Select Committee on Public Administration Seventh Report


3  Previous reports

8. This Committee's predecessor and the Committee on Standards in Public (CSPL) have both, in the past, considered the functioning of the Ministerial Code and, in particular, whether it was desirable or necessary to appoint an independent figure to investigate allegations of breaches of the Ministerial Code. CSPL's position has changed. When the Committee, then chaired by Lord Neill, first considered the matter in its sixth report in 2000, it concluded firmly that "no new office for the investigation of ministerial conduct should be established".[3] However, in a subsequent report in 2003, the Committee, by then chaired by Sir Nigel Wicks, recommended that the Cabinet Secretary and permanent secretaries should have no responsibility for giving advice to Ministers on conflicts of interest arising from the Ministerial Code. Instead, an independent office holder, the Adviser on Ministerial Interests, should advise ministers on appropriate compliance with the Ministerial Code.[4]

9. It also recommended that, at the beginning of each Parliament, the Prime Minister should nominate "two or three individuals of senior standing" who could be asked by him to investigate any alleged breaches of the Ministerial Code.[5] The Government accepted the case for a ministerial adviser but had no wish to be constrained by the appointment of a panel of investigators.[6]

10. This Committee has consistently voiced its concern that Parliament lacks an effective investigatory capacity to act on its behalf where there are allegations of ministerial failure or misconduct. This applies both to major questions about the conduct of the Government which may on occasion result in public inquiries, and to concerns about the behaviour of individual ministers.[7] The various proposals over the years for some form of independent and parliamentary investigation into ministerial conduct have been rejected by governments of both main parties on the grounds that "it would be undesirable to fetter the Prime Minister's freedom to decide how individual cases should be handled".[8] But, as we explore below, the track record for such (departmental) inquiries has not been good and it is arguable that different machinery might have yielded better outcomes for all concerned.


3   Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Reinforcing Standards: Review of the First Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Cm 4557, January 2000, recommendation 12, p. 53 Back

4   Ninth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Defining the Boundaries within the Executive: Ministers, Special Advisers and the permanent Civil Service, Cm 5775, April 2003, Recommendation 3, p. 27 Back

5   Ibid., Recommendation 4, p. 29 Back

6   The Government's Response to the Ninth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Cm 5964, September 2003, pp. 1-4 Back

7   HC (2000-01) 235 and Public Administration Select Committee, First Report of Session 2004-05, Government by Inquiry, HC 51 Back

8   Public Administration Select Committee, Second Report of Session 2001-02, The Ministerial Code: Improving the Rule Book: Government Response to the Committee Third Report of Session 2000-01, HC 439 Back


 
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