Legal

“Irregular” voluntary redundancy payments made by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to its former chief executive officer Phillippa Williamson have led the National Audit Office (NAO) to qualify its audit opinion on the SFO’s 2011-12 accounts.

Civil servants giving evidence at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have been treated in an “atrocious” and “outrageous” way in order to further “people’s own political ambition and their own political ends,” FDA general secretary Dave Penman has said in an interview with CSW.

Some ministers are frustrated with civil servants who are slow to implement policies, Richard Heaton, the new permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office, has acknowledged. To overcome this, he said, civil servants must push for more clarity from ministers on whether they have made firm policy decisions, or whether they are waiting for more evidence before proceeding.

Over the past three decades, no government has been able to achieve reductions in the administrative costs of central government equal to those proposed by the coalition, a report from Oxford University said earlier this month.

The think tank contracted by the Cabinet Office to provide external policy advice on the future of civil service accountability has published research setting out its conclusions on the topic, CSW can reveal.

More honours must be awarded for “exceptional service to the community” and fewer should go to politicians, civil servants and celebrities, the chair of the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has told CSW.

The government’s Civil Service Reform Plan states: “Given ministers’ direct accountability to Parliament for the performance of their departments and for the implementation of their policy priorities, we believe they should have a stronger role in the recruitment of a permanent secretary.”

Ministers should not have a stronger role in appointing their permanent secretary, the civil service commissioners have said, criticising a key element of the Civil Service Reform Plan.

Leading politicians are engaged in a “conspiracy” to prevent reforms to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA), Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) chair Bernard Jenkin has told CSW.

The relationship between ministers and the civil service must improve and both groups’ accountability must be clarified, Dame Gillian Morgan, the retiring permanent secretary of the Welsh Assembly Government, has told CSW.

The recent series of “damaging and distracting” attacks on the civil service by unnamed ministers and their advisers has ended with the publication of the Civil Service Reform Plan, the UK’s top civil servants told audiences at Civil Service Live (CSL) last week.

If only they’d do the same with elected police commissioners

A solicitor representing David Owen, a civil servant suing the Treasury for unfair dismissal, has said that officials are threatening to ignore the judge’s decision should he rule in Owen’s favour.

Departments must think of the long-term when setting out budgets as part of a Spending Review, the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has said in a report published yesterday.

The Treasury must take ownership of the new system of accountability that will develop as a result of public service reforms, the Public Accounts Committee has said.

The repeated funding scandals must be tackled at their roots, says Matt Ross

Departmental expenditure limits (DEL) will need to fall by 3.8 per cent per year in the first two years of the next Parliament – even more than the current annual cuts of 2.3 per cent – unless there are deeper cuts to annual managed expenditure (AME) budgets, chancellor George Osborne said in his Budget last week.

Former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell has told the House of Commons Justice Committee that a ‘safe house’ should be established where ministers can speak freely without fear of a Freedom of Information request.

A Public Administration Select Committee report into the role of the independent adviser on ministers’ interests has concluded that the role is not “independent in any meaningful sense”. 

Permanent secretaries should challenge ministers more, including by requesting more formal ‘ministerial directions’, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has told Civil Service World. Meanwhile, Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge has called for a debate over civil servants’ accountability, suggesting to CSW that more civil servants should be held accountable to Parliament, rather than solely to their ministers.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said at Queen Mary University last week that granting the Bank of England independence in 1997 “increased the power of the Treasury, because it allowed the Treasury to say: ‘Well, I see you want to make that decision, prime minister, and I can see why you’d want to do that, but I’m not sure the independent Bank of England will wear it.”

Ministers are responsible for their entire departments’ work and must ensure they’re made aware of any emerging problems, Lord Hennessy, Britain’s leading constitutional expert, has told CSW.

Permanent secretaries’ objectives are likely to be expanded, with responsibility for cross-cutting government agendas – such as encouraging economic growth – included in their appraisal systems, cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has said. Meanwhile, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude told CSW that permanent secretaries and ministers should be accountable to Parliament for the policies they helped to implement even when they have moved departments or retired.

Select committees are looking for a proper argument