Clause 28
9:45 am
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)
I am grateful for that outline. I am not sure about the language, but the hon. Gentleman’s Department has decided to call its pilots trailblazers. In one sense I welcome that, because it implies that the Department is committed to rolling out individual budgets, as it explicitly stated in the White Paper. The pilots—the trailblazers—are designed to work out how best to do so, and the commitment to do so is clear. I am not sure from what he said about DCSF, however, whether that Department has taken the decision in principle to roll out individual budgets because the evidence is clear that pilots deliver significant benefits and the pilots will test how best to do so, or whether the pilots will test whether or not the Department is going to roll out individual budgets. His Department’s commitment is clear, but is DCSF’s commitment equally clear in principle? If so, is it simply testing how best to deliver those individual budgets?