Examination of Witnesses
Rt Hon Dame Janet Paraskeva
DBE, Dame Janet Gaymer DBE, QC
15 December 2010
Q1 Chair: Good
morning. It is a great pleasure to have both of you here. I
wonder whether you could identify yourselves for the record.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Janet Paraskeva.
Dame Janet Gaymer :
Janet Gaymer.
Q2 Chair: I understand
that each of you is to give a little opening remark, which would
be very welcome.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I will go first, if I may. Good morning. First, I would like
to say thank you to this Committee in its various manifestations
for having supported the work of my office over the last five
years. It has been very important to us. In looking at those
five years, I thought it might be helpful for you this morning
to have my view on what I have been doing and what I have made
progress with, I hope. The first thing I should say is that when
I became Commissioner in 2006 I set out to modernise the workings
of my office so that it was, as I described it, fit for purpose
for the 21st century but, more importantly, also to be a strategic
regulator to focus on risk and move towards a more principles-based
system. In doing that I have been trying to balance the principles
against the process but bearing in mind the purpose, which is
appointment on merit.
Looking at those five years, there are five areas
of progress that I would like to share with you this morning.
The first is, and they are in no particular order of importance,
the efforts that have been made to professionalise the role of
the independent public appointments assessors who sit on selection
panels. We have done that by introducing an accreditation scheme
and an annual conference so they can share best practice. They
also now have a code of conduct, which they did not have before.
Secondly, we have tried to improve communication. We have redesigned
the website; we have used technology for the purposes of communication;
the annual report has gone online; and we revised the kite mark,
which goes on publicity, so it is more understandable to the general
public. Previously, the kite mark simply had initials that no
one understood. The kite mark now expressly refers to regulation
by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Thirdly, we have
moved towards more risk-based regulation. We have introduced
a compliance statement for permanent secretaries, a self-assessment
tool and a risk management committee. We have tried to move towards
more principles-based regulation. We did a major consultation
on the Code of Practice, both on ministerial involvement and generally,
and that has been very well received by those who run the processes.
Lastly, we have made progress towards understanding the barriers
to diversity in public appointments: why people do not apply.
That is all I am going to say.
Q3 Chair: Thank
you very much.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I also extend my thanks for the work of this Committee and the
way we have been able to work with it, particularly on the legislation
with which all parties agreed. I would like to mention just a
few things we have achieved over the last five years. There are
two main functions carried out by the office of the Civil Service
Commissioner: the regulation of recruitment to the Civil Service
and the hearing of appeals against the code. On the first one,
we have chaired as a commissioner team 388 open competitions at
director level and above. About half of these have resulted in
somebody from outside the Civil Service taking on one of those
roles, and 30% have been women. I have personally chaired 36
of those competitions, mainly for the post of permanent secretary
and very many of them in the last year. I am pleased to say that
when I arrived the ratio of men to women at permanent secretary
level was 10 to one and it is now three to one, which I think
shows that there is real benefit in appointment on merit. If
you apply merit, senior women will come through.
During the last three years in particular we have
also worked to a top 200 protocol that has had within it a presumption
of open competition so that departments have to consider, first,
whether they should open the post to people outside the Civil
Service, either in the wider public sector or the private sector.
That has led to the enrichment of the Civil Service by people
with financial, IT and HR skills, which are the kinds of professional
skills that the Civil Service has not naturally bred within itself
over its history. It is now doing very much more of that. This
has led to significant improvements in the professionalism of
HR, which has made it possible for us as commissioners to be confident
in the delegation of our duties to departments and introduce the
principles-based regulation that we did during our time. The
other thing we have done during those few years is to increase
and toughen up our compliance monitoring audit. That is the audit
that we do of departments to make sure that where we have delegated
to them the responsibilities for recruiting against our principles,
they are actually following the rules and not misbehaving, frankly,
so we have toughened that up. I think that has been welcomed
by departments.
Recruitment is one side of our work. On the other
side there is the Civil Service code and our responsibility to
hear any appeals against it. When I became First Commissioner
I was quite surprised that there were so few appeals under the
code. I asked myself whether that meant everything was fine or
that people did not know how to raise an issue. We agreed with
this Committee that we would audit departments' procedures for
people to know how to raise a problem. That has resulted in excellent
cooperation from departments, but it did demonstrate to
us that some departments lacked a very robust structure and that
in the worst departments people were just coming to terms with
the fact that there was a structure at all. There were other
departments where that structure was exemplary and staff knew
exactly what to do if they had any concerns. Therefore, by publishing
best practice and repeating the audit, we hope to improve that
right across all the departments involved. The other part of
that is to make sure that people know about the code itself.
It is part of their contract. People are given the code when
they first come into the Civil Service. Having a code of values
is fine but it is of no use unless people remember what it is
and are living those values, which I think civil servants do by
and large. But to know properly whether members of the Civil
Service actually really did understand the code and if there were
things they needed to raise when they saw colleagues misbehaving,
we managed to put in the staff survey questions about awareness,
because we ourselves began to be involved with departments and
the Cabinet Office in promoting the code at various Civil Service
events. We were very pleased to see that one of the few scores
that increased in the recent staff survey was that which recorded
the fact that people now know more about the code and how to report
concerns than they did before the work that we started. For us,
whether people actually know what to do is an important measure.
Departments may say they have improved their structures, but
the fact is that the staff survey has demonstrated there is an
increase in people's knowledge of what to do and we now have more
appeals coming to us and are able to deal them, sometimes informally
and sometimes formally. To finish, it would be remiss of me not
to mention again the work we have done with this Committee on
the Civil Service legislation. It has taken 154 years to deliver
it but we got there in the end. We now have a commission and
Civil Service code on a statutory footing—that legislation
was supported by all parties—which safeguards the impartiality
of our Civil Service.
Q4 Chair: Thank
you for that. Before you came in we were discussing that the
Civil Service code is justiciable, in that if Ministers or civil
servants act outside the code, it would be included in any possible
judicial review.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
The Civil Service code is part of people's terms and conditions
of contract, so if they break it, it is a disciplinary issue.
Q5 Chair: Maybe
the ministerial code should be the same. Can each of you say
briefly in a sentence what you think has been your greatest achievement
during your period of office?
Dame Janet Gaymer :
Shall I go first?
Chair: It is like your
favourite desert island disc.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Embedding the principles of the Code in people's consciousness.
Chair: The Code of Practice
on public appointments?
Dame Janet Gaymer :
Yes.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
In one sentence, I think it is the co-operative work we now do
with departments in regulating entry to the Civil Service. I
think that now works very effectively.
Q6 Chair: What
do each of you feel about your respective roles now being combined
in one person?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
It is really important to be clear that the roles have not been
combined; the roles are, as we have always argued, separate.
What is happening is that one person will be asked to deliver
both roles. It is terribly important that we are clear about
that. Janet and I have always agreed that the real difference
between us is that the regulation in which I am involved is about
the employment of impartial civil servants and the work of my
colleague, if I may speak for Janet, is the appointment by Ministers
of people to run arm's length bodies. Those roles are quite different
and must be kept separate. What is being asked is that one person
carries out both roles but also that efficiencies are brought
about by having a common back office with greater efficiencies
in the support services that we require, and with a greater similarity
in the appointment procedures. After all, we are both about appointment
on merit.
Q7 Chair: That
could be interpreted as saying that you are trying to like it
but you are not quite sure.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
No, no. I think it is a positive move. I do not have any reservations
about it.
Chair: Public Appointments
Commissioner?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I have a very simple view about this. Anything which will improve
appointment processes is a good thing. I think that both these
systems have good things that they can learn from each other,
so to the extent that that will happen, I think that is a very
good thing. I am also always in favour of efficiency, so bringing
the back office together is also a very good thing.
Q8 Chair: So,
you are both in favour of combining this role?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Not combining the role, no.
Chair: Are we not splitting
hairs if it is one person?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I do not think so. If you think about the Cabinet Secretary,
he is also head of the home Civil Service. Those are quite different
roles and one man does them very well. In this case we are asking
one man to do the two roles of public appointments and Civil Service
appointments. It is not quite as big as Sir Gus O'Donnell's role
but it is the same principle. They are two related functions.
Q9 Chair: Were
you consulted?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Yes.
Chair: You were both consulted?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Yes. There was no formal consultation, but we were given advance
notice of what was being proposed, so we did have an opportunity
to comment.
Q10 Chair: And
your view was taken, albeit informally?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Yes.
Q11 Chair: We
are British; we know how the system works. Should there have
been wider or more formal consultation?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I have to say that, because one of my principles is openness and
transparency, I always think that if there is a possibility of
doing formal consultation, you should do it because it is the
right thing to do.
Q12 Chair: Funnily
enough, the Minister agreed with that; he thought there should
have been more formal consultation. Was it done in a rush?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Not particularly. Interestingly, and Janet and I were laughing
about this just yesterday, when we were both appointed each of
us was asked whether we would like the other one's job as well.
This has clearly been in the minds of Cabinet Office officials
for a very long time. Neither of us wanted to do both jobs because
we had applied for the one that interested us. As I say, five
years ago there was clearly a thought that these were two roles
that one person might be able to undertake on their own.
Q13 Lindsay Roy:
Dame Janet Gaymer, I was interested in your work on risk-based
regulation. You said you had introduced self-assessment. How
are you sure that it is robust self-assessment and not self-delusion?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Let me explain a little more about what we have been doing. When
I became Commissioner, I had a power in the Order in Council to
audit processes. The practice had been to do a regular audit
on a three-year cycle. The problem with audit is that it is backward-looking.
I am a great believer in prevention rather than cure. I wanted
to look at what I could do to encourage people, first, to think
in terms of the principles and, second, to try to identify trends
of risk before they became nasty. I put in place what I call
my three-legged stool. One leg is the regular audit, which we
have kept; the second is self-assessment, which is done in two
ways; one is a compliance statement that is signed by the permanent
secretary at the end of every year. The statement sets out where,
in the view of the permanent secretary, there has been a breach
of the Code but, more importantly, what they are doing about it.
Also, as part of the self-assessment, we piloted a self-assessment
tool that had been designed by the auditors. The object of this
was for departments basically to score themselves against the
principles. I did not want them to think about the process but
to sit down with the principles and say, "Well, how did we
do against those during the year?" We have only done that
for one year. I shall be suggesting to Sir David that one of
the things he might do is review that and see what he thinks about
it and whether he thinks it has worked and so on. The third leg
of the stool is a risk management committee. That has met twice.
It is made up of independent public appointments assessors and
departmental contacts. The auditors may be invited to its meetings
but not necessarily. The aim of that is to spot risks that seem
to be happening in departments on more than one occasion so that
if we think something is becoming a problem, we can do something
about it. Therefore, the answer to that question is that it is
part of a bigger picture.
Q14 Lindsay Roy:
From the evidence you have so far, you believe there is a rigorous
and robust approach to this?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I always think you can be more rigorous. I suppose that is what
being a regulator is all about, but we have made a start. I think
it is helping. To give you an example, one issue that has come
up on a number of occasions is audit trails in departments. When
I come to investigate an appointment process I ask whether the
documentation is there for me to say that the process is being
run properly? There have been gaps in those audit trails, so that
is the first subject on which we have been focusing.
Q15 Nick de Bois:
To go back to the point about the one person, two jobs role that
you explained, I can understand why you endorse that, but what
I am struggling to understand is how one person doing two jobs
can do it in three days a week whereas your total time was effectively
six days between the two of you. Does it suggest that there is
now less to do because of all the work you have done, or, given
that he has to embed reform and now look at the Civil Service
Commission on a statutory basis, is that achievable? It is quite
dramatic.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
It is achievable because of the degree of delegation over the
last two years in particular that I have been able to introduce.
I now have a team of 13 commissioners, so it has been possible
to delegate to them many of the functions of the First Commissioner.
They now handle the director general appointments that my predecessor
handled, so I have been able to free up that time. Indeed, it
has to be said that had I not been faced with so many permanent
secretary appointments that we knew were coming up, I might have
had quite a light load. As it turned out, the last nine months
have been a particularly heavy load because of the numbers of
permanent secretaries coming up to retirement.
Q16 Nick de Bois:
Is that sustainable given the financial climate? Given your extra
staffing resource, will that not potentially come under threat
under the new regime, and therefore would the workload not go
back up?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Is the number of commissioners sustainable?
Nick de Bois: Absolutely.
Because I presume that they also have supporting staff.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
No. We have reduced our back office by three people; we have
reduced the number of commissioners to 13 because we thought it
was better to have a smaller team with a little bit more time
so one could have greater consistency.
Nick de Bois: So you have
reduced the commissioners?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
We have reduced the number of commissioners. The number of appointments
in which we are involved is also reducing because we have a recruitment
freeze, and the salary cap has also affected the number of appointments
being made. Interestingly, departments are now beginning to use
commissioners to help them with their succession planning and
the kind of work they must do as they are downsizing.
Chair: We will come to
permanent secretaries a bit later. Can we come back to that later?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Yes, okay.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I think the obvious issue from my point of view is the reduction
in my remit as Commissioner for Public Appointments because of
the bonfire of the quangos. If you look at the list of bodies
whose processes I regulate, as a result of the review about 30%
of the bodies on my list will cease to be, or will be changed
in some way. I am also responsible for the regulation of a considerable
number of NHS bodies. About 270 bodies will leave the remit.
If you put all that together, you could be looking at a reduction
in my remit of between 30% and 50% of the appointment processes
I regulate. That consideration is quite an important one.
Q17 Nick de Bois:
Interestingly, you both come from outside the Civil Service sector.
For the first time in a long time we are returning to an appointment
within the Civil Service sector. Do you think that the requirement
for independence, which would apply to those from outside, is
as important as ever but that the appearance of having people
from the outside coming in is of equal importance?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
If you mean the independence of the role, that is absolute. Whether
a person comes from within the Civil Service or outside it, it
must be the case that that individual comes in knowing and understanding
that he or she is independent of the Civil Service itself because
that person is there to regulate it. One might say that it is
easier if you have never been part of the Civil Service, but as
Civil Service commissioners we have always looked for some of
our colleagues to have come from within the Civil Service itself.
There is a history of the First Civil Service Commissioner always
being a civil servant. Until about three ago they were always
senior civil servants who came into the post. When we recruit
commissioners, we make sure that we have a balance of experience
on the commissioner team of people who have been senior civil
servants, people who come from the wider public sector and those
who come from the private sector, and therefore to have a First
Civil Service Commissioner who comes from one or other of those
three is not odd.
Q18 Nick de Bois:
Would you say that Ministers would prefer people from within the
Civil Service to have the new role or indeed would have had your
roles, namely not coming from outside of the Civil Service? Do
you detect a mood there?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I cannot speak for Ministers.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
To add to what Janet said, the issue here is independence, whether
it is actual or perceived. I can see there might be concerns—indeed,
you have expressed them yourself—about independence, but
at the end of the day this depends on how the individual does
the job. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and it is
down to Sir David to demonstrate that independence in the
roles that he is to perform.
Nick de Bois: We are agreed
with that.
Q19 Lindsay Roy:
How cost-effective and fair is the engagement of recruitment consultants
to head-hunt for high-ranking public sector or Civil Service posts?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
First, I should point out that my Code of Practice does not require
the use of executive search or recruitment consultants. This
is a decision that departments make looking at the kind of appointment
they are trying to fill. It may be an expert appointment; it
may be a special skill that is required; it may be a very high
profile appointment, so the decision at the end of the day is
with the department. The second point about cost is that my understanding
is that the Cabinet Office ran a proper tendering process to create
call-off contracts for recruitment consultants and that is the
pool, if I can call it that, of recruitment consultants from which
the departments then draw their recruitment consultants, should
they decide to use them. But the thing I need to make clear is
that my Code does not require the use of recruitment consultants;
that is a decision made by departments in the light of the particular
circumstances of the vacancy they are trying to fill.
Q20 Lindsay Roy:
So, there is an empowerment in relation to fitness for purpose?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Effectively, that decision is made by the department, yes.
Q21 Lindsay Roy:
Is it not more open, inclusive and fairer to advertise most of
the key posts?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Absolutely. It is an absolute requirement in my Code of Practice
that all appointments should be publicised. I use the word "publicised"
rather than "advertised" because the way you publicise
an appointment may vary according to the kind of community you
are trying to reach and the kind of appointment you are trying
to fill. I have to say that one of the major achievements of
the public appointments regime in the last 15 years is that publicisation
of public body vacancies is now taken as normal; it is not seen
as anything revolutionary. I have to say that the private sector
has yet to get this point.
Q22 Lindsay Roy:
That is something of which you are very proud?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Yes; I am very proud of it.
Q23 Chair: Do
you have concerns about the way that head-hunters are used? Do
either of you ever have concern that a head-hunter is used to
validate an appointment that would otherwise have been seen as
a bit too convenient for the Executive to make?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
There are two ways in which I interface with recruitment consultants
in order to answer that question. I see recruitment consultants
on the call-off contracts; I make a point of seeing them twice
a year. I basically tell them what has been happening in my area.
I tell them if I am unhappy about something that I have seen
starting to happen, or whatever it is. It can be anything. It
also gives them an opportunity to tell me what is driving them
mad about the public appointment process.
Q24 Chair: Have
you ever complained about the use of outside consultants, or the
way they do this?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
The second point I was going to make was that of course I investigate
complaints about public appointment processes. In some of those
complaints, recruitment consultants have been used. If I think
a recruitment consultant has not behaved properly, I do not hesitate
to say so in the final conclusion that I send to departments.
Q25 Robert Halfon:
Your successor was employed by head-hunters. Why is that necessary?
Why can't you just advertise it on the Civil Service website and
let people apply? Why do you need to waste taxpayers' money in
this way?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
The first point is that of course the competition for filling
the post of my successor, Sir David, was not one that I regulated,
obviously; it was a competition that was run using publicity.
I understand that the post was publicised on the public appointments
website. The Cabinet Office decided that it would use executive
search so that was used as part of the search process, but at
the end of the day my understanding is that the competition run
was one that aimed to produce a candidate who was appointed on
merit.
Q26 Robert Halfon:
But why does there need to be executive search at all? There is
a difference between recruitment consultants and head-hunters;
they are two different kinds of organisations.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
You have to be very careful about the phraseology here.
Robert Halfon: But Saxton
Bampfylde are head-hunters.
Dame Janet Gaymer :
Yes.
Robert Halfon: Why is
there any need to have them at all when you could have easily
advertised?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
You could do the process without them, yes.
Q27 Robert Halfon:
So, why did the Cabinet Office decide this?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I think the Cabinet Office would have to answer that because they
took the decision, but usually when departments decide to use
executive search they want to have access to a broader database
of potential candidates. It is one way of accessing a broader
pool of candidates. One of the selling points, I suppose, of
executive search is that executive search organisations maintain
their own research facilities and databases of potential candidates.
Therefore, when you hire an executive search organisation, you
are basically given access to that intellectual property of that
organisation; that is why you do it.
Q28 Robert Halfon:
But if you advertise it openly those will be the kind of people
who apply for it.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
It is interesting how people come to apply for positions. I applied
for this position when I saw an advertisement in the Sunday
Times. I was not executive-searched for this post. Others
may be executive-searched; they may be so busy that they do not
have time to read the appointments pages of the Sunday Times.
People come into positions from all sorts of different places.
Quite frankly, the important point here is to have the broadest
and most diverse pool of candidates you can possibly have when
you start that competition. Once the competition starts everyone
is treated the same, and the aim is to reach that appointment
on merit at the end.
Q29 Robert Halfon:
I just think that to use head-hunters, particularly the ones that
you use, is a much more cosy way of doing it. You scratch my
back, I scratch yours.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I should correct you. I do not use head-hunters; I do not make
appointments.
Robert Halfon: The Civil
Service.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I am not a civil servant.
Q30 Chair: I completely
understand that, but you see the concern that Mr Halfon is
teasing out?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Yes.
Chair: It seems to be
quite a cosy little network of permanent secretaries, other senior
figures in the Government in a network among the great and the
good. As Sir David very honestly told us, though he might not
have been referring to himself—I emphasise we have absolutely
no criticism of his merits for the appointment he is taking—"There's
quite a lot of tapping on the shoulder that goes on both in the
public and the private sector to fill jobs. That's how it's often
done." We all recognise that, but given that is how it is
being done, are you not at all concerned that head-hunters are
being used just to create a disguise—an apparency of transparency—when
in fact it is all a bit cosier than that?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I have to say no to you to that.
Chair: This is a very
important reassurance.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
The reason I am saying no to you is that what you describe here
is what happens before the process starts. You are describing
how candidates are pointed towards a position for which they then
have to apply. When I start regulating that process from the
beginning everyone is treated the same. There is no question
of executive search from the moment they start that process until
the very end. The executive search happens only before the process
starts; it does not happen during it.
Q31 Chair: To
finish this point, Sir David also told us that he had seen the
advertisement for this job on the Cabinet Office website.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Good.
Chair: I stress that we
are using him only as an example, we are not making any criticism
of his appointment. That was the only place where your successor
was advertised, though you may tell us that there was more publicity
than that. We have not been informed about how many people applied,
how big the shortlist was, or the variety of people who applied.
How many departing chief executives of the top 500 companies
do you suppose check the Cabinet Office website for advertisements
for things they might go onto? It might appeal to the Westminster
village, but I do not think it appeals much outside.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
What my Code says about publicising a vacancy is that the publicity
should be done in a proportionate, cost-effective way but appropriate
to the vacancy. That will involve a judgment on the part of the
department that is deciding what to do with the publicity. In
this case, it was decided that it should be publicised only on
the Cabinet Office website.
Q32 Chair: Perhaps
because they wanted to fill it with an insider.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
There may have been a cost issue; they may have decided that to
put it in the Sunday Times or somewhere else was not a
good use of taxpayers' money. I do not know; I did not run the
competition, so I cannot comment on it.
Chair: I appreciate that.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I was going to add that one of the things we do know is that the
number of people who come forward for Civil Service jobs from
advertisement is relatively low and appropriate use of recruitment
agents has brought not just a bigger field but a more diverse
field. One of the things departments do when they decide to use
a head-hunter is to direct them where to look. To take the example
of the post of chief of defence matériel, one is looking
for people with a different set of experience; or in the case
of the IT programme delivery post in DWP, you need to have somebody
who knows the field of IT to search among it; or in the case of
the shareholder executive in BIS you would not be looking for
the traditional Civil Service sets of skills. We would not necessarily
know in the Civil Service who to phone and point the advert to,
and those people are not necessarily the ones who read the papers.
I have seen recruitment search used well where people who were
not looking in the papers for jobs have been telephoned. Indeed,
to add my own experience to Janet's, I saw the advert for this
job and thought, "That looks great, but what a shame. I
can't apply because I can't start on the date they specify."
I was then telephoned by a head-hunter and I said that I had not
applied because the start date was January 1st and I had to finish
my present contract and the work I needed to complete at the Law
Society. I was then told by the head-hunter that he would go
back to the Cabinet Office and see whether that mattered. I was
then told to put in an application because they might be prepared
to amend the date.
Q33 Chair: So,
the advertisement was inaccurate?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
The advertisement was accurate but my understanding of when I
might start needed to be interpreted by somebody, and had it not
been for a recruitment agent, I might not be sitting here today.
Chair: Our loss.
Q34 Robert Halfon:
Rather than spending thousands of pounds on adverts in the Sunday
Times or your cosy network of the senior head-hunters that
the Civil Service seems to hire, why can you not have just one
website on which all the key jobs are advertised so that everybody
who wants to apply would know about them and they would not have
to go to each individual department? That would be much more cost-effective
and less prone to accusations that you are just helping your mates.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
These are the kinds of views that ought to be shared with the
head of HR in the Cabinet Office. As Janet and I have both said,
our role is to regulate what happens, not to be in the business
of making it happen.
Q35 Chair: That
seems to be a very sensible idea, because different parts of the
private sector now use very large websites to advertise for IT
specialists, plumbers and so on and so forth.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
That is true.
Q36 Chair: Is there any
reason why a Minister or a department that is starting a recruitment
process should not make a written statement to Parliament and
then it would appear on the record in Hansard?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Not that I know of.
Paul Flynn: Dame Janet
Paraskeva, you gave us some very impressive figures on the balance
between the sexes.
Chair: I think we are
coming to that later on, Mr Flynn.
Paul Flynn: I have no
idea what the choreography is, so—
Chair: Do stay. We are
moving on.
Q37 Robert Halfon:
Your successor is being asked to develop a more proportional,
principled and risk-regulatory regime. What does that mean in
the actualité?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
On the Civil Service Commissioner side, we have already introduced
a set of principles. What we do is audit people's behaviour against
those principles, and where we identify risk, we deal with that
department directly to try to improve their procedures. The risk
of course is identified by the audit.
Q38 Robert Halfon:
And in your view?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I suppose the best way to explain it is that it frees departments
from process in relation to public appointments. I regulate appointment
processes through a Code of Practice. We spent almost two years
during my period as Commissioner consulting on that Code to try
to get it as good and fit for purpose as we could, given the resources
we had. What tends to happen in departments is that where there
are a lot of public appointments, there will be a team in the
department that becomes very well used to doing them; they know
how to do them. That is not the case in all departments. You
may have a situation where someone only does one public appointment
process ever in their entire period in the department, so for
that reason the Code of Practice includes at the moment guidance
on process. It is guidance that includes mandatory provisions
and provisions that give discretion to the department to think
about, for example, the composition of selection panels. I suppose
that a move to a totally principles-based process would mean the
removal of those pages from the Code of Practice, so I would simply
say to them, "The principles are these. Now do the process
in accordance with those principles." My experience so far
is that departments are not quite ready to do that because of
the lack of expertise across the piece.
Q39 Robert Halfon:
Do you think the Civil Service Commissioner's recruitment principles
provide a good model?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
As the Civil Service Commissioner, we believe they provide a good
model. Right at the beginning when you asked me to say in one
sentence what had been my greatest achievement, I said the relationship
we had with departments. I said that because we now have a system
where we have managed to delegate to departments, with a check
through the audits that they are following those principles.
That is much the better way to regulate, and it appears to work.
We are able to identify weaknesses; we are then able to work
with departments to improve those weaknesses, and that is what
it is about.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I should just add one point about the principles. There is a
very important difference between the principles. One of my principles
is ministerial choice. In public appointments, the Minister is
offered a choice of at least two appointable candidates. In relation
to Civil Service appointments, there is a recommendation based
on merit of one person only. That is a very important difference.
That is one principle which divides us, if you see what I mean.
Q40 Chair: Is
there not a danger that the whole system of recruitment, particularly
in the case of high-level appointments, becomes very bureaucratised
and over-regulated?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I think the purpose of the introduction of our principles was
to deregulate it a bit. The fact that we have delegated the responsibility
to departments to get on with it and produced a much slimmer version
of what used to be a half-inch thick wad of paper as a code demonstrates
that we are trying to take some of the bureaucracy out of it and
free departments to use the appropriate form of recruitment for
the posts that they are recruiting for, provided they follow the
principles we lay down. That is what we are checking. We have
taken out the bureaucracy rather than put it in.
Q41 Chair: Today
the CBI is publishing a paper about regulation in which it advances
the idea that there should be a Code of Practice along the lines
of "comply or explain". It allows somebody to explain
why they are not going to apply those principles in their particular
circumstances. Is there a similar procedure under your two responsibilities?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
The audit will allow people to explain why they have not complied
with our principles.
Chair: But why they are
not going to apply those principles?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
By law they have to follow our principles; that is now part of
the legislation.
Q42 Chair: So,
in that respect it is much less flexible?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
The principles are not flexible. The ways in which you carry
them out, the procedures, are as flexible as you wish to make
them. But the key principles of open and fair competition on
the basis of merit are not flexible.
Chair: Public Appointments
Commissioner?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
As I have said, I have been trying over the last five years to
move towards a more principles-based system. If you look at the
Code of Practice upon which we consulted, about 40% of that Code
was about process; the rest is about principles and how to walk
the talk. The danger is that if you have a long document, you
only look at the last page number instead of looking at what is
in it. One story I should share with you—in a sense, it
is a comment of caution—is that the first Commissioner for
Public Appointments, Sir Len Peach, remarked that the process
was often described as bureaucratic. Indeed, that allegation
of bureaucracy against the public appointment process has persisted
over the last 15 years. Sir Len's response to that—I
have to say it has also been my experience—was that when
someone says a process is bureaucratic, it usually means it is
inconvenient for them. One needs to be quite careful about saying
something is bureaucratic without really working out the reason
for that statement. I think that any process can be improved
and made better, but when you are dealing with 600 applications
for a position you must have some sort of process. The issue
is what I said at the beginning: it is the balance between the
principles, walking the talk, the level and proportionate nature
of the process you need and bearing in mind what you are trying
to do, which is to get the very best person for the job appointed
on merit.
Q43 Robert Halfon:
Given the convergence of the two recruitment processes under the
dual post-holder, do you think there should be a differing role
for Ministers with regard to Civil Service appointments and public
body appointments? Should they be brought closer together?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Absolutely not. It is the one thing we have always agreed on
and it is the thing that keeps the role separate. If you are,
as is now set in legislation, an impartial Civil Service, what
you need to do is employ civil servants in an impartial way, and
that means a process whereby, although we consult Ministers en
route, it provides for the Secretary of State a recommended candidate
who has come through that particular process. That is about impartial
employment. What Janet regulates is appointments, which are of
course made by Ministers to arm's length bodies of departments
that deliver government policy.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
The point about ministerial accountability is a very important
one in relation to ministerial choice. At the end of the day,
these are ministerial appointments. The bodies are often delivering
government policy of the day. The Minister is accountable to
Parliament for how those bodies perform, so that is the backdrop
to ministerial choice.
Q44 Robert Halfon:
If what you oppose did happen and Ministers were given a bigger
role in appointment procedures for civil servants, what safeguards
would be needed against the dangers of inappropriate political
influence?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
What we are saying is that Ministers should not be involved in
the process in any way other than that which we have laid down.
What happens under the procedure we have laid down, which gives
a safeguard for both the Minister and the process itself, is consultation
with the Secretary of State right at the start of the process
to make sure we know and understand exactly what that particular
Secretary of State wants of their permanent secretary or director
general. We can build that into the process. We can then go
back to the Secretary of State and, if he or she wishes, they
may brief the panel if there are major changes, as there were
in the Department of Health—in that case the Secretary of
State briefed the panel that was going to appoint the permanent
secretary so that the panel could understand directly from him
what he was looking for in his permanent secretary.
Q45 Robert Halfon:
Were there not cases in the past where senior Ministers have demanded
particular civil servants?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Not in my experience, no.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
It is fair to say that ministerial involvement was a key issue
that faced me when I started my time as Commissioner for Public
Appointments. There was concern about Ministers interfering in
shortlists for candidates. We conducted a very focused consultation
on ministerial involvement. I spoke to Ministers, permanent secretaries
and anyone who was relevant to the issue. We came up with a very
carefully choreographed set of provisions about the extent to
which a Minister was entitled to be involved in a public appointment
process. I am delighted to say that it seems to have worked extremely
well. I said at the end of the consultation that that ought to
be reviewed in the spring of next year. It is one of the messages
that I shall be giving to Sir David to remind him that we did
say we would look at how ministerial involvement was taken forward.
Q46 Robert Halfon:
Just to confirm the point, are you saying there are no cases in
your time of which you are aware when senior Ministers have influenced
the type of civil servants around them—who they would be—even
in the classic British way of dealing with it under the carpet
or behind the scenes?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I am saying that in competitions we get Ministers' views about
the kinds of skills they require their senior officials to have.
That is the way we involve Ministers. They do not say they would
like x instead of y. When we were in the business
of regulating the permanent secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, I went to see the Foreign Secretary and said, "These
are the characteristics of the four people on the short list.
What are the kinds of things that you would need to be satisfied
about for each of these candidates so I can make sure that these
issues are tested properly during the recruitment process?"
He felt as involved as he needed to be, I think, in helping us
to find the right person for him. That is our job.
Q47 Robert Halfon:
When the last Government came in in 1997 there were a number of
changes of senior civil servants at about the same time. Are
you saying the Government had nothing to do with it?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
That was before my time. I have no idea of what happened then.
I can talk only about what has happened in the last five years.
Q48 Chair: May
I press you on one thing? We keep hearing that appointments must
be made solely on merit. I can hear Sir Humphrey Appleby assuring
Jim Hacker that all the appointments in the department have been
made on merit, that all the obstructive and opinionated people
blocking his earnest desires had all been appointed on merit.
Merit is a very subjective judgment; it is as subjective as any
other judgment, is it not?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
We are trying to reduce the subjectivity. When I came to the
job, senior appointments were made on the basis of a 45-minute
panel interview. I did not think that was sufficient for the
appointment of somebody to take on a very senior role; indeed,
it could lead to a less rigorous process and decision making in
relation to merit. Therefore, we have introduced psychologist
testing and reporting; we have introduced split panels, which
is much more a private sector model, where each member of the
panel, or in twos, also interviews the candidate separately in
addition to the final meeting. Where any particular job might
have a media role, we have introduced media testing. We have
introduced a whole range of different tests to try to minimise
the subjectivity of a panel. It is terribly important to recognise
that just a conversation can be subjective, but one of our roles
as commissioners in chairing the panels is to try to make sure
that that subjectivity is absolutely reduced.
Q49 David Heyes:
My questions are just for the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
Your annual report tells us you believe that the public's understanding
of the public appointments process is still very low and that
prevents talented people from applying. First, how do you know
that? Second, what can be done about it?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I suppose that one piece of information is a survey done by Ipsos
MORI in 2010. It was not done for me but for the GEO. They asked
people whether they thought it was easy for people like them to
apply and whether they thought the process was fair and open.
What was interesting about it was that the percentages had gone
down. In 2004, 40% thought it was not easy for people like them
to apply; in 2010, 23% thought that. There has been some progress
in terms of fairness and openness in relation to the process.
Q50 David Heyes:
Were those questions asked of random members of the public or
were they what one would expect to be the target audience for
public appointments?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I was going to say that that is the general backdrop or view.
During the last couple of years, since I have been given power
to promote diversity in procedures for public appointments, we
have been developing a strategy called Targeting Talent and looked
at each of the groups who are not well represented in public appointments
to find out why. Two of the barriers that come up over and over
again in the research are, first, awareness and understanding
of what public appointments are; and, second—I think this
is important—the attractiveness of public appointments.
I have to observe personally that the attractiveness of service
in public life does not seem to be what it was.
David Heyes: Tell me about
it.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I am choosing my words carefully. The reduced attractiveness
of public service does not help me as a regulator who is trying
desperately hard to encourage people to throw their hats in the
ring at the beginning of the process to apply for public appointments
in the first place. One of the things we have done as part of
the work in Targeting Talent is to set up a very small pilot cross-sectoral
mentoring scheme, aimed initially at women. We put them through
training, told them about public appointments, explained what
it was all about and tried to encourage them to apply. I am happy
to say that those in the scheme have done so, but our experience
has confirmed the thought that there needs to be a lot more education
and awareness-raising of the importance of public service, what
public bodies do and the public servants on them.
Q51 David Heyes:
Is that going to be on the list of recommendations that you will
leave for Sir David to continue with?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Absolutely, yes.
Q52 David Heyes:
In your opening remarks, I felt you chose your words carefully
when you said you had made progress towards understanding the
barriers to diversity.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Yes, we have not solved it.
David Heyes: Would you
like to say a bit more about that? Clearly, there is strong evidence
that progress has been made, but I guess there is still a long
way to go.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I think it is one of those topics on which you can never let up;
you have constantly to push at every point to try to remind people
that you do not want all the same people all the time. You want
the broadest group you can get but also the very best people you
can get. They may be in the most unlikely places and you have
to keep looking for them.
Q53 David Heyes:
There used to be a public appointments register; you could take
a list off the shelf. Would there be any merit in reintroducing
that?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I know that has been done in the past. Technically, it would
not fall within my remit because it is more likely to be something
that would be run in departments. I know that some departments
maintain records of people who phone up and say they might be
interested in a public appointment and ask to be informed if there
is ever one that might be in their sector. Some departments do
that. I would be in favour of anything that increased the talent
pool, quite frankly.
Q54 Robert Halfon:
I am a new MP, but when you spoke to the previous Public Administration
Committee you expressed reservations about the preappointment
hearings. Do you still have those reservations?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Yes, bluntly.
Q55 Robert Halfon:
Why?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Let me say straight away that I think having preappointment
scrutiny is a good thing as a democratic check. I am not against
that, but what I was saying then was that even though it was a
good thing, there might be unintended consequences in introducing
it. One area I was very concerned about—it is the one that
I continue to be concerned about the most—is whether it
may inadvertently reduce that pool of candidates that I have been
talking about. It is okay for people who are used to appearing
in front of Select Committees; they have done it in their past
lives and so on, but if you are trying to attract people from
the private sector who may have had completely different livelihoods
and are not used to appearing before Select Committees it introduces
a very public step in the overall process that may put them off.
That still worries me, to be frank.
Q56 Robert Halfon:
In the United States there are many more appointment hearings
than we have, and they are much more powerful. All we have are
preappointment hearings and we cannot even veto appointments.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Yes, but in the United States they are political appointments;
they are different hearings; and it is a different system. One
has to look at what we have here and whether it will work. I
was also worried about the potential for perceived politicisation
of appointments. Having watched some of the hearings over the
last few months since their introduction, I think there have been
examples, which, through the eyes of the general public, would
not be seen to have been totally apolitical. That is unfortunate.
Q57 Robert Halfon:
But should it not be right that the elected legislature has some
say over appointments to the Civil Service and that there should
be genuine parliamentary oversight; otherwise, what are we here
for?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I think that in terms of the Civil Service it would be highly
inappropriate to have pre-appointment scrutiny. Senior civil
servants are appointed on merit through a process which does its
best to guarantee that; and they are impartial appointments.
I think that to introduce any kind of parliamentary scrutiny after
that would be rather peculiar constitutionally, to say the least.
Robert Halfon: We will
have to agree to disagree on that one.
Q58 Chair: Is
there a better way of doing this? I can see that from your point
of view it would be personally extremely irritating for a Select
Committee to come in after everything is virtually fait accompli
and gainsay the processes that have been undertaken, but also
it would be too late. Should there not be more involvement of
Select Committees in how public appointments are made and what
the scope of the job description is going to be, given that there
is a question mark particularly over non-departmental public bodies
and their accountability?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
One of the interesting things about the discussions on preappointment
scrutiny before its introduction was trying to answer the question:
what is the purpose of the hearing? What is the purpose of the
pre-appointment scrutiny hearing? I had a very interesting exchange
of views on this with the previous Chairman, Tony Wright. The
overall conclusion was that the hearing was not part of the selection
process.
Chair: Correct.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
The hearing was the beginning of the road of accountability.
As a regulator of the selection process, I am comfortable with
that because there is a clear dividing line between the selection
process and this next stage. I think it very, very important
that that distinction is maintained, because as soon as you start
washing over into the selection process, you get into all sorts
of area of territory that would be very difficult from a practical
point of view.
Q59 Chair: Take
for example the head of the Environment Agency who turned out
to be a former Labour Cabinet Minister. I am sure he would have
got through the pre-appointment hearing in a Labour-dominated
Committee and he may well have been the appropriate person, but
in order to avoid putting a Select Committee in that position
would it not be more appropriate for the Select Committee to be
involved in scoping the job description jointly in consultation
with the Secretary of State so that the Committee had faith in
the process and had been involved in it, which of course will
be fair because you regulate it, rather than just being presented
with a fait accompli?
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Currently, in the preappointment scrutiny the Select Committee
has the ability to question the process. I think it was in the
original specs, if I can put it that way, that they will look
at the process; indeed, it has happened in some of the hearings.
The second point is that in terms of the appointment of politically
active people to public appointment posts, there is no prohibition
against such people applying for them. If there were we would
not have this problem, but there is not. Therefore, it is possible
for a politically active person to be appointed to a public appointment;
and of course the whole point of regulating the process is to
make sure that when that person is chosen the fact that they are
politically active does not enter into the decision making.
Q60 Chair: We're
just beginning to look at the process of appointment of a new
Parliamentary Ombudsman, and are there particular jobs like that,
where the Select Committee or Parliament should be much more involved
than has historically been the case? The appointment is actually
made by the Crown on the advice of the Prime Minister, which,
for a Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration seems to be
a slightly Executive-heavy system of appointment.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
I think the issue—it's a very simple one, in a way—is:
are you involved in the selection process itself or are you going
to offer advice on things that you think the selection process
ought to take into account? I think that's the distinction, and
what I'm saying is I think one needs to be very, very clear about
who is running the selection process and who is involved in it.
That's all I'm saying.
Chair: I'm rapidly losing
members of our committee, but I think, if we still have three,
we still have a quorum. Correct.
Q61 Robert Halfon:
Just a quick question about Civil Service Live. Do you think
that this is good value for money?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I don't actually know how much it costs. What I know, from participation
there, is the immense boost to morale, particularly this year,
with everything that is facing the Civil Service, that that event
has given thousands of civil servants. They are not just the Whitehall
people, in fact, it isn't about Whitehall; it's actually about
some of the front-line civil servants who work up in the north-east,
the north-west, south-west Wales, Scotland. That event brings
them together and the feel of the place made me realise how important
that investment is, particularly as all of us are trying to save
money. I do know that significant sponsorship is actually raised
to make the thing happen.
Q62 Robert Halfon:
And it's millions of pounds in lost man-hour time.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Well, it depends whether you call them lost, and I think what
I'm saying is what I felt was that this was a day's worth of morale-building
and a reminder of what the Civil Service is about, and the attendance
at the various workshops was very, very high. The session that
we ran ourselves on the Civil Service values, with a question
time, raised significant numbers of questions from civil servants
who really wanted to know what to do and how to raise issues of
concern to them. I'm actually a bit of a sceptic of major jollies,
but I have to say I had to eat my words when I went to Civil Service
Live each year, but most particularly this year. It's tricky
times facing the Civil Service; many people knew that some of
them were going to lose their jobs, the public sector is often
hammered in the newspapers, and it was a very, very important
event, and I don't think, therefore, it was a waste of a day's
time for any civil servant to come. I think it was actually an
investment in their future.
Q63 Robert Halfon:
But it's not just a day, because a lot of them were there for
a few days.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
It goes on for three days, but it goes on for three days so that
lots of people can be involved on a one-day basis.
Q64 Robert Halfon:
But given the difficult times that we live in, do you think it's
value for money that millions of pounds in lost man-hours are
spent on this conference and many other conferences that the Civil
Service hold?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I think every department needs to look—and every one of
us needs to look—at the way in which we invest in staff
development. If Civil Service Live can continue to offer a day's
worth of staff development for individual civil servants, particularly
for those who feel really at the edges of the service, then actually
that is a worthwhile investment. It's not a waste of resource;
it's actually an investment in their loyalty, in their staff development,
in their feeling of being part of the best Civil Service in the
world.
Q65 Robert Halfon:
A very final question—I'm very sorry, I have to go, because
I've got a question in the Chamber. Francis Maude talked in Civil
Service Live about the Big Society. Can you just tell me what
effect that will have on the Civil Service?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
What effect the Big Society will have on the Civil Service?
Robert Halfon: The Big
Society will have, yes.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
You're asking me to gaze into a crystal ball, I'm sorry.
Q66 Chair: Do
come back when you've done your question, if you want to, Robert.
Can I just ask: the last set of questions is very much about
the Civil Service Commission, and forgive us, Public Appointments
Commissioner, but do chip in with your advice, if you have it.
What did you mean, Civil Service Commissioner, when you said
the constitutional position of the Civil Service and its values
need and deserve statutory protection? Do you feel that the constitutional
position of the Civil Service is strengthened, and what is its
constitutional position?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
What I meant was that no longer can the impartiality of the Civil
Service be changed by the stroke of a pen at the Privy Council.
If any of you wanted to change the way in which the Civil Service
is governed or managed, then that would have to be now the subject
of full Parliamentary debate, and I think that's right and proper.
You might remember that there was a time when two or three special
advisers were given executive powers over civil servants. That
was possible through a decision of the Privy Council. That effectively
could have been the beginning of the politicisation of political
advisers having powers over civil servants. That can no longer
happen through a Privy Council decision. Any decision of that
kind now would require a full constitutional debate in the House,
and that is where we think it should be, and that's what I meant
by the safeguard.
Q67 Chair: That's
helpful. Thank you very much. To press you a little further
on the post-bureaucratic age—and I appreciate this may be
an alien concept to you; it's a buzzword phrase describing how
the Civil Service should adapt, in the same way as businesses
adapted, with far fewer layers, far greater delegation of authority,
far more autonomy at local level—do you think this is going
to affect the way that appointments are made in the Civil Service?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I don't think the fact that you change the management structure
to be more efficient, with fewer layers and so on, affects the
way in which you appoint. I think what's important is that we
absolutely maintain the principle of fair and open competition
and appointment on merit.
Q68 Chair: But
isn't the Civil Service going to be looking for a different type
of person?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
One of the things I mentioned earlier on was our protocol, with
the presumption of open competition, and I think one of the things
that, indeed, a report led by David Normington a little while
ago, and something we agreed with, is that competition—bringing
in people from outside into the Civil Service—should be
encouraged at the middle ranks as well as at the most senior ranks.
We do need the best people we can get into the Civil Service
and, as I said earlier, where we have professional skills that
we haven't managed, as it were, to breed within the Civil Service,
we need to bring those people in: finance directors, IT people,
people with commercial skills, procurement skills.
Q69 Chair: So,
if Government wants flatter management structures, much less hierarchy,
much more local initiative—and when I say local, I mean
down the food chain, much less deferential command and control—you
think the appointments process can adapt to that?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I think so. I think what you're talking about is the sets of
skills and, therefore, the way in which a skill specification
is actually written, so that we get into the jobs the people who
can actually manage in the new way.
Q70 Nick de Bois:
I'd just like to draw, if I may, on the fact that we've now got
pay and recruitment freezes, the public sector's facing a real
challenge, changes particularly to redundancy and pensions, all
of this. Now, this has been summarised by the Cabinet Secretary
as "a modern employee offer", which is an interesting
perspective on it. It perhaps aligns itself more with the private
sector, but are you worried about the impact on morale and on
recruitment as a result of this?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I think the morale of any organisation—and the Civil Service
is not unlike another organisation—facing the kind of downsizing
that is going on will be affected, and of course it's a worry
when the morale of civil servants is called into question. It
is a modern employee offer, it is becoming more like the private
sector, but that is none the less a very significant change for
people, and that kind of change, I think, needs to be very carefully
handled, so that we don't lose our best people.
Q71 Nick de Bois:
And have you got a view—it's not directly related, perhaps—of
whether it is impacting now, and have you a view of what the morale
is like within the Civil Service at the moment?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
We know from the staff survey that it is less good than it has
been, and that has got to be a worry, but I do know that it's
something that the permanent secretaries are very aware of, and
it is why we also need to make sure that we don't cut costs from
the kinds of things that will help that issue. It is no good
having a Civil Service with low morale; you do have to invest
in the staff development of the people that you keep, which was
why I was so keen, when Mr Halfon was asking about Civil Service
Live, just to emphasise there are things that you can do to keep
morale up, and ways that you can handle that so you don't either
lose your best people or lose the will and enthusiasm with which
most civil servants do their jobs.
Q72 Nick de Bois:
And are there reports of a noticeable decline in interest to join
the Civil Service?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Indeed, there are fewer jobs available, and it is becoming much
more difficult to attract people from outside. Some of that has
to do, I think, as well with the cap on salary, and if one is
going to look in the commercial sector, it is more difficult to
say to people, "This is a fantastic job. Come and serve
your country, but actually we not only won't pay you a significant
proportion of the earnings that you are used to, but it'll also
be on the front pages of the newspapers", and I think it
is quite hard for people.
Q73 Nick de Bois:
Conceivably, the market's bigger, because there'll be, sadly,
more people out there possibly looking for a change of direction.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
In some areas, it is, and certainly in terms of middle-ranking,
finance people and IT people, there has actually been a bulge
in the numbers who are looking to come in.
Q74 Nick de Bois:
And if I could just press you on one more point: the younger level
of application—postgraduate application—is where I
suspect you may see the biggest problem in recruitment. Am I
right to think that?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
It hasn't happened yet. I think we're still the second or third
most popular job for graduates. It hasn't happened yet, and I
hope it doesn't happen. I think our younger people will be coming
into a Civil Service that has had to adapt financially and managerially
to different ways of working, and I'm sure that the service will
still want those who always did join to come and deliver public
service in that way.
Q75 Chair: Turning
to all those permanent secretary appointments that have been made
since May 2010, described by one commentator as "the Whitehall
revolution that never was", you were responding earlier to
a question about the big change in permanent secretaries that
took place in 1997. Is this a pattern we should get used to:
that, now we have five-year fixed-term Parliaments, every five
years there will be a big Whitehall reshuffle at the same time
as a new Government?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I don't think so. I think what we may have seen is the last
cohort of an age of permanent secretaries just coming to the end
of their contracts, or the contract they had planned for themselves
at 60. And what I mean by that is most of the permanent secretary
posts that we have been involved in in the last six to nine months
have been of permanent secretaries who had planned to retire at
60. Instead of retiring just before the election, because they
are good civil servants and loyal, they wanted to see in whichever
new government it was, and stayed until after the election. We
might have had a smoother run at it had some gone before the election,
but actually they were loyal, they stayed through the election,
and then, of course, we had a bunching, but it was because people
had planned to retire at 60. It had nothing to do with the fact
that there was a change of Government. The reason I say that
I think we may have come to the end of it is that the age range
of permanent secretaries is now really rather different, and I
think that is because we recruit from outside. Appointments are
clearly now on merit rather than time served.
Q76 Chair: So,
they're not all now pushing 60.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
No, no, absolutely not; the exact opposite.
Q77 Chair: But
there are no plans to end compulsory retirement of civil servants
at 60, like we are for the rest of the country.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
No, it was, as I say, a cadre of people who were approaching 60,
had always planned to go then, and some stayed on a few extra
months to see through the transition of a new Government, and
it was coincidental with a change of Government.
Q78 Chair: But
Sue Cameron seemed to be celebrating the fact that whatever had
been heralded as a big paradigm shift in the management of Whitehall
has, in fact, turned out to be more of the same: continuity.
That would be a good thing, wouldn't it?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I think what we have is a balance of continuity and some difference.
As I said, the ratio of women in the permanent secretary team
is now one to three; it used to be one to 10. There are now three
non-white faces around the permanent secretary team; that didn't
use to be the case. The range of backgrounds of some of the permanent
secretaries is very different. There are people who have come
in from the private sector two or three jobs down, who now fill
that Wednesday morning meeting. That is a very different team
of permanent secretaries than used to be the case.
Q79 Chair: And
so they're all recruited in open competition.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
They weren't all recruited in open competition; some were in Whitehall
competitions, and the decision there will usually be taken by
the Cabinet Secretary and the Secretary of State.
Q80 Chair: How
did you decide those particular cases and are you happy?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
The Senior Leadership Committee takes the decision on the advice
of the Secretary of State and the Cabinet Secretary, and they
take that decision based on whether or not the particular Secretary
of State believes he or she needs Whitehall skills or commercial
skills as the predominant feature of the role that they want fulfilled
and, understandably, many new Secretaries of State actually looked
for experience. When I went to see them at the beginning of the
process and asked them, "What are you looking for?",
almost all of them—not all of them but almost all of them—said,
"I don't know my way around Whitehall. I need somebody who
has Whitehall experience to advise me, to work with me most closely",
and in those cases it was a Whitehall-wide competition. Where
a Secretary of State said, "Actually, I want us to look much
more broadly, because this is a role I think that might attract
people from the private sector", then the Senior Leadership
Committee would take the decision to go open.
Q81 Chair: Were
there any posts where there was a shortage of applicants?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Not that were notable. There were two managed moves, and managed
moves are where the Cabinet Secretary himself believes that, for
the department concerned, a particular set of expertise is required.
What he has to do then is to demonstrate to me in writing the
role that he wishes to fill and the sets of skills and attributes
of the particular permanent secretary that he wishes to move into
that post, so that there is a proper process, even for a managed
move.
Q82 Chair: So,
even somebody simply being moved into a post, that has to be—
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
It has to, I'm afraid, come across my desk.
Q83 Chair: And
can you give me an example of that?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
There were two managed moves: one was of Robert Devereux into
the Department for Work and Pensions; and one was of Ursula Brennan
into the Ministry of Defence.
Q84 Chair: So,
is it unfair to say there was only an application of one for each
of those posts?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
That would be an entirely wrong interpretation.
Q85 Chair: Right.
Well, I'm glad you've put that on the record; thank you for that,
because I may have erroneously myself said the reverse.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
It would be entirely wrong. In both cases, it was because the
Cabinet Secretary believed that the people concerned had the appropriate
skills for those departments at this time, and were the best people
for the job, and that kind of managed move—
Q86 Chair: And
you don't second-guess that. You don't say, "No, come on,
this department's in a mess. It needs a completely fresh"—
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I often challenge the Cabinet Secretary about things, not because
I necessarily think he's got it wrong, but because I think a bit
of challenge is useful in any process, and because, actually,
if I am to sign off even a managed move, I need to make sure that
the Cabinet Secretary—
Q87 Chair: And
you wouldn't accept that this was what Sue Cameron called a very
conservative—with a small 'c'—reshuffle.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
I wouldn't. I wouldn't accept Sue Cameron's description in that
sense, no.
Chair: Some might regard
that as a great victory, but never mind.
Q88 David Heyes:
Have you challenged the Cabinet Secretary on what's been done
in terms of fixed-term contracts and the large number of people
who've been recruited as civil servants, many of them with party
political backgrounds—Tory or Lib Dem backgrounds?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Indeed.
David Heyes: At the last
count, I think it was about 80-odd; it could be up to 100 now.
Are you comfortable with that? Surely, that just drives a coach
and horses through all the good work you've done in the last few
years: the Code of Practice, the Code principles. It just seems
to fly in the face of all that.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
It would if they hadn't been following the procedures. As you
know, there is an exceptions clause to our recruitment principles,
and that exceptions clause allows the Civil Service to identify
posts that it believes are necessary to deliver the appropriate
service to the Government of the day. What has happened in the
cases I think that you're referring to is that that exception
principle has been used. It can only be used for short-term appointments;
it cannot be used for longer appointments at all and, indeed,
it is not uncommon for a department, when a Government changes,
to recognise that what that new Government needs is a smooth transition.
If you think about it, we don't have formal transitional arrangements
in this country when a Government changes, so a Civil Service
might recognise that the best help they can give new Ministers
coming in is, in fact, to appoint people who can actually come
with them for a very short period of time to help that transition,
and that's what happens. It's delegated to departments because
they are relatively junior posts.
It really isn't an uncommon feature but, yes, I did
raise it with the Cabinet Secretary, because it had hit the newspapers,
and anything that hits the newspapers or is brought to our attention
in any way, I believe we should raise and question. I raised
it with him formally at one of my regular meetings, and I asked
him to assure me that the procedures that he needs to follow had
been followed. He assured me on that day that the proper business
cases had been made to the appropriate committee for each of these
posts. I asked him to assure me in writing; he has assured me
in writing and, indeed, we have published that assurance on our
website.
Q89 David Heyes:
How short is short-term?
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
It's up to two years, but, in fact, all of these posts, I think,
are under one year.
Q90 David Heyes:
You said earlier that politicisation can no longer happen. The
Cabinet Secretary would give you the assurances that you sought.
What form did those assurances take, and how do you balance that
against your aim, which was that politicisation should no longer
happen in the Civil Service? This is rank politicisation.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
The Cabinet Secretary himself is bound by the Civil Service code,
and he is bound to follow our principles. What I asked him for
were assurances that he had followed the principles and, as I
say, he gave me those assurances on the day I asked him, and I
asked him formally and he has written to me to explain exactly
what he did.
Q91 Chair: Well,
Public Appointments Commissioner and Civil Service Commissioner,
if I may call you that—the two Dame Janets—you are
a formidable pair and you have both given great public service
in your terms of office. May I thank you, not just for illuminating
us today—it's been very educative—but can I put on
record the thanks of this Committee for the work you have done
in your public offices, and may I also pass on the thanks of Parliament
for the role that you have played, which undoubtedly improves
the accountability of appointments in the public sector? Thank
you very much indeed.
Dame Janet Paraskeva:
Thank you very much.
Dame Janet Gaymer:
Thank you.
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