House of Commons - Public Administration

Select Committee on Public Administration First Special Report

Report

1. We are making this special report to the House to draw its attention to continued difficulties for select committees in eliciting evidence from the centre of government. We believed there was now a presumption that Special Advisers should give evidence to select committees in appropriate cases. Our experience suggests that this is not so. Despite new assurances that select committees would be given access to the witnesses they need, we have found our work hampered by an unwillingness to permit key advisers from No. 10 Downing Street to give evidence.

2. In July this year, as part of its work programme for the new Parliament, the Committee resolved to inquire into the place of long-term strategy and planning in government. This inquiry focuses on the role of the centre in strategic planning, the relationship between the centre and individual departments in the strategic planning process, and the outcomes of strategic work within government.

3. Although it is mainly civil servants who are engaged in strategic work, both at the centre and in departments, strategy work is also often carried out by people brought into the Civil Service for this specific function. In addition to the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit where staff are, in part, employed on short-term contracts, outsiders are also brought into No. 10 to advise the Prime Minister. These strategists often carry out work which is much less visible to public and parliamentary view.

4. The Committee considered that, in view of his key role as the Prime Minister's Strategy Adviser, Lord Birt would be ideally placed to help us in explaining how long-term strategic thinking is undertaken at the centre of government, how issues are identified and what then happens as a result. After an unsuccessful approach by the Clerk of the Committee through the Cabinet Office, the Chairman wrote to Lord Birt on 27 October inviting him to give oral evidence to the Committee. Despite making public interventions earlier this year in the Guardian and at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Lord Birt replied on 2 November declining the invitation to explore these relatively technical and noncontentious process issues with the Committee.

5. In his reply, Lord Birt maintained that "both the lecture and the interview reflect my experience in broadcasting rather than my role as an unpaid adviser to the Prime Minister". We do not believe this distinction can easily be sustained. Lord Birt's views were no doubt of interest because of his past experience as Director General of the BBC; but they were of much additional interest because of his current position and influence. Lord Birt managed to conduct an interview dealing with the future governance of the BBC (an extremely live policy issue) with perfect propriety. We do not understand why he could not give evidence to us on the much less controversial issue of the mechanics of strategic thinking within government. Whether or not he is paid for the work he undoubtedly undertakes for the Prime Minister seems to us to be irrelevant. On that logic, the Government could be completely unaccountable, as long as those who worked for it were rich enough.

The Osmotherly Rules and their revision

6. Civil Service guidance to officials on select committee appearances, the so-called "Osmotherly Rules", sets out the general principle that officials give evidence on behalf of their Ministers or under their direction. Government has recognised that if an official is unable to answer a committee's questions because of his duty to—or instructions from—the Minister, the relevant departmental Minister would be prepared to attend instead. If there is continuing dissatisfaction, the Government has undertaken to make time for a debate on the floor of the House.[1] The Osmotherly Rules are an internal government document which has never been accepted or approved by the House or its committees.[2]

7. These Rules were recently revised.[3] The inquiry undertaken by Lord Hutton into the death of Dr David Kelly revealed a clear disparity between public inquiries set up by Ministers and by select committees with regard to the provision of persons and papers.[4] As a result the Liaison Committee urged the Prime Minister to review the rules relating to the availability of witnesses and evidence to select committees.[5]

8. Giving evidence to the Liaison Committee on 3 February 2004, the Prime Minister agreed:

9. Asked about progress when he gave evidence again on 6 July 2004, he added that:

10. In addition he conceded that:

On 19 October 2004, the then Leader of the House, Rt Hon Peter Hain MP, provided the Liaison Committee with copies of the revised guidance. He stated that:

Asked directly if there had been a clear change, and that the Government was now specifically offering up Special Advisers, he replied "Yes",[10] adding that:

He concluded by resting on the principle that it is for Ministers to decide who is best able to speak for them in particular cases.

11. The Liaison Committee welcomed these developments, but sounded a note of caution:

The Committee's experience

12. We regret to report that this Committee's experience has been disappointing. Given our cross-cutting remit to consider the performance of civil service departments, it is important that we can hear evidence from those at the centre of government who are called on to advise on those public policy issues affecting the whole of government. Only in this way can the Committee, and Parliament, understand better how such cross-cutting policies and strategies are devised and implemented. In refusing to allow its key Special Advisers to appear before the Committee on inquiries which are directly germane to their work, the Government, and No. 10 in particular, has failed to live up to its undertakings of last year. This is hampering, unnecessarily, the ability of Parliament to undertake effective scrutiny.

13. This is not the first time the Committee has invited expert advisers to the Prime Minister to give evidence. On 14 December 2004, two months after Peter Hain's evidence to the Liaison Committee, we invited the Prime Minister's senior policy adviser on choice (Professor Julian le Grand) to give evidence. The Committee was then inquiring into choice in the public services and he would clearly have been an important witness.[13] We also had reason to think that he wanted to give evidence to us. However, on 22 December he replied that:

14. In response to our first letter requesting Lord Birt's appearance, the Cabinet Office told us "The Prime Minister has given the matter serious consideration" and that "he feels that Stephen [Aldridge] as the Acting Director of the Strategy Unit is best placed to answer any questions which the committee may have on strategic thinking and planning in government." But our focus was not just about the work of the Strategy Unit. It was also on the role of outsiders in the policy making process. Our interest was in Lord Birt's specific contribution, since one of the issues we are addressing is the way in which outsiders are, and might be, brought into the Government's work on long-term strategy.

15. It is clear that there is strong resistance to the appearance of Special Advisers from No. 10 Downing Street. We are disappointed that the Prime Minister appears to feel that there is no presumption that his own key Advisers will appear before select committees when they are requested to do so, notwithstanding the general undertakings that have recently been given to select committees on this matter.

Attendance of Members of the House of Lords

16. In this case we face additional difficulties because Lord Birt is a member of the other House. In 2003 the Transport sub Committee of the Committee on Transport, Environment and the Regions was similarly rebuffed in relation to Lord Birt, who was at that time advising on transport policy. As the Committee said:

"18. This Committee, like other Select Committees, faced by a recalcitrant witness, has the power to summon him or her to appear. We would undoubtedly have used that power to summon Lord Birt, but cannot because he is a Member of the House of Lords, like so many of the Prime Minister's advisers. Accordingly, he is able to hide behind the convention, established long ago, for utterly different circumstances, that Members of the other House cannot be summoned to appear before House of Commons' Committees. We understand the reasons for this convention in general, but it should not be used to enable the Prime Minister's or other Ministers' advisers to evade scrutiny by Departmental Select Committees".[

It recommended that the two Houses should examine this problem, but there has been no progress. We recommend that this should be addressed in the next stage of reform of the House of Lords. Government advisers should not be able to evade parliamentary scrutiny simply because they are Members of the other House.

Conclusion

17. The Liaison Committee has undertaken to monitor the extent to which the assurances accompanying the new Osmotherly Rules are being put into practice. We have agreed to this Special Report as a way of putting our experiences on the record, and to bring to the attention of the House our dissatisfaction with a situation which prevents the Committee having access to inquiry witnesses it needs.

1 Cabinet Office, The Working of the Select Committee System, Cm 1532, p 11. Back

2 Erskine May, 23^rd Edition, (London 2004), p 761. Back

3 Cabinet Office, Departmental Evidence and Response to Select Committees, July 2005. Back

4 Lord Hutton, Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly C.M.G., HC (2003-04) 247. Back

5 Liaison Committee, Minutes of Evidence, HC 310-i, Q 1 Back

6 Ibid. Back

7 Liaison Committee, Minutes of Evidence, HC 310-ii, Q 144. Back

8 Ibid. Back

9 Liaison Committee, Minutes of Evidence, HC 1180-i , Q 1. Back

10 Liaison Committee, Minutes of Evidence, HC 1180-i, Q 26. Back