Supplementary memorandum by the Regional
Co-ordination Unit (UWP 117A)
When I appeared before the Environment, Transport
and Regional Affairs Select Committee on 12 April, I undertook
to write with information about the number of senior civil servants
with Government Office experience.
The Regional Co-ordination Unit has obtained
the information below from the Department of the Environment,
Transport and the Regions, the Department of Trade and Industry,
and the Department for Education and Employment—the three
"parent" Departments of the Government Offices.
Information about senior civil servants is not
held uniformly by all three Departments and for this reason, I
am unable to provide the Committee with an overall figure of the
senior civil servants in question. However, I have disaggregated
figures for the three Departments, based on their respective criteria—although
I should stress that these differ widely. I hope, nonetheless,
that the Committee will be able to gain an overall view of the
numbers involved.
In DETR, approximately 25 per cent of Senior
Civil Servants, or 51 people, have had Government Office experience.
This figure does not include DETR Senior Civil Servants currently
on loan to other Government Departments or in DETR agencies. The
25 per cent figure is based on data going back to 1970.
In DTI, approximately 9 per cent of Senior Civil
Servants, or 22 people, have had Government Office experience.
This figure does include DTI Senior Civil Servants currently on
loan to other Government Departments but does not include those
working in DTI agencies. The 9 per cent figure is based on data
going back to 1988, when the DTI computer records holding such
information were set up.
In DfEE approximately, 11 per cent of Senior
Civil Servants, or 15 people, have had Government Office experience.
This figure does include DfEE Senior Civil Servants currently
on loan to other Government Departments but does not include those
working in DfEE agencies. The 11 per cent figure is based on data
going back to 1 April 1996, when the Senior Civil Service was
established in DfEE.
As I said to the Committee, I want there to
be an environment where working in a regional office is a worthwhile
career move, and where there is as much interchange as possible
between departmental headquarters and regional offices. I and
Ministerial colleagues fully endorse the recommendation in the
PIU report "Reaching Out" that Government Offices and
Whitehall should actively plan for greater interchange of staff
between functions within the same region. This is fully in line
with Sir Richard Wilson's report of December 1999 to the Prime
Minster, "A civil service for the 21 century", which
forms part of the wider Modernising Government agenda. We want
to encourage greater mobility between Departments and externally
through secondments. In future, staff will need experience of
frontline delivery and of working in more than one type of organisation
to reach the senior civil service.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton QC Minister
of State Cabinet Office
21 May 2000
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