do was not just point out that there were problems but find solutions. The problem with much of the recent coverage had been that people seemed to assume that there was a magic solution, which there was not. If you looked at the possible options of personal, business or trade union contributions versus state funding there were difficulties surrounding each. There was no easy solution. However, people did seem to jump to negative conclusions about individual donors, which was also a problem.

Put that there was a suggestion that if it had not been for Jack Dromey none of this would have come to light, the PMOS said that in terms of transparency this government had introduced transparency for donations, the Electoral Commission and the Appointments Commission. The Prime Minister had also said at his monthly press conference that he accepted that once you started down the road of transparency you had go the whole way.

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» Thursday, March 23, 2006

Government Contracts

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