Examination of Witness (Questions 880-899)
12 JANUARY 2005
SIR JOHN
GIEVE, KCB
Q880 Mr Heyes: Sir Alan said in his report
that there are long-standing and clearly defined guidelines issued
to private secretaries about the handling of cases in which ministers
have a ministerial or constituency interest. I find it interesting
to compare that in his report with the note that you issued to
staff, a message to all staff on 21 December which says: "Charles
has asked me to make sure there are clear and formal rules for
handling all cases which come to ministerial attention" and
then you incorporate those rules into the note. There is nothing
in the note to suggest that this is an updating or a modification
of existing rules. It appears from your note to be the first time
this has been presented to staff. Is that the case?
Sir John Gieve: No. I should have
perhaps called it a refreshing of the rules and a recirculation
of the rules. I have looked again and there are rules about the
handling of ministerial cases circulated to private offices in
the Home Office which, I think, deal with most of this. I do not
think the last version which I looked at did say anything explicit
about cases in which ministers "had an interest" as
opposed to "were taking an interest" because someone
had raised it with them but actually had a connection. Making
that explicit, that those should be dealt with like constituency
cases only more so—with added care—was, if you like,
the new element to these rules.
Q881 Mr Heyes: Can you be a bit clearer
on that? Which are the words in your note that add to the existing
rules?
Sir John Gieve: I do not think
the final paragraph had been stated before in such explicit terms.
Q882 Mr Heyes: The paragraph that begins:
"Particular care . . ."
Sir John Gieve: Yes.
Q883 Mr Heyes: Within the note you say
that these rules will be "embedded in the detailed rules
and guidance in each business as soon as possible" so the
inference in there is very much, even if written somewhere, they
were not well understood and were not part of the daily culture
of the way you conducted your business.
Sir John Gieve: I am sort of hung
if I do and if I do not here. On the one hand I either have to
say the rules are all perfectly clear and then people would say
that surely it was worth circulating them again and clarifying
them even more because something went wrong in this case. Alternatively
I circulate something which says: "For the avoidance of doubt,
this is how to do it" and you say that it is scandalous that
I have to do it all. My view was that the rules on constituency
cases generally and on other cases that ministers or MPs raise
were set out and were reasonably understood and I think that most
ministers and most officials knew that cases which were for family
and friends needed to be dealt with in a particularly careful
way. I do not think that was news to anyone. I suppose the added
value of this was firstly that it plucked this bit out of what
can be quite long guidance on the shelf about how people should
do things and sent it to all members of staff so that they had
no excuse not to know about it. Secondly, in the light of this
particular case, I spelt out the procedures around cases in which
a minister has a personal interest more explicitly than before.
I thought that was a reasonable thing to do.
Q884 Mr Heyes: When Lord Butler came
to see us some months ago he explained that he relied on permanent
secretaries to lend their names to an assurance that, in his case,
he had seen all the relevant papers. Did you give Sir Alan any
assurances about the release of papers or information to him?
Sir John Gieve: I did give him
an assurance that we would make available to him all the relevant
papers, all the relevant electronic records and he could talk
to and interview anybody he wanted to. So far as I know that is
exactly what happened. I did not carry out my own investigation
in parallel. I did not sit in on the interviews that he had with
various people so I do not know exactly what was said to him.
Our IT department reported directly to him on the e-mails that
they discovered and the telephone records and so on. I sent instructions
both initially and later that we should discuss with him what
might be relevant; the relevant officials who had this information
should discuss with Alan Budd what he would like to know and what
might be relevant and agree with him what he wanted to see and
give it to him. He was not expecting permanent secretaries to
get all the evidence themselves and hand it over to him. Alan
was actually embedded doing the investigation.
Q885 Mr Heyes: You will have heard Sir
Alan saying to us that he did not seek a direct assurance from
you to that effect, that he had seen everything.
Sir John Gieve: He had my assurance
that we would give him everything he wanted. What I could not
do afterwards was to say that he then had everything, partly because
he had more things than I was aware of, for example, the electronic
records. It was not a case of my commissioning them and then giving
them to Alan; he commissioned them directly from the staff who
could find them.
Q886 Mr Heyes: So you are not able to
say categorically to the Committee today that Sir Alan saw all
the papers that were relevant to the case.
Sir John Gieve: I am able to say—to
repeat's Alan's assurance—that he had all the information
that he believed could be recovered. I am quite clear that no
documents were withheld. I believe that because Alan was quite
clear that he got the stuff he asked for.
Q887 Mr Heyes: Those who deal with large
constituency case loads of work that relates to the activities
of the IND would not be surprised to read what we read in Sir
Alan's report when it came out. In fact, if we had had a hand
in writing it, it might have been very much more critical because
our day to day experiences are of a creaking, inept bureaucracy.
There are frequent examples similar to the case that was accelerated
here apparently as a result of an inquiry. Is it not the case
that the ultimate reason for David Blunkett's resignation was
that the Immigration and Nationality Directorate is on the point
of collapse?
Sir John Gieve: No, I do not think
that is the case at all. Firstly, it is not on the point of collapse.
I think it is manifestly getting better. It has been under great
strain, particularly on the asylum side for several years. A few
years ago the IND was under tremendous strain and a number of
backlogs grew up. I think over the last few years those have been
brought down and it is in better shape than it was. Secondly,
manifestly that was not why David Blunkett resigned.
Q888 Mr Heyes: It was as a result of
a twelve month delay in handling a very simple process of applications
for work permits. That is the way the IND works. That is the quality
of the work it carries out, that it takes twelve months to deal
with a fairly simple bureaucratic activity like that.
Sir John Gieve: First of all as
the report brings out, it does not take that long any longer although
there were delays which have now been brought down. Secondly,
the element of truth in what you are saying is that it was because
there were delays in handling inquiries that the issue ever arose
over the nanny. That is true. However, it was not the fact of
the delays that caused his resignation.
Q889 Mr Prentice: Why is record keeping
in the Home Office so poor?
Sir John Gieve: I am not sure
it is so poor. Would you like to elaborate?
Q890 Mr Prentice: The Chairman mentioned
the Hinduja passport affair a few years ago and Anthony Hammond
made recommendations about how private offices should keep records
and so on. Are you telling us that if Sir Anthony Hammond were
to visit the private office in the Home Office everything would
be bang to rights, everything would be as it should be?
Sir John Gieve: No, I am sure
there are respects in which any private office or any office in
the government falls short of a hundred per cent. In this case
clearly the point that Alan could not determine, is the point
of fine detail as to what had been said on the letter when it
was sent round to IND, it is a pity that that was not kept. Part
of the reason for my e-mail and instructions after the event was
to make sure that we are in future scrupulous in keeping details
of the cases that come through the private office. I am not claiming
that everything is perfect, but I do not know what your evidence
is that it is dreadful.
Q891 Mr Prentice: We had the resignation
of Beverley Hughes and there were the allegations made that information
that should have been declared was not properly declared and so
on. Was that not an issue?
Sir John Gieve: I do not think
that Beverley Hughes' resignation bears on record keeping in private
office or indeed elsewhere in the Home Office although it was
an example of the rebuttal cycle that I was referring to earlier.
Q892 Mr Prentice: Is there a case for
a kind of quality control checks dropping into the private office
and making sure that they are doing what they should do and properly
record things?
Sir John Gieve: Yes, absolutely.
There is a case for that in all offices. In the light of the Hammond
report and in the light of further guidance which Andrew Turnbull
sent round more recently about record keeping in private office,
we have a private office handbook, we have rules on what people
should keep. We generally try to do that and part of the job of
the managers of private office is to sample the work of different
private offices and private secretaries to make sure it happens.
Q893 Mr Prentice: I am not saying that
we should aspire to perfection; as you say it will never be one
hundred per cent. What I am asking is if the procedures are going
to be sufficiently robust that if something like this happens
in a few years' time there will be records or an audit trail that
can be followed. That is what I am asking you.
Sir John Gieve: I hope so. That
is certainly our intention. Stepping back a bit I think all government
has had a particular problem in maintaining the full trail since
the introduction of the widespread use of electronic communication.
As you will read in the report, part of the record is kept electronically
and part of it is still kept on paper. There is a question of
whether you should print off your e-mails and put them on the
file and so on. I think the whole of the Civil Service has had
problems about getting consistent rigourous practice around that.
The introduction of Freedom of Information, for example, is going
to put an additional pressure on us to get that right.
Q894 Mr Prentice: On the point of electronic
mail management, where is the guidance on what should be destroyed,
what should be weeded, when should things be destroyed? At what
level is that decision taken? Are you involved? Is a matter just
for the departmental records officer? Is there something on paper
or something electronic that you can point us to, giving us information
on what should be destroyed and what should not?
Sir John Gieve: I can certainly
send to you the guidelines sent round for private offices by Andrew
Turnbull. They are quite specific on how and what should be kept
in an office. There are two models and we have adopted model one
in the Home Office. The private office should send back the key
documents to the policy branch or the executive branch concerned
so they are kept on a single file at the Home Office. We have
that and we have our own handy guide which I would be very happy
to let you have.
Q895 Mr Prentice: Is the departmental
records officer a senior official (we know it is a "he"
in the Home Office)?
Sir John Gieve: He is a grade
six which is quite senior.
Q896 Mr Prentice: Would he take decisions
with reference to you or on his own bat on what should be destroyed?
Sir John Gieve: We generate—or
have generated for us—millions of records and I do not get
involved in the individual cases. He operates by a set of rules
which are approved. They reflect Cabinet Office guidance obviously.
They are probably endorsed by the permanent secretary. That is
the general rule rather than the specific case. We have hundreds
and thousands of files going through this process and this has
to be a delegated function.
Q897 Mr Prentice: Has there been any
revisiting since the going live of the Freedom of Information
Act this month?
Sir John Gieve: We have issued
new guidance about the Freedom of Information Act obviously and
how we should respond to it. That is undoubtedly going to put
an additional pressure on us to get the papers and the electronic
records into good order because the questions you get are: "Could
you tell us everything about X?" and if you are going to
answer that in twenty days it has to be in good order if you are
going to have a chance to do it. Also, we are moving into a new
headquarters building in a month's time so we have had to squeeze
down the amount of paper that we have so far accumulated in Queen
Anne's Gate and that, too, is causing us to look again at what
needs to be kept, what can be sent to the Public Records Office,
what can be filed in various file depots and what needs to be
retained in the headquarters for current use.
Q898 Mr Prentice: Can I just ask about
the responsibility of officials in all this? You told us just
a few moments ago that David Blunkett's private interest was not
declared overtly. You also said earlier that it was the personal
responsibility of each minister to follow the Ministerial Code.
Where do civil servants fit into this? You heard me ask Sir Alan
Budd if it should be part and parcel of the responsibility of
civil servants to periodically remind ministers that if there
is a personal interest the matter should be dealt with by another
minister in the department.
Sir John Gieve: The permanent
secretary, as the Code points out, has a role in ensuring ministers
do record their personal interests and so on and so forth. Mainly
that is about financial interests. I have a role in reminding
ministers about the Ministerial Code. Private secretaries of course
have to deal with issues where there are personal interests and
public interests; what could be charged to expenses and what cannot
be charged to expenses and those sorts of things. This is the
every day life of a private secretary. I do not think these private
secretaries are any different in that respect. When you ask if
periodically do they remind ministers, I do not think they have
a monthly session at which they ask, "Have you read the Ministerial
Code?"; it depends what comes up.
Q899 Chairman: Is the job of civil servants
to protect ministers from themselves sometimes?
Sir John Gieve: I know what you
mean.
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