Finance Committee, 23 Nov 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Official Report 288KB pdf

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Civil Service Effectiveness

The fourth item on the agenda is consideration of a paper from the clerk on whether the committee wants to contribute to the Public Administration Select Committee's inquiry into civil service effectiveness. As the paper says, the PASC has begun its inquiry, which has a fairly wide-ranging remit. Our paper focuses on the two areas that fall within our remit, on which it is recommended that we focus.

As the paper also says that, given the fact that we would want to do this work in a relatively short period of time, instead of going through a wide-ranging report, we might flag up issues that we believe that the PASC should take into account in its consideration of the matter. That would feed into our inquiry on efficient government as well, so there would be a benefit to our proceeding on that basis. Do members have any comments?

It is an excellent paper; however, the seeking of evidence, which is mentioned in paragraph 12, seems slightly narrow in focus for what we would want to do. I have a number of suggestions. First, we should consider asking Andrew Turnbull, who is the head of the civil service in Scotland, to give evidence. Secondly, we should think about asking the head of the Prime Minister's delivery unit, Michael Barber, to submit written evidence and possibly to appear as a witness. Thirdly, we should seek evidence from Sir Peter Gershon, who is driving the public services review. Fourthly, in a specifically Scottish context, we might ask for evidence from either Lord Fraser or John Campbell, given the fact that the Fraser inquiry touched on such issues.

I also think that we should ask directly the head of human resources for the Scottish Executive and the new director of organisational change in the Scottish Executive for written evidence. We might also invite a couple of recent members of the Scottish Executive's management group who are no longer employees of the Scottish Executive—for example, Trevor Jones—and the most senior or most recent direct external recruit to the Executive, as 20 per cent of senior civil service jobs in England involve direct recruitment from outside the civil service. Finally, we should also seek written evidence from business organisations. Such a targeted approach would complement our asking all the civil service trade unions for evidence. We could just write to those people to ask whether they wish to submit evidence.

We have to be careful to stay within our remit. I have some concern that, if we broadened our inquiry quite as wide as you are suggesting, we might exceed our remit. I have discussed with the clerk whether our remit is too narrow, as it does not specifically say that we can cover all the areas for which the minister has responsibility, unlike the remits of the subject committees. I take the point that there are issues such as the changing to deliver programme in relation to which it might be appropriate for us to consider what evidence can be brought forward.

Perhaps you and the clerks can consider the names on the list one by one and reject anyone who is inappropriate.

To raise an issue that I raise all the time, there is a question as to whether we need an adviser in an inquiry such as this one. Obviously, our inquiry parallels that of the PASC but I do not know whether that committee has an adviser. On that point, however, we should check who it is taking evidence from. Are we paralleling its approach to the taking of evidence?

There are a number of people in Parliament who have experience of Cabinet responsibility but who are not ministers at present. Although current members of the Scottish Executive would be unable to express their views on this matter, those people might like to volunteer their views.

There are probably a couple of members of the committee who have some such experience.

There seems to be general agreement that this is a good route for us to go down. It has been suggested that, once the process is under way, we invite the PASC up to Edinburgh for a joint meeting or an exchange of views at an appropriate point. That would be a good exercise.

Are we agreed, in principle, to do what we have been discussing?

Members indicated agreement.

We will sort out the details and consider the suggestions that have been made by Wendy Alexander and others, bearing it in mind that we are talking about a confined piece of work that must feed into our work on efficient government. If members are agreeable, I will also take forward the issue of our remit. I think that there is a question about the nature of our remit and it is possible that we should be picking up some of the issues that we have been discussing in order to ensure that there is appropriate accountability in Scotland.

We agreed to take item 5, which relates to the budget process 2005-06, and item 6, in private.

Meeting continued in private until 12:50.