Transcript of press conference given by Sir Nigel Wicks, Rita Donaghy, Lord
Goodhart, Lord MacGregor and Sir Anthony Cleaver, Committee on Standards in
Public Life, London, Monday 4 March 2002
From Eileen Fox for Radio Technical Services
Fiona Dick
Good Morning Everybody. Thank you very much for coming.
Sir Nigel Wicks
Let me first of all introduce my colleagues who I am sure are well known to
you all. John MacGregor, William Goodhart, Rita Donaghy and Anthony
Cleaver. Welcome. Thank you for coming along. Some of you I spoke to last
week when the committee launched its consultation paper on the House of
Commons, and that is one of the important inquiries that we have under way
and the other important inquiry is the one I want to launch today which is
the question of the Executive and I hope that you will all have a copy of
the Issues and Questions Paper headed Defining the Boundaries Within the
Executive, Ministers, Special Advisers and the Permanent Civil Service. Now
we are going to run these two inquiries in parallel, the Executive and the
House of Commons, and I will say a little bit more later on about timing.
Some of you who are in this room will remember that on 10 September last
year I think it was, we published our stock-take and at that time a
stock-take of 308 recommendations were made and at that time when I talked
to you about possible future work I said there are a number of live issues
that we will want to think about, we will want to consider the recently
revised Ministerial code and the new code for Special Advisers, but we will
want to consider whether they go far enough in the light of recent
experience. Well since September we have had more recent experience, if I
might put it like that, and we have therefore decided to institute a full
and fundamental review of these issues.
This is in some ways territory which the committee has visited before. We
dealt with it in our first report on Ministers and Civil Servants and we
dealt with the issue of Special Advisers in our Sixth Report. And all our
inquiries are carried out under the over-arching principle, the
over-arching framework of our seven principles and in this inquiry I think
two of those principles are particularly relevant, that is the principle of
objectivity and the principle of accountability. In this connection the
role of Civil Servants and Special Advisers, and of course technically
Special Advisers are Civil Servants, their role and interactions with each
other are of particular interest. As you know, permanent Civil Servants are
impartial, while Special Advisers are explicitly not so. Both have been
systems of complementary sources of advice since the 1970s. The committee
has in the past put on record that it believes that the Special Advisers
can play and do play a useful function.
But there are I think a few uncertainties and grey areas remaining,
uncertainties which have been perhaps demonstrated by recent events. Let me
say though, as I said last week when I introduced the report on the Issues
and Questions Paper on the House of Commons, let me reiterate something I
said then and that is that this committee believes that the great majority
of men and women in British public life are honest and hard working and
observe high ethical standards, and that certainly goes for the subjects
within this particular inquiry. Even so, I think it is absolutely key to
the working of our system of democracy in this country that public office
holders and public institutions must command trust and that perceptions
regarding standards here are almost as important as the reality, and if
trust is weakened the foundations of our political society are weakened,
and those comments I think are as valid now as they were in 1994 when the
committee was established.
Now if you look at our terms of reference you will see in our terms of
reference that we are asked to respond to public concerns and I think there
have been some public concerns in this area over the last few months, and I
am not going to rehearse the details. But I am, because I suspect some of
you will try to tempt me, going to stress one of the committee’s
fundamental tenets in that we do not investigate individual cases or
individual personalities, but what we will do in our review, in our report,
we will set our deliberations in the context of recent events and they will
be informed by recent events.
This consultation paper, which you have got
before you, is stage one of our process. You will see that the 19 questions
are broadly drafted and I think will allow us to consider the fundamental
issues in a comprehensive way. We are going to circulate the document
widely and we look forward to responses from as diverse set of sources as
we can make it. Obviously if colleagues here, if you have evidence that you
would like to put before us, we would find it very welcome. This has
happened from journalists in the past and I know that my colleagues in the
past have welcomed evidence. The closing date for written evidence is 31
May 2002. We are then going to have public hearings in June directly after
our Parliamentary Inquiry, they will take I am not quite sure how long, it
depends on how much we get in terms of evidence, maybe 4 weeks or so, and
we will set out where they are going to be and the media arrangements
nearer the time and we hope that the final report, we plan to publish the
final report by the end of the year.
One final comment, I have mentioned the two major areas of work that the
committee has under way, the study of regulation in the House of Commons,
the study on the Executive, but I ought also to say that we have another
major piece of work under way and that is something I am sure a lot of you
will know about, is the attitudinal research work into public attitudes to
standards in public life, and there is some material outside which explains
that. I am very happy to take questions, but I shall also ask my colleagues
around here who sit next to me to respond to the questions that you may
wish to put to me.
Question (Times)
Two practical things. Don’t you think you have possibly got it the wrong
way round in terms of reporting, that actually there is a much greater
urgency for this matter than the parliamentary one, especially as we have
got a new Commissioner in, and if as is promised we are going to have a
Civil Service Act, it could well be introduced in November in The Queen’s
Speech and therefore you may be reporting too late on that. And two, in
terms of evidence in the past, there has always been an assumption that the
Civil Service is monolithic when there is obviously clearly a big diversity
of views on these subjects, so will you be seeking evidence from a variety
of serving Permanent Secretaries rather than just the current or due to be
appointed Cabinet Secretary and Heads of the Civil Service?
Sir Nigel Wicks
First of all on the question of timing, Peter, we have thought long and
hard on this particular question and debated it backwards and forwards.
First of all there are some relationships between the two inquiries, for
example as you may have seen from a recent debate in the House of Commons
the issue has arisen of the relationship between the code which Members of
Parliament have to observe and the Ministerial Code, so there is some
relationship and there may be other relationships. The reason we have
decided to do it in this order is partly touched on by your second
question. It does raise the issues that are set out in the paper, do raise
very, very significant questions relating to the fundamentals of the
working of our constitution and we think it right in these circumstances to
allow three months, which is the normal consultation period you are
required to give, for people who want to to respond to these issues. We
have allowed two months for the one on the House of Commons. Now as to your
question about the Civil Service Act being in The Queen’s Speech, I have
read that, I am not sure whether that is actually going to happen, I have
seen reports in the newspaper and I am not sure when the Bill would
actually be introduced, but we are mindful of not missing the bus as it
were and will obviously keep that in mind as our timetable goes forward.
On your second point, I would very much like that to happen quite frankly,
we will certainly get I am sure evidence from the Permanent Secretary at
the Cabinet Office, the Secretary of the Cabinet, but I would certainly
like to have some evidence from other Civil Servants, senior Civil
Servants. Whether that will happen, well I can only ask quite frankly and I
also will be looking I think to other Civil Servants who have just retired,
and several have, for advice as well for evidence. But certainly I would
like, if they are willing, to hear from other senior Civil Servants.
Lord MacGregor
Can I just add to Peter’s point because I think it is interesting in terms
of the topicality of issues. When we first started to draft the Questions
and Issues Paper for the Parliamentary Inquiry, that was the issue in
public comment and the issue that all of you were talking about, you know
all around the Elizabeth Filkin departure and so on, and at that time we
thought that was the topical issue. When we had the press conference last
week it had ceased to be an issue and everyone was concerned about this
one. We have actually accelerated the production of this because of the
topical concerns and the events that have led to that and now of course, as
I say, this one suddenly becomes the bigger issue. What I think is
important, Peter, is that we are not just blown by immediate events but
that we do do our studied and proper inquiry enabling everyone to
participate because we are not concerned with individual cases, we are
concerned with getting the process right.
Question:
I wonder what reaction, Sir Nigel, you would have and perhaps one or two
other members of the committee, to a point you will have heard and we are
told all the time, and the point is this.There are only just over 80
Special Advisers and thousands of Civil Servants, so any suggestion it is
said that Special Advisers are even worthy of discussion is absurd. And
what do you make of those who would say that recent events prove that the
committee’s last effort was simply ignored by government, in practice even
if they pass the code?
Sir Nigel Wicks
Let me say first of all that those issues, those views, are something that
we will be looking into no doubt in our evidence taking and if people have
those views we will hear them. But let me say, I think just a straight
comparison of the 83 or how many we have Special Advisers and the 3,000 or
whatever it is senior Civil Servants, is not the whole story, it is where
the Special Advisers are as it were in the machine, what leverage they have
within the machine, what access they have to Ministers within the machine,
so I don’t think it is just a matter of numbers but these issues are no
doubt issues that we will want to look at within our report. Now as to your
second question, that no-one takes any notice of what we say, I don’t
believe that to be true. I think that if you look at previous reports
notice has been taken of them and action has also been taken. But one of
the issues that I think is bound to come up here, and it has been talked
about and we will look at it, is the issue of whether we should have some
of what we have recommended in the past, some of what is suggested, whether
it should be actually enshrined in an Act of Parliament, that is something
that I would guess some people will put to us. And I cannot help but
observe that this is not a new idea that these issues should be put in an
Act of Parliament. I have before me here a report, admittedly written a
little time ago, the Northcott-Trevelyan Report of 23 November 1853 and if
you look, which is entitled The Organisation of the Permanent Civil
Service, so it is absolutely relevant to what we are talking about now, the
last paragraph has in the margin the words necessity for an Act of
Parliament, and I quote: ‘It remains for us’, that is the two people who
wrote the report, ‘to express our conviction that if any change of the
importance of those which we have recommended are to be carried into effect
it can only be successfully done through the medium of an Act of
Parliament.’ And then it goes on to say ‘a few clauses would accomplish all
that is proposed, now a paper’, and then this is I think the most
interesting comment, ‘and it is our firm belief that a candid statement of
the grounds of the measure would ensure its success and popularity in the
country and would remove many misconceptions which are not prejudicial to
the public service.’ Well I am sorry they wrote it like that because I
would have liked to have put something like that in our report, but it
would be regarded as plagiarism. No but seriously, these issues are not new
ones. And again a point I want to make, which I think is very important and
I don’t want to be regarded as a traditionalist here, I am not, in the
1850s that was a time of great change for our country, enormous change, it
was the beginning of the modernisation of the British state if I might put
it like that, and I don’t think necessarily, and this is something that no
doubt we will be given advice on, I don’t think any of these values which
are enshrined in our seven principles are antipathetical in any way to the
sort of process that we need to keep our country and its public
administration up to date.
Lord Goodhart
We are a committee on standards, we are not a committee on the
constitution. Of course therefore we are looking at issues about the
increase in the number of Special Advisers which has taken place and
possible further increases, not to decide whether that is a
constitutionally desirable change but whether it is a change which has
affected or might in future affect standards.
Lord MacGregor
If you are looking to me, I think that if you look at our previous report
on this, the sixth report, you will see there that we did recommend a limit
on numbers, we did recommend a Civil Service Act and pending that act that
the limit on numbers should go to Parliament and be debated by Parliament,
and I think some of those recommendations are even more relevant today in
the light of the events we have seen.
Question
How much damage to you think has been done to the public perception of
standards in public life by recent events at the Department of Transport
and how important will it be for your committee to call what I can call the
protagonists at the Department of Transport to give evidence to you, that
is the Permanent Secretary, the Head of the Press Office and even the
former Special Adviser, Jo Moore?
Sir Nigel Wicks
I am not going to talk in terms of damage, I think that is not words that I
would want to use, but I think I will say and I echo what is said in our
terms of reference of our committee, I think there are some public concerns
and we are asked to look at public concerns and that is what we will be
doing. We will not be raking over particular events but what we will do, we
will be as it were informed by recent events, recent developments, because
we are looking at what I would term structural, what are the structural
issues here, what are the general lessons that can be learnt in order to
maintain the seven principles of public life that we set out in our first
report. Now who we invite to give evidence, and of course no-one can be
compelled to give evidence, the committee have yet to take a view on that,
that is something that we will decide no doubt at our next meeting, but I
would not be at all surprised if we don’t call on people such as Mr
Sixsmith and Ms Moore, but if we do we will be calling on them not to go
over recent events in detail but we will be saying what are the general
lessons for the future, are our present structures working properly and if
not how should we improve them.
Question:
Will you call on the Permanent Secretary as well?
Sir Nigel Wicks
We, as I said in answer to an earlier question, we will no doubt get some
advice from Sir Richard Wilson, the Cabinet Secretary, but it would be I
think interesting to talk to some Permanent Secretaries who run major
departments and it may be that that Permanent Secretary would be one, but
that is something that the committee have not yet decided and of course the
only thing we can do is extend invitations and whether they are accepted is
not for us.
Question (Guardian)
Can I ask two questions? Are you going to explore the relationships and
possibly call for evidence for the people involved where Special Advisers
like Alastair Campbell are given executive powers over Civil Servants, and
I couldn’t quite see a direct, it probably is in your proposals. And the
second one is, I notice there is a reference to openness and the code of
access for information on disclosing things like lobbying groups, are you
also going to explore the fact that the Freedom of Information Act has been
delayed for implementation for four years and at present the code is being
used to protect Special Advisers to an enormous extent, including them not
disclosing their actual salaries that are paid for by the taxpayer for
example, let alone meetings of lobbyists and other things.
Sir Nigel Wicks
On your first question, I think we are bound when we look at the role of
Special Advisers and their relationships with Permanent Civil Servants, I
think we are bound to look at the issue of those two Special Advisers, and
of course under the Ordering Council it can be three, those who are given a
special status, and you have mentioned them. So I think their role is bound
to come up. Whether they give evidence to the committee is something we
will have to see. I do have to say that in the past such evidence has been
given by the Secretary of the Cabinet. On lobbyists and information, I
don’t think we will be doing a detailed take a view of the Freedom of
Information Act, we won’t be doing that, but if you look on page 24 of our
paper you will see some reference to the issues that you talk about and I
think we will be looking at that issue. We say for example that the present
arrangements set out in the Ministerial Code don’t give any advice, don’t
give any instructions on how long records of deputations which Ministers
receive, how long those records should be kept, and we also refer to the
point about disclosing meetings, the fact that they have taken place, and I
guess those are things that we will be having evidence on and we will make
up our minds in the light of the evidence we get.
Lord Goodhart
Could I just add that openness is very much one of the features we will
need to look at in the course of this inquiry and that is something that
does involve the code and in due course the Freedom of Information Act.
Sir Nigel Wicks
Let me just amplify, I have now found the text, it says on page 24:
However, without disclosure on request, the question may arise how the
principle of openness’ exactly William’s point, under which public offices,
and this is quotes from the seven principles, should give reasons for their
decisions and restrict information only when the public interest clear
demands can be fully met. So I think your point is in there.
Question (Telegraph)
Some people would say you are not actually being bold enough in this report
and there is the case for a proper American style politicised Civil Service
where the new Administration brings in lots of its own political people.
Why didn’t you decide to have a look at that kind of concept to see whether
that could be brought into this country?
Sir Nigel Wicks
You say we are not being bold enough, if someone wants to argue that
particular point, if they want to give us evidence on that particular
point, I think our questions are sufficiently wide for them to do so. But I
make a few observations on this particular point. I sometimes think these
comparisons with the United States ignore the political context that both
systems operate in. The United States has a formal written constitution, it
has a supreme court, it has the separation of powers between the Executive
and the Legislature, which we do not have, it has a system where senior
appointments are set out under the system of advice and consent. Also, and
I have lived and worked in the United States for a considerable period and
I have party politicians sitting beside me, I have a feeling that the
division of party debate in the United States is not as strong as it is in
the United Kingdom. So although people can raise this issue, certainly
raise this issue, I think under the questions, I think it is a very
difficult issue and I think it raises lots and lots of points of the sort
that I have just mentioned. But if someone wants to raise it and puts the
case forward, well I suspect we would be very interested.
Lord MacGregor
I would just like to underline that point in relation to your question
about boldness. We had quite a debate on the questions that we put and if
you look at them you will see they are very widely drafted, they are very
open ended questions and that is deliberate to enable people to raise
whatever issues they wish to. The questions are guidance as to the things
that we will be looking at, but it is perfectly open to anyone to put any
points of view they wish.
Sir Nigel Wicks
You see just to answer your question, Question 13, are there alternative
approaches to the current definition of Special Advisers as temporary Civil
Servants, what might be the advantages or disadvantages? So the questions
are very broad.
Question (FT)
John MacGregor said that in your report which I think was exactly two years
ago, you called for limits on the number of Special Advisers, you called
for a Civil Service Act, the Blair government has taken not a blind bit of
notice. Given that we have also just heard that if you ask to speak to
Alastair Campbell or Jonathan Powell you think you are going to get nice
Sir Richard Wilson, won’t the real impact of your committee’s report just
be to bury the bad news and the whole sordid mess for the government yet
again?
LORD MACGREGOR I think the atmosphere is a bit different
from two years ago. I agree with you, I think it is a great pity that the
recommendations that we made then have not been taken up, but there seems
to be gathering support for them, particularly in the light of recent
events, and I hope that our sixth report made a substantial contribution
towards that. On the whole, the vast majority of this committee’s
recommendations have been implemented, that puts a spotlight on those that
haven’t been, there are one or two on party funding as well, and personally
I think that our arguments then have stood the test of time. There may also
be one or two areas where we in the end will need to go further, depending
on the evidence, than we did in the sixth report because of events that
have happened since then.
Sir Nigel Wicks
Sue, let me also say that if you look at the record, sometimes what we say
is not accepted first time round, but there are other times, and the recent
edition of the Ministerial Code does show that it did incorporate useful
features that we have been advocating for some significant time. So we will
keep at it, in the light of the evidence, and continue to make
recommendations. And I have to say, what is the figure, some 80% of the
recommendations, we did a stock-take, some 80% of the recommendations that
we have put forward, not just covering this area but covering all areas,
have we think been acted upon.
QUESTION (Times) Will you be looking in particular at the
changes at No 10 and the influx of advisers there like John Birt who could
perhaps be put into a different category?
Sir Nigel Wicks
I think those issues will come into, yes as you say Question 3, is the
position on unpaid advisors satisfactory? I think that will come up. And
indeed if you look at the last edition of the Ministerial Code there is
some reference there. So yes this undoubtedly will come up. I shall be most
surprised if we don’t get evidence on it.
Question (Independent)
Do you imagine you might invite politicians to give evidence?
Sir Nigel Wicks
Yes, most certainly so.
Question:
Specifically Stephen Byers?
Sir Nigel Wicks
As I say, we will ask the government for views on these questions. Who the
government will want to put forward to discuss them, we will have to see.
Lord Goodhart
Can I add that we would not be bound by a decision of the government in the
sense that we could ask Ministers whether or not the government chose to
approve them. Of course in practice it is unlikely that a serving Minster
would appear in front of us without the authority of the Prime Minister but
that is not a matter for us, we have complete freedom to invite who we wish
to hear.
Lord MacGregor
There were a considerable number of politicians who gave evidence on the
Sixth Report, including Cabinet Ministers.
Question (Evening Standard)
Given that it has been a couple of years now since your Sixth Report and
your recommendations there, how urgent do you think it is that the
government does introduce a Civil Service Bill this time round in the next
Queen’s Speech?
Sir Nigel Wicks
We advocated it last time, we are disappointed that it has not so far come
forward. I think the committee still is of the view that it would be
valuable, and what we will do in this report I think is to go into a little
more detail of what such an act could contain, what are the actual
provisions, and the deliberations will be, as I said a moment ago, informed
by recent events. So we do think it is an important issue.
Question:
Sir Nigel, would you mind spelling out for people why you think a Civil
Service Act might help? Many people would believe that this whole question
is merely about power and who has got it and it doesn’t matter what you
write down and where you write it down, people know where power lies and
they tend to bow down in front of it.
Sir Nigel Wicks
I would give you two answers, and I come back to the point that I made a
moment ago that way back when the basis of the present Civil Service was
laid in the 1850s the people who wrote the report then thought that it was
useful to have a Civil Service Act, an Act of Parliament. My two reasons
are as follows. First of all if you look at most areas of public life they
are under the watch as it were of Parliament. If you look at what happens
in the National Health Service, what happens in the national education
system, what happens in the various public boards, what happens with the
regulation of the various industries, it all stems from parliamentary
authority. But the Civil Service doesn’t. and to be technical for a moment,
the Civil Service is founded on a prerogative act, Orders in Council, it
entirely comes out as the Executive, and I think it is in principle right
that such an important institution as the Civil Service and its
relationships with Ministers and so on should be set out in an act so that
there is parliamentary oversight, I think that is what this country is
about, we are after all a parliamentary democracy. That is one reason.
Another reason, which is connected, is this, and this is a complex point
but I think it is important. In this country the system of politics we have
is party politics and that system of party politics as I think is accepted
and has served the country well over the years. What happens when we have
an election is we have party politicians, the ones who win the election,
move out of the party arena and become Ministers and in a sense then they
have a wider responsibility as Ministers, their wider responsibility is to
the general public interest and it is the role of the Civil Service to work
to Ministers, who of course work within their party manifestos and within
their party beliefs and ideologies, but it is the role of the Permanent
Civil Service to work in an impartial way to support Ministers. Now as I
say this is a subtle and complex relationship in those circumstances and I
think that that subtle and complex relationship can be buttressed and made
more transparent by putting something down in an Act of Parliament. Sorry
to put it rather long windedly, but I am going to turn to colleagues here,
William would you want to add?
Lord Goodhart
Yes, I entirely agree with what Sir Nigel has said that I think the element
of parliamentary control here is very important, for instance one of the
things we recommended in the Sixth Report was that there should be a limit
on the number of Special Advisers, we didn’t suggest any particular figure,
we said that there should be a limit which would be imposed by statute and
that limit could only be changed by secondary legislation approved by both
Houses of Parliament so that there would be a parliamentary control over
these developments. That of course was a recommendation which was not taken
up and I give that as a particular example of the kind of thing that a
Civil Service Act might do to prevent any changes in the system without
parliamentary approval.
Lord MacGregor
I would just like to add very briefly that I think a Civil Service Act
certainly would help a lot in dealing with some of the issues that we have
been confronted with recently, not least in clarifying responsibilities and
functions and that statutory is the benefit, but I think the implication
behind your question is I would say not so much about power but that no act
can deal with all issues involving personal relationships, as I think Lord
Falconer hinted at in the House of Lords the other day, and I use my words
in this but it was his sentiment, that no act can overcome all issues of
personality clashes, lack of Ministerial control and leadership and it is
only Ministerial behaviour that can deal with those sort of things.
(End of transcript)
