House of Commons - Our work in the 2010-2015 Parliament

Our work in the 2010-2015 Parliament - Public Administration Contents

3 Scrutiny of the quality and standards of administration in the public sector

Strategy and leadership in Whitehall

15. Strategy and leadership have been a key focus of our scrutiny of the Civil Service this Parliament, from our very first Report.[15] We have identified effective leadership as one of the most important factors in creating effective organisations, and we have made various recommendations intended to strengthen leadership in the Civil Service.

16. Our September 2011 Report, Change in Government: the agenda for leadership, concluded that unless the Government could rapidly develop and implement a comprehensive plan for cross-departmental reform in Whitehall, its wider ambitions for public service reform, the Big Society, localism and decentralisation would fail.[16]

17. The Report highlighted the lack of specialist expertise and other key skills, institutional inertia and complacency which we said justified the Prime Minister's complaint about "the enemies of enterprise" within Whitehall.[17] Above all, we recommended that the Government must formulate a coherent programme for change across Whitehall, and that the Cabinet Office should take on a much stronger co-ordinating role and should provide much more vigorous leadership to ensure that every department was leading and implementing change effectively. We set out six principles of good governance and change management against which we would scrutinise both the performance of Whitehall and the work of the Cabinet Office in leading Civil Service reform. These are: leadership; performance; accountability; transparency; coherence; and engagement.

18. The Government response to our recommendations on Civil Service reform was largely positive. We welcomed the Government's commitment to constructive change in the culture in the Civil Service, particularly the commitment to produce an outline programme setting out priority areas for cross-Civil Service reform by the spring of 2012.[18] We also produced two 'End of Term' reports which examined the reform and corporate change programmes of individual Government departments; and considered to what extent departments were building capability in support of both their strategic aims, and the Government's overall strategic aims.[19]

19. Our April 2012 Report, Strategic thinking in Government: without National Strategy, can viable Government strategy emerge? highlighted the need for strategic leadership to tackle the complex, diverse and unpredictable domestic and global challenges facing the UK.[20] We outlined how a virtuous circle can be established when there is strategic leadership, with effective policies and positive outcomes reinforcing the public's values and aspirations. This in turn can inspire leadership. We also detailed how weak leadership will result in a vicious circle in which bad policy and failure in outcomes undermine the values and aspirations of the public and faith in their leaders.

20. We were pleased that the Government agreed with the key point that it is critical that Ministers are fully equipped with as much information as possible about the long-term implications of their decisions, and about possible changes outside the Government's control which might affect strategy in the longer term, and that a review of horizon scanning in Whitehall should be undertaken.[21] However, we were disappointed that the Government did not take up our recommendation to publish an annual Statement of National Strategy reflecting the interests of all parts of the UK and the devolved policy agendas. We still feel that this approach would provide a useful snapshot of how National Strategy has developed and an opportunity to reassess and debate how tax and spending decisions support the Government's national strategic aims.

21. In our key September 2013 report, Truth to power: how Civil Service reform can succeed, we highlighted tensions between Ministers and civil servants, with many Ministers feeling that their decisions were being deliberately blocked or frustrated.[22] We identified a lack of openness and trust in Whitehall interactions, a failure to learn from mistakes and a tendency to look for individuals to blame. We found that the Government had not developed the analysis, policies and leadership to address these problems, and that both Ministers and senior civil servants were still somewhat in denial about their respective accountabilities. We concluded that fundamental change was required and that the independent evidence in favour of a comprehensive strategic review of the nature, role and purpose of the Civil Service was overwhelming.

22. The Report made only one recommendation: the establishment of a Parliamentary Commission into the Civil Service, in the form of a joint committee of both Houses. This recommendation received the unanimous support of the House of Commons Liaison Committee, but was not taken up by the Government, which did not accept the need for such a review.[23]

23. We have followed the role of Head of the Civil Service as it has changed over the course of the Parliament. Back in May 2010 Gus O'Donnell was Cabinet Secretary and also held the role of Head of the Civil Service. This combined role had existed since 1983. We scrutinised the Government's decision to split the combined role following the announcement in November 2011 of Lord O'Donnell's retirement from the Civil Service. We expressed serious concerns about the proposal, and in particular, the belief that the role of the Head of the Civil Service could be delivered on a part-time basis by a permanent secretary of a major department of state.[24] We called for a full-time Head of the Civil Service, combining the roles of Head of the Civil Service and Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office, which would be more effective in driving forward the necessary and substantial reforms required across Whitehall.[25] The Government came to the same conclusion in July 2014, when it decided to create such a role, now termed Chief Executive of the Civil Service and held by John Manzoni. We held an oral evidence session with Mr Manzoni in January 2015 to hear more about the new arrangements, which should be kept under review by our successor Committee.[26]

24. One of our final Reports in this Parliament looked ahead to the future. Entitled Leadership for the long term: Whitehall's capacity to address future challenges, it focused on the Government's capacity to plan for and adapt to future challenges and crises.[27] We found that capacity was needed to generate and implement cross-government financial plans, as opposed to merely collating departmental actions and calling them a plan. We recommended that the Government sets out how leadership of this work will be shared by the Chief Executive of the Civil Service and the Treasury, so that their work is integrated.

Structures for investigating alleged breaches of the Ministerial Code

25. The content and status of the Ministerial Code, and the structures for investigating alleged breaches of the Code, have been a recurring concern for us. In our March 2012 Report, The Prime Minister's Adviser on Ministers' interests: independent or not?, we considered the role of the independent adviser on Ministers' interests, Sir Alex Allan.[28] We concluded that the independent adviser, who is responsible for investigating alleged breaches of the Code, at the request of the Prime Minister, lacks independence, as he is appointed personally by the Prime Minister, is supported from within the Cabinet Office, and cannot instigate his own investigations. We therefore recommended that the Prime Minister's adviser should be empowered to instigate his own investigations into alleged breaches of the Code, and this conclusion was agreed by the House in a resolution of 17 July 2012 following a Backbench Business debate.[29] However, this recommendation has not been implemented by the Government.

26. On revisiting this issue in our 2013 Report, The Role of the Cabinet Secretary and the Resignation of the Chief Whip, we were disappointed to find that the structures for investigating alleged breaches of the Code were still not working effectively.[30] In particular, we found it regrettable that no aspect of the events preceding Andrew Mitchell MP's resignation was investigated by the Prime Minister's Adviser.

The Civil Service Commission

27. The Civil Service Commission is an executive non-departmental public body of the Cabinet Office established in statute by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 which aims to provide assurance that civil servants are selected on merit on the basis of fair and open competition, and to help safeguard an impartial Civil Service. We believe the Commission performs an essential role and does a good job, and that its guardianship role has increased in importance. Indeed we believe the Commission should take on additional functions for oversight of civil service capabilities, upholding standards, performance management and leadership and stewardship, matched with appropriate resources. We believe it should be able to accept complaints from non civil servants who believe the Civil Service Code has been breached, as it already does in respect of civil service recruitment complaints. Sir Gerry Grimstone's Triennial Review of the Commission, published in February 2015, to which we contributed, recommended the Commission be given new powers but remain as an independent regulator of some of the most important aspects of the Civil Service.[31]

Ministers' involvement in the appointment of permanent secretaries

28. In the 2013-14 Session, we were pleased to feed into a Civil Service Commission consultation on the extent to which Ministers and the Prime Minister should be involved in the appointments of heads of departments, known as permanent secretaries.[32] The Government had argued that Ministers, and particularly the Prime Minister, should have more choice in the final decisions about appointments to the most senior civil service roles. They had proposed setting up extended ministerial offices with more political appointees and civil servants appointed personally by Ministers. However, the Commission was concerned that such an approach would pose a risk to the requirement for appointment on merit.

29. The Commission put forward two options for consultation: continuing the existing practice, in which the relevant Secretary of State had a role in the recruitment process, or allowing the Prime Minister to make the choice where more than one candidate was judged by a panel to be of similar merit. We outlined our views on this issue in our February 2014 Report, Latest proposals for ministerial involvement in permanent secretary appointments.[33] We felt strongly that a decision to give the Prime Minister the power to choose between permanent secretary candidates should not be introduced before a full and independent assessment of the future of the Civil Service, and the relationship between officials and Ministers, as recommended in our Truth to Power Report.[34]

30. We were pleased that the Civil Service Commission took particular note of our advice and supported our recommendation for a review of the Civil Service.[35] It decided not to increase ministerial choice in external competitions for permanent secretary appointments "until there is a wider settlement about the future of the Civil Service."[36] However, it later reversed this decision, announcing in October 2014 that the Prime Minister or the First Minister will in future be given a choice of Permanent Secretary candidates assessed as appointable by an independent panel chaired by the First Civil Service Commissioner.[37]

15 Public Administration Select Committee, First Report of Session 2010-12, Who does UK National Strategy?, HC 435, October 2010 Back

16 Public Administration Select Committee, Thirteenth Report of Session 2010-12, Change in Government: the agenda for leadership, HC 714, September 2011 Back

17 As above Back

18 Published as HM Government, The Civil Service Reform Plan, June 2012 Back

19 Public Administration Select Committee, Eleventh Report of Session 2010-12, Good Governance and Civil Service Reform: 'End of Term' report on Whitehall plans for structural reform, HC 901, July 2011, and Public Administration Select Committee, Fifth Report of Session 2012-13, End of term report: 2011-12, HC 316, September 2012 Back

20 Public Administration Select Committee, Twenty-Fourth Report of Session 2010-12, Strategic thinking in Government: without National Strategy, can viable Government strategy emerge?, HC 1625, April 2012 Back

21 Public Administration Select Committee, Third Special Report of Session 2012-13, Strategic thinking in Government: without National Strategy, can viable Government strategy emerge? Government Response to the Committee's Twenty Fourth Report of Session 2010-12, HC 573, September 2012 Back

22 Public Administration Select Committee, Eighth Report of Session 2013-14, Truth to power: how Civil Service reform can succeed, HC 74 [incorporating HC 664-i-x, Session 2012-13], September 2013 Back

23 Public Administration Select Committee, Fifth Report of Session 2013-14, Truth to Power: How Civil Service reform can succeed: Government Response to the Committee's Eighth Report of Session 2013-14, HC 955, January 2014 Back

24 Public Administration Select Committee, Nineteenth Report of Session 2010-12, Leadership of change: new arrangements for the roles of the Head of the Civil Service and the Cabinet Secretary, HC 1582, January 2012, para 104 Back

25 Public Administration Select Committee, Nineteenth Report of Session 2010-12, Leadership of change: new arrangements for the roles of the Head of the Civil Service and the Cabinet Secretary, HC 1582, January 2012, para 105 Back

26 Oral evidence taken on 14 January 2015, The Work of the Chief Executive of the Civil Service , HC 922 Back