Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
RT HON ED MILIBAND MP AND SIR GUS O'DONNELL KCB
29 APRIL 2008
Q120 David Heyes: But the draft Bill gives total exemption for diplomatic appointments.
Sir Gus O'Donnell: It allows for that exception. I would want that exception to be used incredibly rarely.
Q121 David Heyes: What about Crown appointments, what is the justification for exempting them?
Sir Gus O'Donnell: What particular ones are you thinking about?
Q122 David Heyes: I do not know but that is the provision that the following selections are exempt from this requirement: selections for appointment to be made directly by Her Majesty.
Sir Gus O'Donnell: They are Royal Household appointments.
Q123 David Heyes: And the reason they are exempt?
Ed Miliband: My understanding is those would be the people who work in the Royal Household who are in a particular position in relation to the Royal Family, and I think we can understand some of the reasons why those might be exempt.
Q124 David Heyes: The Chairman has referred to your response to our proposal about pre- appointment hearings. In responding to us, you said that the reason for not having preappointment hearings for senior diplomatic appointments is because all public appointments are made on merit. Is there not a clear contradiction here?
Ed Miliband: If I may on this, I understand, just to echo what Gus said in relation to the Diplomatic Service, that this should be a power that is used very rarely. We have actually looked back at the historical records on this and it may interest the Committee to know there have been 11 such appointments in the last 40 years, starting in 1968, so this is a power that is used very rarely. If the Committee has concerns about this, I do not think that pre-appointment hearings are really going to be the way to solve this. Pre-appointment hearings are designed—and this is something the Committee very much recognises in its report—for posts, and I quote from your report, "for which accountability to Parliament and the public are an important part of the role". If you are talking about the Governorship of Hong Kong for example, I do not think that is in the same category, so the Committee might want to look for remedy, if it worries about this issue in relation to the Diplomatic Service, and I think it is justified because it is a very rare power that would be used, but I do not think the pre-appointment hearings is necessarily the remedy for that.
Q125 Chairman: Can I just come in on David's question on Crown appointments, I think you had better drop us a note on this because I do not think it can be the case we are simply talking about Royal Household appointments here; we are talking about appointments that are made by the Prime Minister in the name of the Queen, there is a category of appointments, and I think you ought to dig out the category and tell us about it and then try and tell us why that category should be exempt from appointment on merit?
Ed Miliband: Fine, we will do so.
Q126 David Heyes: As I said, the draft Bill is strong on merit in terms of appointment, but it does not have the same requirements in relation to advancement and promotion; why is that?
Ed Miliband: Gus, you might want to talk about that because they are directly in relation to your role.
Sir Gus O'Donnell: When we get somebody in the Civil Service, and we are absolutely clear about this, that at the top levels of the Civil Service we are into fair and open competition. As you manage someone, the half a million civil servants, through their careers, there are all sorts of considerations where you can have managed moves and the like, so I do not think it would make sense to micromanage this very much. What I have done is to bring the Civil Service Commissioner into the appointments for example of all permanent secretaries and now I have extended that to the top 200, so she has a role in all of those appointments and I think that has gone much further than we have ever done before and I think that is really useful, but I do not think we should get her in to micromanage all the individual promotions. That is a job for managers within departments to do.
Q127 David Heyes: The lack of any Code to support promotion and advancement leaves the door open, does it not, for ministerial vagaries? We all remember the Thatcher test about "Is he one of us?" There should be an opportunity in this Bill to close that down.
Sir Gus O'Donnell: This will be covered by the whole of the top 200 appointments within the Civil Service which are under a competitive process with the Civil Service Commissioners involved on all of those posts.
Q128 Mr Prentice: I think I am right in saying that when we had the First Civil Service Commissioner in front of us last week, Janet Paraskeva, she expressed some concerns about this, that although recruitment into the Civil Service is on merit, then promotion once inside the Civil Service is not necessarily on merit. I hope I am not putting words into her mouth.
Sir Gus O'Donnell: It is on merit.
Q129 Chairman: No, she was saying it did not come under the rubric of the Civil Service Commissioners and that is what her concern was.
Sir Gus O'Donnell: But it is regulated, it is within our standard employment methods. What I am saying is for the whole of the half million Civil Service that is what we do.
Q130 Mr Prentice: Okay, so people are promoted on merit, that is what you are saying?
Sir Gus O'Donnell: Yes.
Q131 Mr Prentice: I was just going back to the Treasury Capability Review, and you were the former Permanent Secretary there, and on page 21 it says that 37% of the Treasury's senior civil servants believe that there is a fair system of career progression. It got me thinking about the other 63 %. The most recent staff survey confirms that confidence in the system of promotion is declining. That is in the Capability Review of the Treasury which was just published, I do not know, just a few months ago, so there is an issue there, is there not, if it has been identified in the Capability Review?
Sir Gus O'Donnell: Absolutely, the Capability Review process that I started.
Q132 Mr Prentice: Yes!
Sir Gus O'Donnell: And that we now actively monitor what staff think about these processes I think is a very important and good step forward. You will find in any organisation if you ask those sorts of questions you will not get 100% answers. Those answers are disappointingly low, I accept that, but it is not because of processes, what is happening within the Treasury for example is it is a department with a very high turnover, which is unusual.
Q133 Mr Prentice: Is it perhaps a possibility of sour grapes there because you have targets—and I sound like the school swot here and I am really not—and in the Autumn Performance Report you talk about by April 2008 (that is this month, this year) departments would reach the following targets, and I do not think they have been met: 37 % of women in the Senior Civil Service, 30% of women in top management posts, that is pay bands two and three, ethnic minorities and disabled staff and so on. I just wonder if this whole issue of fair promotion within the Civil Service is being coloured by those targets which are being laid down to increase the percentage proportion of women and ethnic minorities in senior jobs?
Sir Gus O'Donnell: No, I think you have to understand we do all of these things following employment law, and we cannot legally discriminate in favour of women or ethnic minority groups.
Q134 Mr Prentice: So it is just aspirational?
Sir Gus O'Donnell: No, it is very important, I strongly support those targets. Those targets were set at quite aspirational levels and to get to those would have required us to improve our performance. I stress when you compare what is going on in those numbers with the private sector you will find a dramatic difference.
Q135 Mr Prentice: I do not doubt that.
Sir Gus O'Donnell: — An enormous difference, which I think it is worth thinking about why that is, so we are doing enormously better than the private sector on our diversity numbers particularly with regard to gender and particularly with regard to women at the top, but, no, we do not—we are not allowed to—discriminate in favour of those groups, that would be illegal.
Q136 Mr Prentice: I just wanted to take us on to the scope of the Bill because in the previous Bill, the 2004 Bill, GCHQ[2] was included. It is not included in the present Bill and neither is the Security Services, MI5, and I was just left wondering what was the thinking in government when this change was made?
Sir Gus O'Donnell: Sure, the idea here—and this comes back to what I said earlier about the approach—we have said this Bill covers the Civil Service and then listed the exemptions as opposed to 2004 when we were trying to list the things that it covered, and if we had done that we would already be having to try and amend it in primary legislation because it would have been inappropriate, so this time we have said the whole of the Civil Service with the following exemptions. We have decided to treat all of the three agencies in the same way because all of the agencies are covered by separate legislation already so you want them to be together. As I am the accounting officer who goes across all of the agencies, it seems to me very sensible that we actually treat them together.
Q137 Mr Prentice: So an aggrieved civil servant, whether a spy in MI5 or a radio operator, if they still have them, in GCHQ, if they had a problem with the Civil Service Code and so on, they would be expected to sort that out with their line management?
Sir Gus O'Donnell: First of all, they have slightly different Codes for the agencies. They all have their own Codes based upon the values of the Civil Service, so very similar to the Civil Service Code but slightly different, and, secondly, they have special complaints procedures, so they have an independent person that they can go to, because we are aware this is a potential problem, and that person can then refer those complaints directly to the Prime Minister.
Q138 Mr Prentice: Who is the independent person that an aggrieved person at MI5 would go to?
Sir Gus O'Donnell: They have their own special complaints person.
Q139 Mr Prentice: A secret person?
Ed Miliband: I know this was the subject of discussions with Janet Paraskeva last week and, if I may say, I think there was some confusion about this, but my understanding is that it is the case that there has been an independent staff counsellor at GCHQ that people with grievances can go to, and that is the case now and that will not change as a result of this legislation.
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