Examination of Witnesses (Quesitons 1-19)
MS JANET PARASKEVA
24 APRIL 2008
Q1 Chairman: Let me extend a warm welcome to Janet Paraskeva who is the First Civil Service Commissioner. It is very nice to see you again. We have come to talk to you about the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill and in particular the element of it concerned with the Civil Service. As you know, this Committee has been banging on for longer than it can remember about the need for legislation on the Civil Service and we now have it, or at least the prospect of it, in a serious form. It is our job, along with other Committees in this House and in the Lords, to look at aspects of this Bill and we are particularly interested in the Civil Service side of it. We turn to you because we would like to know from you, as the First Civil Service Commissioner, what you, in general, think about the Bill as it has been presented to us in draft.
Ms Paraskeva: Thank you for the opportunity to come and give our views. We have spent a considerable amount of time looking at the Bill. In general we want to say we welcome the draft Bill's provisions as they affect the Civil Service. We were very pleased when we heard the Prime Minister launch the Green Paper last July saying that he was going to put the core values of the Civil Service into statute, a recommendation after all made more than 150 years ago. Some people say there is always a rush to legislation but this one certainly was not a rush. One of the other recommendations of Northcote and Trevelyan was that there should be Civil Service Commissioners and we too have been in existence for that length of time though changed in shape, form and status over those years.[1] What we see as the value of this is a real opportunity to put the core values of the Civil Service into statute (honesty, impartiality, integrity, objectivity) and to give an assurance to Parliament, to the public and to the Civil Service that these values matter and they not only matter but they will be protected. It is the adherence to these values which makes the Civil Service the envy of civil servants around the world. We know from visitors to the Commissioner's offices that we are asked time and time again how we manage in this country to have a Civil Service that lives up to these values, and I think that we do. We were also increasingly concerned about the fragile nature of an Order of Council which, after all, could mean that anything could be amended by the government of the day very easily without parliamentary scrutiny. So the statute will be protection against that. Northcote and Trevelyan recommended a short Bill, and we support that, although there may indeed be parts of the Bill that need some further detailed thinking. It does set out the key principles and values but it does not focus on the detail. We do need to work on some of that detail, although it may change over time. It enshrines the core values of the Civil Service on selection on merit and that, we think, is essential. It requires the Minister to publish the Civil Service Code and that, we think, is essential. It sets up a Commission to regulate recruitment to the Civil Service and to hear appeals under the Civil Service Code and creates that Commission as an executive NDPB.[2] The legislation also formalises the current arrangements for special advisers. In broad terms we think the balance is about right between principle and detail, and the need for flexibility in the Code does remain. One of the first things I had to do when I took up the post almost two and a half years ago was to get involved in the rewriting of the 1996 Code. Had that been in legislation we would never have found the time to make the amendments that we needed. The changes we brought about to the Code have actually made significant inroads into people's understanding of the protection there is for them should they be asked to behave improperly. There are, however, a few gaps in the Bill we would like to draw to your attention. The first one is there is nothing there about regulating promotion on merit. This is one of the issues that civil servants talk to us about quite often. The Civil Service Management Code is quite clear: it says that departments and agencies must ensure that "all promotions and lateral transfers follow from a considered decision as to the fitness of individuals, on merit, to undertake the duties concerned".[3] An opportunity will be missed, we think, if the principle of promotion on merit and its regulation were not included in the Bill. The second concern we have is about the removal of GCHQ[4] from the coverage of the Bill. That would mean that selection on merit and the core values would not apply to the civil servants in that department and presumably, therefore, civil servants working at GCHQ would no longer be able to raise concerns with the Commission. That, we think, is a worry. We are already involved in the recruitment of security and counter terrorism posts at the Home Office, the chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee and GCHQ appointments; indeed I was also involved in the director general appointment at MI5 by invitation. I think it does raise a question, if one takes GCHQ out of the case of the Bill along with MI5 and SIS,[5] about the civil servants in those organisations and whether we are treating them almost as if they were in an NDPB rather than as full civil servants. We are asking questions about why all of these organisations are excluded from some kind of regulation. The third point is that the senior levels of the diplomatic service are also excluded and we would like to ask why. We accept that special advisers should be excluded from the requirement given the nature of their personal relationship with the minister involved and that their appointment is only temporary and lasts only as long as the minister concerned. A fourth point is the absence of any reference to the Ministerial Code and the minister's duty to uphold the political impartiality of the Civil Service. We have had one or two queries raised with us by members of the public, and indeed by an MP, about ministers asking civil servants to behave in a way which certainly would show political partiality. Those are the four concerns we have in relation to gaps. We also have some concerns about the wording of the draft schedule which sets up the Commission as an independent body because demonstrating our independence as a Commission is going to be key and we want to make sure that we have the relationship right between government and the Commission. We need to clarify and resolve this with the Government during the consultation and I believe we will be able to do that.
Q2 Chairman: What are you particularly worried about?
Ms Paraskeva: The balance of independence. Are we truly able to challenge, to take decisions, to be in control of our own budget, the staff we believe we need to appoint to the jobs that we know need to be done or indeed would there be undue interference from the Cabinet Office? If we have a senior staffing matter then we believe it is for the Commission to decide the level and appropriateness of the staff we need to appoint and not for that decision to be taken elsewhere. I know you have some concerns too and no doubt you will be asking me about those. We are aware of the concern about whether or not commissioners should have the right to initiate and carry out investigations under the Code if we have not had first an appeal from the civil servant. We believe civil servants are more aware of the Code these days and I suppose, in a sense, we have been saying that we should look at this positively and make sure that people are aware of things rather than trying to deal with any problems that arise after. We are also a little nervous about the resource implications of opening the flood gates to inquiries of all sorts and having to sort those that deal with the Code matters and those that do not. This is a matter we would not enter into lightly and maybe it is an issue we could explore further with you. At the present moment what I do if I am made aware of something that is of concern, and that query has not come from a civil servant, is I write to the head of the Home Civil Service and ask him to invite me to investigate. That arrangement, at the moment, is working very well but of course that depends on the relationship of the two people in office. We remain concerned that any formal power to initiate inquiries under the Code would mean that we could be swamped by disgruntled customers and the resourcing implications could be really quite significant. The second area I think you may want to explore is the whole issue of exceptions and why we allow what appears to be so many exceptions to our recruitment principles. What we see is there are sometimes short-term business needs, short-term projects of several months for example, sometimes secondments of up to two years, and we do also have to have measures in place to help the long-term unemployed or those with disabilities. We have a responsibility as an employer to make sure that we do not put in place procedures that are so rigid that we cannot allow, from time to time, appropriate alternatives. It is something we monitor quite carefully through our auditing of departments through our compliance monitoring regime, and one of the things that departments have to report to us is how they have used exceptions in the more junior posts. The third area is this whole business of laying the Civil Service Code before Parliament. As I understand it, the Bill provides for it but not for Parliament to debate the Code, and clearly that is a matter for the Minister. As I said earlier, I can see why the Code itself should not be on the face of the Bill simply in terms of flexibility, but of course the other side of that is vulnerability. Finally, one last point on something which is often raised with us is the approach of the involvement of ministers to appointments to senior Civil Service jobs. We have, in the last two years, evolved a way of involving ministers which does appear to be satisfying those in post, and that is to invite them, right at the very start, to agree the job and the person specifications for the senior posts and the marketing plan, to comment then on the skills, experience and expertise both of the long list and the short list, then to brief me or my fellow commissioners who chair the competitions or, if they so wish—and this has happened occasionally—to brief the selection panel on the kind of person they are looking for and the kind of skills they believe the post requires. We also allow ministers to brief the individual candidates. A member of our staff actually takes a note of that meeting, partly to protect the minister, the Civil Service and the candidate from any suggestion that favouritism might be present or that a choice that is exercised might raise questions about political impartiality. As I said to start with, the ministers who are involved in this way seem to be more than content with this approach. In conclusion we welcome the publication of the Bill. We agree with the broad thrust of the provisions and we think there are some ways in which it could still be improved and we hope that the period of consultation will allow that work to continue.
Q3 Chairman: I am grateful for that. I doubt we can do justice to all of these issues this morning and we may have to have you back before we are done with this. I am sure you will give us some written evidence which takes those further. Do you think this Bill has more symbolic significance than actual significance?
Ms Paraskeva: Symbolism should not be dismissed as it is quite important. But I think the Bill has more than just symbolic importance. The fact that, for example, the Commission would not be able to be wiped out at the stroke of a pen through an Order of Council is very important. If we had a regime which decided that, let us say, the Civil Service should become a political body, then not to have the core values of the Civil Service in relation to impartiality and objectivity on the face of the Bill would just allow that to take place. It is much more than symbolic and is actually very important in relation to the constitution of this country.
Q4 Chairman: You raised it partly in what you said but there is an expectation that the Civil Service Commission are, in some sense, the regulator of the Civil Service: the people who ensure that the Civil Service behave in ways that we expect them to behave and other people behave in ways in relation to how we expect them to behave. The expectation would be, therefore, that this Bill might firmly put the Civil Service Commission into that role and that would involve it being more activist and operating on a wider front. I am not entirely clear whether you are signing up to that or not. The Bill does not but I was not sure from what you said whether you were signed up to that.
Ms Paraskeva: We certainly describe ourselves these days as a regulator but a regulator of entry on merit with fair and open competition and also a regulator in relation to appeals against the Code. It would take us into a completely different league were we to become a regulator of behaviour. The resource needs of the organisation would change rather radically. I do not think we are arguing for that but that does not mean to say we would not be prepared to discuss it.
Q5 Chairman: We have these periodic rows about politicisation; an ugly word but it matters what is behind it. When those rows blow up, usually around an incident of some kind and we have had a number of these, people expect the Civil Service Commission to be the body that finds out whether this is happening or not and does something about it. That certainly would take you into, as you mentioned, looking at promotion, internal appointment on merit, because the scope for politicisation operates at that point rather than the external point. If you are not actively engaged in that and you are not actively able to investigate these incidents when they arise and provide some sort of assurance, are we not missing a trick here?
Ms Paraskeva: I would think, and I am sure my fellow commissioners believe, we actually do deal with issues in relation to politicisation, it is who raises them with us that is the question. Certainly we have had raised with us queries about whether actions that have been required or asked of the Civil Service are, in fact, political actions. Interestingly, they have quite often been by ministers hence my comment about some reference in the Bill through the crossover with the Ministerial Code. If it is, in fact, politicians who are asking civil servants to behave improperly then that is something that also needs protection within the legislation. We would also expect people to be properly managed within their own departments and expect to be able to report any incidents that we pick up back to the department for the department to deal with. As you know, very few appeals come to us although appeals against the Code are on the increase. One of the things we are beginning to do now is to audit the procedures that departments have themselves for the monitoring of appeals and the way they handle appeals within those departments because we want to find out if civil servants are able to go to their managers and to their nominated officer and share concerns that they have. Which concerns are they? At which level are these problems happening and how widespread is this? Are we just frightened of something that does not exist or is there something that does need to be handled? I think it needs to be handled through the proper management of departments rather than by an outside body.
Q6 Jenny Willott: I would like to ask a couple of questions about one of the issues you mentioned which is around the power to initiate inquiries without having a complaint. In the analysis of the 2004 consultation nobody appeared to agree with the Government's position that the Commissioners did not need that power, including the Civil Service Commissioners I believe. You said you are not opposed to what is being proposed now. What brought around the change of view or is it not really a change of view?
Ms Paraskeva: I am rarely somebody who has ever been described as sitting on the fence but for once in my life I do almost feel as though I am on the fence on this one. Clearly somebody needs to be in a position to investigate and in many senses the Commission is exactly the right body to do that. The fear that we have is that unless that power had some proper limits to it, in terms of the inquiries that we could and should look at, the floodgates would simply open and that we would be asked, because of incidents reported in the media for example, by the public and by MPs to investigate all sorts of issues many of which would have nothing at all to do with the Code. I guess our nervousness is about the resourcing of that and how one would handle that. I do not think that should prevent us looking at how to set it up but it is a very real fear that we would open the flood gates to all sorts of other queries.
Q7 Jenny Willott: Is there potentially a reverse scenario that if you are not able to initiate your own inquiries then there might potentially be a sharp increase in the number of requests by civil servants asking you to get involved in particular issues and look at particular issues because they know that there is no other way you can look into them?
Ms Paraskeva: There may well be and we might argue that is a better way for it to come forward. I think our work is in promoting the Code and helping people to understand that the values are very important and we are there to protect those values. If they somehow are asked to behave in ways that mean they cannot uphold those values and their own department cannot sort that out, they can come to us and we will deal with it. We have seen a slight rise in the number of appeals that are coming forward and that is because we are promoting the Code. We think that is a better way to do it than simply chasing things that have gone wrong afterwards.
Q8 Jenny Willott: In which case, do you know why it was that in 2005 the view of the Commissioners was that you should have the power to investigate and initiate?
Ms Paraskeva: I think it was the same reason that I am on the fence. Somebody does need to make sure that if you are concerned about activity that you can go in and have a look and investigate what is going on. As I have said, the way around it that I have chosen to use is to write to Sir Gus O'Donnell and say we are aware of this issue, would you invite me to have a look at this matter. That has worked very well indeed so far.
Q9 Jenny Willott: The other issue that it raises is the Commissioners before you said they were concerned about the impact it might have on an individual's career if they have to come to you and raise a complaint. If that still remains the only way you can investigate something, do you have the same concerns about the impact that could have on careers?
Ms Paraskeva: That is a real concern whichever way the investigation takes place. If you go in and investigate you are still, in some senses, gaining information from the person who is involved and they may equally feel curtailed in giving that information if they feel that their career is under some threat if they were to put their head above the parapet. One of the reasons we want to audit how departments are handling appeals is we want to audit how appeals are handled within the departments, because one of the things we found out a couple of years ago when we first started to ask ourselves again the question about whether we should have investigatory powers was why is it we are getting so few appeals. Is it that everything is fine or is that there are things that are swept under the carpet? We were told, and I think it is probably absolutely right, that Permanent Secretaries have good systems in their departments for making sure that where civil servants are concerned they can actually raise these matters. They have somebody called a nominated officer who is outside of the HR and line management so that the matters are kept completely confidential. None of us can deny the fact that if you are going to raise a concern of any significance you would be worried about whether or not that would affect your career chances. It is human nature to be worried about that.
Q10 Jenny Willott: Is there any evidence that it does?
Ms Paraskeva: We have certainly looked at complaints from people who believe that it has.
Q11 Jenny Willott: Have you upheld them?
Ms Paraskeva: We are in the middle of two at the moment.
Q12 Jenny Willott: The other issue with the mechanism in the draft Bill is that concerns that you might want to investigate would require the agreement of the Government for you to go ahead. Does that concern you in any way? If you have concerns that the Government would not necessarily want to agree that you investigate, how on earth would you go around that? Is it actually a genuine power to investigate if you have to get their agreement?
Ms Paraskeva: If they said no, what would I do? I would go to the chair of this Committee probably. At the end of the day, there are other places you can go if you feel that you have actually been thwarted in your ability to do your job. I would have thought this Committee was one of the places that one could raise any particular difficulties of that kind.
Q13 Jenny Willott: You are not too concerned about that?
Ms Paraskeva: I am not at the moment. Clearly regimes change, people change, and that is why we need to explore this matter at some length so we put something in place that is not so draconian to be unworkable but at the same time offers some proper protection.
Q14 Jenny Willott: If you had the power to initiate investigations, are there any issues you would want to investigate at the moment?
Ms Paraskeva: I do not know, to be honest. There may be.
Q15 Chairman: I am struck by the fact you seem to be saying, on this question of a wider investigatory role, you accept there is a role to be done, somebody should do it, but you do not think it could be you because of resources.
Ms Paraskeva: We certainly do not have the resources at the moment. The two inquiries that we have with us at the moment will mean that we are going to have resource difficulties because they are of such a serious nature that we are going to need legal advice. There is a very real resourcing issue in this whole area. We may well be the appropriate body but it would change the nature of us as an organisation. It would change the nature of our relationship with government departments, which is one where we try to work in partnership because we believe that is the best way to bring about the best behaviour. That makes me nervous, where you are able to bring about the best change because you have a good working relationship and that is put in jeopardy by a different expectation of your role. I think what I am saying is you do not take that path lightly.
Q16 Mr Walker: How do you regulate behaviour, the interaction between a minister and his or her civil servants?
Ms Paraskeva: We do not regulate behaviour. We can only regulate somebody who complains that behaviour has been inappropriate. In a case fairly recently, which was about a minister who had asked civil servants to do something, indeed to support a piece of legislation, we investigated and found that they were not civil servants but public servants and we had no right to comment at all. All we can do is to respond to somebody who says "My minister has asked me to take an action". We then have to report it to the appropriate channels and that then goes back to Sir Gus O'Donnell.
Q17 Mr Walker: Can we have some examples, because this is a very in-house organisation? There is an audience out there of maybe seven people watching this and they will want to know when does it cease to be a proper relationship and enter into the realms of a political relationship and can you give us some examples.
Ms Paraskeva: If the minister was to ask his or her civil servants to politically support a piece of legislation that they were working on at the time.
Q18 Mr Walker: What is political support? How could a civil servant show or demonstrate political support?
Ms Paraskeva: By speaking in favour of the government's position.
Q19 Mr Walker: If a Bill is going forward civil servants would have drafted that Bill. Do they have a neutral position on that Bill for or against? Their role is purely to draft it and advise on its ramifications.
Ms Paraskeva: Their role is to draft that Bill as objectively as they can in relation to the policies of the government of the day but they are not then able or free to say, in any public arena, this is a Bill that should be supported. That is what it means to be objective and impartial.
1 Stafford Northcote and C E Trevlyan, The Organisation of the Permanent Civil Service, Parliamentary Papers, Volume XXVII, 1854 Back
2 Non-Departmental Public Body Back
3 Civil Service Management Code, Section 6.4 Back
4 Government Communications Headquarters Back
5 Secret Intelligence Service Back
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