Examination of Witnesses (Quesitons 40-47)
MS JANET PARASKEVA
24 APRIL 2008
Q40 Mr Prentice: Going back to what I said about people being appointed other than on merit, you said that exceptions could include bringing someone in for short-term business needs. The Civil Service is now incredibly porous; there is movement out of the Civil Service and into the Civil Service. The previous Prime Minister said a few years ago this is the way he wanted things to go. Under the present Prime Minister there is this leakage—I was going to say haemorrhage—of people who are civil servants into the private sector. I am thinking of Jobcentre Plus and so on and so forth. How can you police merit when there is this movement in and out of the Civil Service on a scale that is quite unprecedented?
Ms Paraskeva: Remember that 95% of recruitment is delegated to departments. What we do is audit their procedures against our principles. They have to answer to us through that audit process that they are following the principles which are about open and fair competition and appointment on merit. They give themselves a risk rating and where that risk rating over a number of years remains high then we need to expose that and ask them how they are putting their procedures right. The competitions that we chair for the most senior posts would also include for the top 200 all of those posts which might be managed moves, promotions, external appointments and also, because of my involvement in the Senior Leadership Committee, any of the exceptions to that. By being involved in those procedures I think we can regulate, through our involvement, at the very top end, and that happens quite effectively.
Q41 Chairman: There has been huge attention over the years to the exemptions, particularly to the extent to which there be can political appointees brought into government. You think of the attention given to the special adviser issue over the years. I want to ask you precisely whether you think the Bill gets that right. In a more general sense, from the political end, I wanted to ask about this curious relationship between ministers and civil servants. We had this discussion when we were doing an inquiry some time ago. The question arose as to the fact that we sit at the very end of a kind of international spectrum in terms of the ability of politicians to bring their own people into government and the huge fuss about this small number that do come in. We have the situation where ministers come in, put there by the head of government, but they are not given the ability to appoint the people who are going to do the business for them. Jenny, when we had this discussion, said when she ran a voluntary organisation she would never have taken the job on those terms if she could not have appointed the people to do the job for her. What I am asking you is, is there not a necessary tension here and have we got it right in terms of the ability of politicians to make sure they can get their people and have we got it right, in particular, about what we are saying about special advisers?
Ms Paraskeva: We have to remember that very few of us who have run organisations ever manage with the luxury of appointing all our own people. We usually inherited the team that was there and had to do what we had to do in the best way possible. I think that is what happens; ministers come and go.
Q42 Jenny Willott: It depends how vicious you are!
Ms Paraskeva: You then have to get rid of them but you inherit what you inherit. Ministers come and go and what we need to make sure is there is a stable and impartial Civil Service. That, I think, is why, when you asked me at the beginning whether the Bill was really important or whether it was some kind of the demonstration of intent, I said it is more than symbolic. You inherent the team that you have and that team must have been appointed to do the job properly. The issue of special advisers, in a sense, ought to give greater protection to the Civil Service to be objective and to give that advice in as objective a fashion as possible because the special adviser is somebody that the minister has brought with them and is able to put the political overlay onto the advice that is given. In a way that triumvirate is quite a good one. The minister is looking for the best possible advice and the objective civil servant is able to bring together the policy advice in relation to the policies of the government of the day but without any political bias. The special adviser is then able to say to the minister "But if you go this way X, if you go that way Y" in the political arena. I think that is a very helpful balance.
Q43 Chairman: There is no limit set in the Bill in terms of the number of special advisers. All that is being asked is that every year you have to account for how many you have appointed and how much they cost so potentially you could change quite significantly the balance between the permanent and the politically appointed.
Ms Paraskeva: The way it is written at the moment means you could run a coach and horses through the entirety of the Civil Service because there is no comment upon the number nor is there comment upon their role in relation to the permanent Civil Service. I might suggest that we would look at saying something about the role of the special advisers in relation to senior civil servants and who can instruct whom otherwise we may have left a rather large hole.
Q44 Chairman: Does this Bill tell us who the Civil Service belongs to? Who does it belong to?
Ms Paraskeva: Does the Bill tell us? I do not know that it does. It serves the government of the day and it belongs to the people of this country. Maybe it should say it more clearly.
Q45 Chairman: We have argued that Parliament should have more of a role in this in terms of setting you up, funding you, being reported to, and keeping an eye on you and protecting you. The Bill does not do any of that, does it?
Ms Paraskeva: In relation to the Commission or the Civil Service?
Q46 Chairman: In terms of the Commission.
Ms Paraskeva: In terms of the Commission, no. The NDPB model does not give us the kind of relationship that we have talked about in terms of this Committee. I hope it would not prevent us doing the kinds of things that we have talked about, which is actually presenting our annual report to you and holding ourselves much more accountable to Parliament in that way. That can only be good in terms of the transparency of the work and accountability for our role. My being accountable to the Queen is, with respect to Her Majesty, not workable. My appraisal is out of date.
Q47 Kelvin Hopkins: It has been suggested to me that our draft of the Civil Service Bill is much better than what the Government has come forward with. Do you think that is fair?
Ms Paraskeva: The diplomatic answer would be to say that there is good in both. I actually believe that and I do think the consultation period should give us a chance to do some further work on areas of detail that we have discussed this morning. We have done very productive work with our colleagues in the Cabinet Office and feel very positive about that but not all the ends are tied yet and I hope we might have further conversations here so that we can get the best Bill possible.
Chairman: We have rushed through that and we may have to return to it. We are conscious of the fact that having waited 150 years we ought to make sure we try and get this as right as we can and we look to you to help us with that. I am sure you will be writing to us and we may be talking again but thank you very much for this morning.
| 
