Accountability of Civil Servants: Constitution Committee Report

Lord Wilson of Dinton Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Dinton]

My Lords, I welcome the report, which charts a careful and thoughtful path through complex constitutional issues which it would be easy to get wrong. There is much in it with which I agree and which I welcome. For instance, I welcome the endorsement of the principle of ministerial accountability to Parliament. As the Government recognised in their belated response, civil servants are accountable to Ministers and Ministers are accountable to Parliament. That is fundamental, and it is good to see it endorsed by the committee.

I also welcome the endorsement of what I think of as the Northcote-Trevelyan principle of recruitment on merit on the basis of fair and open competition. Those things may seem obvious, but they are bedrock to how we run our government, and it is important that they are understood, because we have no written constitution to which we can refer.

That said, inevitably, there are a number of points in the report which I would like to add to, retract or disagree with. The principle that Ministers account and that civil servants appear before Parliament on behalf of their Ministers is important to defend and understand. I note that it was asserted in evidence to the committee that the idea that civil servants are unfortunate, beleaguered public servants who cannot speak for themselves is from a past era. That I disagree with. You have only to watch some poor beleaguered civil servants still appearing before Select Committees to know that that is untrue. Civil servants go before Select Committees to explain the Government’s policy—they are not there in their own right. That has a consequence: it is necessary, if Ministers are going to have civil servants appear before Parliament to explain their position, that the Minister should be able to choose who does that.

If a Select Committee wants to summon a named official, it can of course do so, but there will inevitably be occasions when the Minister wants to choose who responds on their behalf. When I appeared before the Public Administration Committee as the Cabinet Secretary, the chairman complained after a while that, whoever he asked to appear, he always seemed to get me. I can understand the frustration that that caused, but it was the fact that the Prime Minister wanted me to explain the Government’s policy, the facts and, in the end, I think that the Government will hold to that position.

It is also the case that civil servants should in no way be disciplined by a Select Committee. Select Committees are not equipped to carry out that task. In many ways, they are arenas that can be very unfair and they are in no way equipped or trained to carry out the kind of fair processes that disciplinary arrangements require. I agree very much with the excellent speech of the noble Baroness, who I thought got it absolutely right. I agreed with pretty much everything that she said on that subject.

Similarly, I note and understand the view that retired civil servants should be able to be summoned before Select Committees. I argue only that there should be some form of statute of limitation. There must come some point when people are spared that recall. I remember one sad occasion in the 1990s, which people may not remember, where a former civil servant was summoned to account for something that had happened. He was not well—the Select Committee did not know that—and the whole thing covered everyone with a certain embarrassment. It is important that this should be done with some sense of proportion and appropriateness, but, in the end, Select Committees probably should be able to call back the only people who can explain what happened.

Other things in the report raised a wry smile. I noted the proposal that Ministers should be able to contribute to the appraisal of selected civil servants. This is not new. There was a process introduced in the 1990s that Ministers should be asked to comment on the performance of their Permanent Secretaries. I remember it. The Minister concerned will remain nameless—there could be more than one. I kept reminding him that he had not yet said anything for my appraisal. In the end, I went to see him to ask him to do it because we were way beyond the timetable and he said, “Will you draft me something?”, so there is a theory here which may not entirely conform with the facts. I do not ask the Minister to comment on that.

As to staying in the job, again, it is a noble ideal but it may not be so easily implemented in practice. When I proposed to Mr Blair as Prime Minister the setting up of the Delivery Unit, the concept was that the Government should select two or three topics in particular areas to which the Civil Service would pay close attention and devote its very best resources to achieve results over a given period, and that named officials should be assigned to those projects and remain with them until the end, accountable for whatever was required to happen. I do not think that it proved practicable. The world moves on; Ministers change; circumstances change; things happen to the people concerned. It is a highly desirable objective, but in practice it has to be tempered realistically with the way the world is.

I want to say two important things. First, I do not agree with the committee that accountability and responsibility are the same. The distinction between accountability and responsibility is useful. I think Ministers are accountable to Parliament in the sense of being liable to give an account, but I do not think that they carry responsibility for everything that they are accounting for. The air is thick these days with people demanding accountability and in the same breath demanding sacking. We need to be absolutely clear that the people who give an account are not necessarily the people who should be held responsible. I would wish to stick to this distinction, which originates with my noble friend Lord Armstrong from the Armstrong memorandum, if I remember correctly.

The other point I want to make is the importance of having the right people of the right quality in government. These proposals in the Constitution Committee’s report need to be seen in the context of the challenge that the Civil Service faces at the moment. The scale of reduction in the size of the service is astonishing. The reduction in size is bigger than the entire worldwide workforce of a company such BP. That is a challenge which no private sector company, other than one going bankrupt, has to face. It has been done at the same time as pay and pensions are under pressure, which is bound to affect morale. The Government are asking the Civil Service to implement major radical changes across a great broad front such as health, education, defence, Europe and welfare. All these things are demanding. It will require enormous skill and ability to implement those challenges, at a time when there is great churn. The choice of people for these jobs is crucial. It concerns me very much that so many people at the top of the Civil Service are leaving. I believe that only two out of 16 key Permanent Secretaries are still in post over the past two or three years. That is a big worry.

The last thing that the Civil Service needs at the moment is a demand for constitutional change. The Government’s best chance of achieving the scale of change that they are seeking is if they work closely in unity on a basis of trust with the Civil Service within a constitutional framework that is understood and accepted by everyone, without attempts to challenge what are bedrock principles.

Permanent Secretaries are in the public eye. If Ministers choose them, they will be perceived as people who are—I try to avoid the word “cronies”—the chosen people of that Minister. That could lead to very unfortunate consequences. If a Minister chooses a civil servant, that may not be the Permanent Secretary who his or her successor needs. Permanent Secretaries need to be people who can serve the current Minister, the next Minister and possibly a Minister from another Government. It is crucial that they are people who can serve Governments of any political complexion. If one Minister chooses them, that is something which is likely to lead to subsequent Ministers saying, “I want my person. If my predecessor had their person, I want the person who is my own choice”. The perception outside that it has become politicised is a real one. It is not theoretical—it is real.

However reasonable it sounds, there is a thin red line which the First Civil Service Commissioner is entirely right to defend. It is of fundamental importance. Noble Lords who have been Ministers will forgive me, but there is no evidence that the people who Ministers would choose would do the job better than the people who are chosen by the First Civil Service Commission. The importance of holding to the position which the First Civil Service Commissioner has outlined is fundamental. I would be very concerned indeed if there were to be any concessions on that.

Noble Lords will understand that there is much more that I wish to say. There needs to be a general acceptance of the constitutional deal that underlies the Civil Service. Governments who wish to achieve big change need to work within the constitution. It does not help to attack any of the principles that are bedrock to the way the Civil Service works.