Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
34-39)
Professor Martin Smith, Dr Richard Heffernan and
Professor Dennis Kavanagh
Dr Heffernan: I am Richard Heffernan. I teach at
the Open University and I am a professor at the University of
Notre Dame.
10 JUNE 2009
Q34 Chairman: Professor
Smith, Dr Heffernan and Professor Kavanagh, can I welcome you
to the Committee and thank you very much indeed for braving the
difficulties of transport this morning. You are very welcome.
We are being recorded; so could I ask you formally to identify
yourselves for the record?
Professor Smith: I am
Martin Smith. I am Professor of Politics at the University of
Sheffield.
Professor Kavanagh: Dennis Kavanagh, Emeritus Professor
at the University of Liverpool.
Q35 Chairman: Can I kick
off by asking which key constitutional issues you think that we
should have in our minds in connection with our inquiry into the
role of the Cabinet Office and the centre of government?
Professor Kavanagh: Can
I make two suggestions? First, I think there is the question of
the accountability of the informal office of the Prime Minister
to the House of Commons and the relationship between that office
and the Cabinet Office. The other thing particularly emerging
from last week, I thought, is that the centre—which is a
relatively new term in British politics and British Government—needs
to be aware of the constitutional responsibilities of permanent
secretaries both to Parliament and their duties of care towards
their ministers, rather than towards the Prime Minister or the
Cabinet Secretary.
Professor Smith: I would
agree. I think that accountability is the key issue. One of the
problems about accountability is that it is not clear who is making
decisions in the centre and who is responsible for decisions.
I think that if you do not know who is responsible then you cannot
hold people to account. The second issue, which I think is a broader
issue in terms of British Government, is in the sense of what
are the rules. What are the rules for who should do what? Who
has responsibility for what? Who has what powers? I think that
there is a broader issue about do we actually need to define what
the rules of different aspects of central government are.
Dr Heffernan: The three
stated functions of the Cabinet Office that are referred to in
all of its documentation—about supporting the Prime Minister,
supporting the Cabinet and strengthening the Civil Service—I
think are three functions that are essentially incompatible. The
reality on the ground is that the Cabinet Office is expected to
do too much. I think that there is a strong case for regularising
what is in a sense the reality, which is creating a Prime Minister's
Department, however it is titled, which essentially, with a Permanent
Secretary in Number 10 now, one could argue exists in all but
name. As to the old argument about the Prime Minister's Department
and whether that would over-strengthen the centre, I think that
scholars and practitioners might well recognise that formalising
what has become an informal arrangement would actually strengthen
the role of the centre and may well be able to enhance the role
that the Cabinet Office plays in terms of supporting the Civil
Service and supporting the Government beyond the Prime Minister.
Q36 Lord Peston: I would
ask Professor Smith if he could enlarge on something. I think
that you started off with the sentence, "What are the rules?"
and you half-backtracked because you took it that—the standard
bill of politics in this country—probably there are no rules.
However, I was not clear whether your final conclusion was going
to be, "... but there should be rules", explicit rules.
Professor Smith: I think
that there should be explicit rules. If you were really going
to go a long way, you would have a written constitution which
said, "These are the powers and functions of the Cabinet
Office. These are the powers and functions of the Prime Minister's
Office. These are the powers and functions of the Treasury".
I am not a lawyer but in a sense, of course, most of these things
in Britain are almost common law. Lord Norton knows much more
about this than I do. It is an issue that it is custom and practice,
and the problem is that those customs and practices are not consistent;
they change according to ministers; they change according to Prime
Ministers; they change across government. If we at least knew
clearly and the rules were clearly stated, we could then, when
someone had gone beyond their powers, say who should be accountable
for decisions and we could say who should be doing what.
Q37 Lord Morris of Aberavon:
Professor Smith, you singled out the Permanent Secretary's accountability
and role. What do you mean by that? The Permanent Secretary is
the accounting officer and that is a financial role—or does
it mean something more than that?
Professor Smith: I think
it was Professor Kavanagh who singled that out.
Professor Kavanagh: The
minister is accountable to Parliament and the officials and the
politicians answer before select committees. Ministerial responsibility
is a key concept of the British constitution and civil servants
do have a duty to take their direction from the Secretary of State
that they are working for.
Q38 Lord Morris of Aberavon:
There is nothing distinct, other than that they have a duty? The
point I singled out was that there was a duty of a Permanent Secretary
to Parliament. Is there such a thing or was that a mishearing
on my part?
Professor Kavanagh: Yes,
there is, as an accounting officer.
Professor Smith: I think
that this is a bigger issue, which is the way in which ministers
dominate political government institutions in the British political
system, which blurs the lines in terms of who is accountable for
decisions between civil servants and ministers. Again, it comes
back to the rules being written and distinguishing who should
be accountable for what, in a very clear way.
Q39 Lord Rowlands: You
have said that we need rules. Can you write a couple for us now?
Professor Smith: It is
very difficult to write particular rules, but I would have a set
of rules that said, "The Cabinet is responsible for these
functions". As we already accept, the Cabinet is responsible
for writing the minutes for Cabinet and ensuring that the departments
are then informed of those minutes, and the departments then have
the responsibility for implementing them. I think that we need
a similar set of rules in terms of what should the Prime Minister's
Office be responsible for. We know, at least in principle, what
the relationship is between the Cabinet Office and the departments.
We actually do not know in a clear way what are the lines of accountability,
responsibility and authority between a Prime Minister's Office
and departments.
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