Former senior civil servants have warned the government’s new rules on senior officials speaking in public are "outrageous" and "unworkable".
The Institute for Government yesterday raised concerns about new internal government guidance banning senior and mid-ranking officials from speaking at events with Q&A sessions, or where media are expected to attend.
Responding to the IfG's warning about the guidance, former Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman posted on X: "On the face of it this restriction is astonishing and unworkable."
Broaching the potential impact of the guidance, Baroness Spielman added: "No more interactive stakeholder events unless a minister is there? Just publications of text/video content pre-authorised by ministerial offices? Government grinds too slowly and this will jam the works completely."
Also commenting on X, Paul Johnson, the outgoing director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, called the move "frankly outrageous".
"This new, and I think unprecedented, ban on civil servants speaking in public will damage public debate, politics, policy making and the civil service itself," the former senior official in the Treasury and Department for Education and Skills wrote. "What are they thinking?"
Jill Rutter, a former senior official in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who is now a senior fellow at the IfG, added on Blue Sky: "If you are in a department with a lot of external stakeholders, this is an essential part of the job.
"If you are too clueless to work out what you can and cannot say about [government] policy in public, [I'm] not sure you should be a senior official."
The IfG raised concerns about the policy after it had to cancel an event on Tuesday on public sector spending as it was told Nick Donlevy, a senior civil servant at the Treasury, could no longer attend. The Royal United Services Institute, meanwhile, had to tell journalists attending a land warfare conference earlier this month that they could not report on a speech by air chief marshal Sir Richard Knighton.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The principle of civil servants rules around media engagement are longstanding and well-established, having been clearly outlined in the Civil Servant Management Code 2016 and the civil service code.
“It has always been the case, and a constitutional principle, that ministers are ultimately accountable for decision-making to parliament and the public – so it is right they are routinely scrutinised by the media and MPs.”