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CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 83-iv House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE
LEAKS AND
WHISTLEBLOWING IN
MS JANET PARASKEVA and DR RICHARD JARVIS Evidence heard in Public Questions 208 - 262
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Public Administration Committee on Members present Dr Tony Wright, in the Chair Paul Flynn David Heyes Kelvin Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger Julie Morgan Mr Gordon Prentice Paul Rowen Mr Charles Walker ________________ Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Ms Janet Paraskeva, First Civil Service Commissioner, and Dr Richard Jarvis, Head of Independent Offices and Secretary to the First Civil Service Commissioners, gave evidence. Q208 Chairman: It is a great pleasure to welcome Janet Paraskeva, who is the First Civil Service Commissioner, accompanied by Richard Jarvis. Thank you very much for coming. As you know, we wanted to talk to you really about two matters relating to current inquiries we are doing. The first is on the area of leaks and whistleblowing and the second is on the whole business of external recruitment to the Civil Service, and I think you have something to say at the beginning of each session. Ms Paraskeva: If that is all right and, first of all, some comments on the leaks and whistleblowing inquiry. First of all, thank you very much. It is always a privilege to have the opportunity to come and share, and be questioned on, the issues that we raise. You know that one of our main roles is to hear appeals from civil servants under the Civil Service Code and part of that involves us working with departments to promote the Civil Service values under the Code because, we think, that is part and parcel of that responsibility. In our written evidence to you, we have provided some more detail on that, and clearly I am happy to answer any questions that you have on it, and also explain some of our current activity in promotion because we have really put some energy behind that, I think, in the last year/18 months. The other thing, I hope, you will remember is that, as Commissioners, we were actually concerned that in the past the Code was really not known about, or not known about as much as it might have been, by civil servants, and of course the drafting of the new version of the Code in 2006 helped some of that because it did put the language into a more easily understandable format and into the document itself. We also then worked with permanent secretaries because, as the senior managers, it was very important to them, so we worked with them to publish a good practice checklist and it is that checklist, which I will talk about later, on which we are auditing those departments against right now in fact, as we speak. Our role formally of course is to hear appeals that come to us and very few come to us and I have, in front of this Committee before, expressed surprise as to how few appeals actually reach the Commissioners. Because of this, last year we held two surveys, one to ask departments exactly how they were promoting the Code and the second to really dip our toe in the water to find out exactly what departments were doing in terms of the appeal structures they had set up. That was really preparatory work to the audit that we are now involved in which is much more formal and much more rigorous. We are doing this, not because we are able to within our powers, but because we have agreed with the Cabinet Secretary that this is a good thing to do. It is a rigorous audit using an external company to help us with the analysis of the procedures that exist in each Department so that civil servants can feel that there is a safe place to raise any concerns that they have within their Department or indeed directly to us, as they have been able to since 2006. I think it remains our belief that it is healthier in an organisation if concerns that individuals have, are raised properly either within line management or to the structures that exist within that Department. What we want, after all, is a culture in the Civil Service where people are not frightened either to speak truth unto power, as it were, but also to raise concerns, if they have them, and for those matters to be dealt with properly within those departments. Having said that, there must be a safety valve because some people might be intimidated. It may be that their direct line manager might be very senior, so there must be somewhere that they can come and, rightly the place is directly to us, as Commissioners. One of the things that we perhaps may want to explore with you is how we might better signpost the whistleblowing procedures, if we are going to call them that, to civil servants because, although the number of appeals to us has increased since we have been doing our promotion work, we need to find out from the audit exactly whether that is sufficient cover for civil servants who find their own procedures either too difficult or too obscure to actually use. I suppose the only other thing that I might want to say by way of introduction is on the issue of leaks and just to make our position clear, as Civil Service Commissioners, which is that no civil servant should feel that they have no option but to leak. There must be a procedure that is safe enough for them and confidential enough for them not to feel that they have to break the Code and go outside the behaviour that we would expect of our impartial Civil Service. Q209 Chairman: Thank you very much for that. Could you just tell us your view of the kind of circumstances that you think would justify a civil servant whistleblowing or leaking? Ms Paraskeva: Well, if they are whistleblowing within the organisation, then I think, if I can, I will limit my remarks to that because I do not think I would be advocating in any way whistleblowing outside of either the systems that departments have or directly to us. If, for example, a department was misusing information about their targets and perhaps targets that had been overachieved in one year and banking them so that their targets for the next year might look better, then, if somebody were to bring that issue to us, that is exactly the kind of issue that we would want to hear and that somebody ought to feel able to bring to us. Q210 Chairman: Is that the kind of issue that you have been getting? Ms Paraskeva: That is an exact example of an appeal that we actually upheld and went back to the Department and asked for changes in that behaviour. Q211 Chairman: But you can see, can you not, that, if you are a civil servant and you find that kind of thing happening and you are worried about it, it is not a career-enhancing move, is it, to go to your line manager and say, "I think we're getting up to things we shouldn't be getting up to here"? Ms Paraskeva: No, it is not a career-enhancing move, which is why of course departments not only invite people to talk in line management terms, but have a nominated officer, who is not part of line management, to whom the civil servant can go and raise this matter. Each Department is required to have nominated officers and we are trying to enhance that network of nominated officers and, as we speak, we are working on a confidential website for them so that they can be in communication with each other over the kinds of issues before them and indeed with our office, with the office that Richard heads, if they have queries that they need to explore with us, and we are trying in every way that we can to actually support the networks that exist for people. As you say, it is not career-enhancing, so somebody is not necessarily going to tap the shoulder of their boss and say, "Look, I really don't think we should be fiddling the figures in this way", but they may need to let somebody know that that is going on because that is not proper behaviour. Fortunately, it is only a small number of people and only in a small number of cases where this may happen and people do believe in the values of the Civil Service and they do use the structures that are there. Q212 Chairman: David Hencke from The Guardian, when we had all the recent leaking in the Home Office, wrote a nice piece quoting, anonymously of course, a civil servant, with the civil servant explaining why, not a particular one, but why in general a civil servant might feel prompted to leak. He said, quoting the civil servant, "Sometimes something appears on your desk and you think, 'God, this is absolutely blatant and wrong, someone should know about this'....It is worth doing when you see something that is out of order, or when you know the Minister and senior civil servants are being hypocritical or just lying to the public". Now, such an occasion is not impossible to imagine, but it must be mightily difficult for a civil servant, even with a nominated officer, even with a Civil Service Commission, to think that, within the system, they can get anywhere with this, must it not? Ms Paraskeva: I can see that it is difficult of course if you are in that situation, but we surely do not want to encourage an organisational culture in the Civil Service where people do not feel safe to raise issues within it. I think the onus is on us, as Civil Service Commissioners, and it is on departments to make sure that the structures are there that people can feel safe that we are providing an environment where it is possible to put your hand up and say, "This is wrong", and your career not to be damaged by that. I would hate to think that we were encouraging a Civil Service that felt that it could only really raise matters of concern by going outside. Therefore, for us, as Civil Service Commissioners, I think we need to look at whether in fact we are promoting the fact that this particular civil servant could have come directly to us, and I look at my emails seven days a week and, if there is something there that is urgent and important enough, I would go straight to the Cabinet Secretary with it. Q213 Chairman: If someone like this comes to you and you look at it, what happens then? Ms Paraskeva: As I say, I would usually consult the Office, but that is not necessarily the case and, if it is something very, very urgent, I would have to act. Fortunately, we have not had a whole stream of these activities, but my policy would be to, first of all, check the facts obviously because one does not want to suddenly escalate something that was only partially correct and, in the first instance, I would need to consider whether I should raise the matter with the Permanent Secretary. If it were a matter of some seniority, a much more critical issue, then I would raise the matter directly with Sir Gus O'Donnell. Q214 Chairman: Yes, and then what happens? Ms Paraskeva: Then he would have to take action. If he did not take any action and I was concerned that action should have been taken, then of course we do have a duty to report, and I guess I would report to you. Q215 Chairman: So we have got our civil servant who thinks that the Minister is telling less than the truth about something and perhaps thinks the public would have access to this information if anyone put a Freedom of Information request in and, therefore, there is a public interest in it being available, but his department was happily helping the Minister not to give the full truth, so this brave person comes to you and you go back to the Department and say, "Well, this is not quite right, is it?" and the Permanent Secretary explains that they are doing their job, they are serving the Government of the day. Then what do you do? Ms Paraskeva: Well, if I am still concerned about the behaviour, then, as I say, I would go to the Cabinet Secretary because, if it is a matter of ministerial pressure being put on civil servants, that is not a matter for us, as Commissioners, but it is a matter that the Cabinet Secretary would no doubt raise perhaps even with the Prime Minister. Q216 Chairman: It is difficult to feel, as I say, that this civil servant's career is going to be greatly enhanced by all this. What I am getting at is that you can see why someone in that position might think that some alternative routes are preferable, can you not? Ms Paraskeva: Well, I cannot see that their career is going to be enhanced very much if they go to the press either. Frankly, there is much greater safety for them to come to either their nominated officer in their department or directly to us. Q217 Chairman: But they can go to the press anonymously, they can do a brown envelope and, therefore, they will have the satisfaction of knowing that this information does become public without putting themselves on the line. Can you not just see in terms of how the world works that ---- Ms Paraskeva: Of course I can, but, as I say, I do not think that that is the kind of Civil Service that we want to encourage. We need a different, and I do believe we have a different, ethos in our Civil Service actually and I do not think I would want to go anywhere near the slippery slope of saying to our civil servants, "Look, we can't provide you with a protective environment to raise those concerns". We have got to somehow even further enhance the culture that exists within the Civil Service of there being safety to raise matters of concern. Q218 Chairman: Okay, let me just ask you about those. We know that civil servants are now within this environment of public interest disclosure, whistleblowing legislation and freedom of information, and that does make, I think, an altered environment from how it used to be. We know from surveys that have been done by Public Concern at Work that practice inside the Civil Service on making known whistleblowing provisions is extremely patchy and undeveloped, and what I really want to know is, given what you have said about your role in the system, should you not be out there really describing this new framework to every civil servant so that they do get the confidence to be able to come to you? Ms Paraskeva: I agree. Our role is actually to help departments do that, but, in addition to helping departments do that, we have actually been taking on that role ourselves corporately through sponsoring the Cabinet Secretary's awards, through the events that we have held on Civil Service Live which have been directly about promoting the values, and indeed we have 1,000 civil servants up in Gateshead on Monday, if any of you happen to be there, for two sessions on the Civil Service values. We make sure that the values are on their mouse mats. We have held a number of promotional activities and written in publications that we hope people read to try to make sure that the values are known and not just that the values are known, but the people know that they can come to us. I am also looking into our own procedures to see what else we can add to people's knowledge about the way in which we work and how they approach us. I think the question for us is: how much more can we do that is appropriate to encourage people to come to us rather than necessarily get caught in, or feel that they may get trapped in, their own departmental structures? I think this is genuinely a problem, because one does not want to encourage people to go outside of their department if they do not have to. We ought to be there for situations where people feel intimidated or, indeed, where they believe that urgent action is required. We should not be there for the everyday, or else you would be resourcing something that was disproportionate. Q219 Julie Morgan: Could you tell us a bit more, as far as you are able, about the 27 situations that you have dealt with? In response to Tony, you said that missing targets was a typical sort of case, but could you expand? Ms Paraskeva: Some of them of course we do send back because they are HR issues; people sometimes get confused and the appeals that they bring are actually mixed with HR issues, so we have to differentiate between those issues which are properly appeals under the Code such as misleading ministers, giving ministers information which is not quite accurate; contracts, people being concerned that contracts may have been awarded to people's friends and, therefore, allegations of impropriety; the deliberate distortion of statistics for whatever reason, and targets I have already mentioned, but the distortion of figures, I think, is one of the things that is clearly something that people worry about and the timing of the publication of such figures; the risk of breach of health and safety regulations; and failure to take account of expert advice when people see that expert advice has been brought in and then nobody takes any notice of it. Those are the kinds of issues where we have needed to launch investigations where we quite often uphold and, in a couple of cases, where we have not necessarily found the accusation to be true, but nonetheless, when we have looked at the procedures, we have been able to say that the procedures are not entirely clear and, therefore, required some redress to the procedures. Q220 Julie Morgan: What percentage is upheld? Ms Paraskeva: I think the majority. I think of 12 appeals in the last while that came to us, nine were upheld and three not. Q221 Julie Morgan: And, if the appeal is upheld, you then make recommendations to the Department? What is the process? Ms Paraskeva: That is right, we then make recommendations to the department and then we go back to check that the recommendation has been carried out - we do not just leave it there. Obviously, in order to close the situation, we need to go back and check that that recommendation has been followed. Q222 Julie Morgan: What about the situation of the individual civil servant who has raised the issue to begin with? Are you able to check how they then cope in that department, having been through this procedure? Ms Paraskeva: That is not something actually that is within our power or gift to do and it is a question as to who looks after them. One has to ensure, I think the departments must ensure, that those procedures are there to protect that individual, but I think it is a question that probably does need to be addressed within departmental management as to how the welfare of a member of staff who has raised a concern is then properly looked after. Q223 Julie Morgan: Because it does seem that, if there were only 27, those people must have felt pretty strongly if they have come to you and it must be as a result of something they had a burning feeling about, so it is very important to follow that up afterwards. Ms Paraskeva: Indeed. Dr Jarvis: I was just about to say that obviously we do go back to the appellant with the outcome of the appeal. Ms Paraskeva: But the aftercare, I think, is an issue. Q224 Julie Morgan: It is the aftercare I am talking about, yes, if you want to encourage people to use this method. Ms Paraskeva: I think it is a very serious question. It is clearly not within our gift or resource, but it is a very important question that we need to explore, I think, perhaps with permanent secretaries as to how that can be handled after an appeal. Q225 Julie Morgan: The other issue is the length of time this takes. From when a person has raised it individually within the department first and then comes to you, what sort of period of time are we talking about? Ms Paraskeva: Obviously each individual case will be different, but we will respond very quickly ourselves and set up an investigation. Some of them may take months to investigate fully, but it will absolutely depend on the particular instance. I think that, when I was here last time, something had been in the newspapers that I was concerned about and it turned out in fact to be a Ministerial Code issue, not a Civil Service Code issue, but we reacted immediately. I wrote by email to the Cabinet Secretary, he acted immediately with the relevant Permanent Secretary and we found out what the matter was, and that was within a matter of a couple of days. On the other hand, if somebody has raised an issue where we need to launch a full investigation, that obviously can take a number of months. Q226 Julie Morgan: And the civil servant would remain in the department while this investigation was going on? Ms Paraskeva: Yes. Q227 Julie Morgan: Which could obviously be an uncomfortable position to be in. Ms Paraskeva: It could indeed be, yes. Confidentiality is a rather important issue here because of course at the end of the day it becomes more and more difficult to investigate if somebody is not going to allow their name to be known in any allegations. Q228 Julie Morgan: I am assuming the name is known. Ms Paraskeva: Not necessarily. It might be known to us, but we do not necessarily go back, we would not go back to the Permanent Secretary and say, "Hey, Sally Bloggs has just telephoned us", but we would go back and raise what the concern was, so we would not be in the business of exposing in that way, but of course at the end of the day, as I say, if there is a full investigation, then clearly we have to interview people. Q229 Julie Morgan: The point I am really trying to make is about looking after the person who has been so bold as to make the claim. Ms Paraskeva: Yes, and I think it is something that we will take away from this meeting and talk to permanent secretaries about. It is something we might be in the business of accidentally causing, as it were, by being here, but it is the proper business of line management to support their staff and, as I say, in the development of a culture that we want in the Civil Service of people feeling safe to do so and not harming their career if in fact they do speak the truth in this way. Q230 Mr Walker: Are you slightly concerned about the vitriol being rained down on the Office of National Statistics? I know it is not whistleblowing, but we have senior civil servants who are told to be completely impartial and neutral, they are trying to do the right thing, and they are basically being trashed by sections of government. Does that cause you concern because that must poison the well somewhat? Ms Paraskeva: Our role, I think, in all of this is pretty clear, that the civil servants in the Office of National Statistics could have come to us, and perhaps this underlines what we have been talking about which is that they may not understand our role perhaps clearly enough, but those civil servants could have and, maybe should have come to us and raised those concerns immediately they felt that kind of pressure. Of course, there is another regulator involved in this particular issue, the Statistics Commission. But for those civil servants, it is sad, in a way, that they may not realise that they could actually pick up the telephone or email our office and tell us the pressure that they were under, if it was pressure that they felt. Q231 Mr Walker: Dr Jarvis, do you want to add anything to that? Dr Jarvis: On the point about protection for people who raise concerns. Just to say that the Commissioners would consider the case of a civil servant coming with a concern that they have been in some way victimised for raising a concern within the department. That would fall within the ambit of the Commissioners' role. Q232 Mr Walker: Are you concerned about the relationship that civil servants have with permanent secretaries? Are you concerned about the constraints that they feel they operate under? Do you feel that there is a culture now where people do not want to come forward because they are frightened? Ms Paraskeva: No, actually I do not. I think that, by and large, we have a very positive culture in the Civil Service and a very safe culture in which people operate. The Civil Service is half a million people, so we are talking about tiny numbers of people. That does not mean that they are less important, but we do need, I think, to keep it in proportion. We are talking about a few people who have not managed to find the appropriate place to speak up about their concerns. Now, those concerns might be of such magnitude that we will need to make absolutely sure that every structure is in place and procedures are there that they can follow easily and confidentially. Q233 Mr Walker: Do you feel that the pressures and conflicts between the role of special advisers and civil servants have been addressed? There was concern around those relationships early on in this administration's tenure, but do you think those have now been addressed? Ms Paraskeva: It is not something that normally, as Commissioners, we would comment on, but, since you ask me, as I see it operating, it appears to actually work very well and in many senses the special adviser is there to put the political overlay on the objective advice that comes from the Civil Service, and that seems to be actually a fairly positive way of working. Q234 Paul Flynn: Since 1979, there have been at least 14 major reviews and actions in the Civil Service to reform its structure and the culture, starting with Derek Rayner's Efficiency Unit in the Cabinet Office, Richard Wilson, Sir Andrew Turnbull's Departmental Change Programme and there was a recent one, the Capability Review, to which the National Audit Office gave less than top marks. 14 reviews - why have they all failed? Ms Paraskeva: It is tricky to even try to enter that debate, as a Civil Service Commissioner, when our role is really about regulating the entry to the Civil Service and then regulating the appeals against the Code. Q235 Paul Flynn: You said that the ethos is different now, but, if the ethos had been changed, we would not have needed review number six if number five had worked, or we would not have needed review number nine if number eight had worked, 14 reviews. Ms Paraskeva: I think in any organisation, and many of us, I am sure, round this table have run organisations, one needs to continually review one's ability to deliver, and my understanding of the most recent Capability Review was about departmental ability to deliver against government objectives, and it was one of the ways in which the Cabinet Secretary was trying to inject the kind of measures within central government delivery that we expect of local authority delivery, for example. Q236 Paul Flynn: It is being claimed that the central ethos in the Civil Service is based on the unimportance of being right, that those civil servants who have bright ideas who are not timid or passive and who want to express themselves are the ones whose careers wither. If we take the news today, there are hundreds of examples like this and particularly in the Defence Procurement Department of the Chinook helicopters, and I am sure there was someone, some civil servant, someone in the Ministry of Defence deciding that it was not a good idea to vandalise new helicopters when they came on line or to delay any kind of decision. Is it not true that that is the ethos there, that the ethos is to remain silent au maître? Otherwise, if they do challenge whatever the accepted foolishness of the day might be, they are likely to find that they are going to be punished with their career coming to a full stop or not progressing, but is it not a culture of timidity and passivity? Ms Paraskeva: I do not think we know that. I do not believe that a culture exists of timidity and fear. One of the things that our audit will do, because it will be a rigorous audit, is to actually find out exactly what the procedures are in departments. The other thing that we are going to ask for, and have already asked for, is for the departmental staff surveys which happen annually to ask each individual civil servant two sorts of questions: one, whether they actually know about the procedures that exist; and, two, whether they feel confident that they could use them. We will, I think, get some answers back from civil servants themselves which will, I think, be able to give you a fuller answer than I can. People themselves will give that information through their staff surveys in confidence. We do not know, is the answer, I think, to your question and, therefore, we have to try and find out from civil servants themselves whether they know of the procedures and whether they feel safe enough to use them. Q237 Paul Flynn: And this will be review number 15, will it? Ms Paraskeva: No, it is not a review. It is part of the annual departmental surveys. What we have asked is that the annual staff surveys, which happen every year as it might in any organisation, includes within it two very particular questions that we want answers to because it is all very well for us to conduct our audit, asking permanent secretaries and HR directors and the internal audit and nominated officers what they have got in place, but it is quite another thing to say to civil servants, "Given what they say they have in place, does that work for you?" and we want to know that as well. Q238 Paul Flynn: Sir John Hoskins was brought in to look at the problems of the Civil Service in 1982 and one of his conclusions was, "I am suggesting that the concept of political neutrality for the Senior Civil Service is in an impossible position where they have to become passive, doing what they are told but no more just when a supreme effort, will or imagination is called for. If a country's problems require radical remedies, you need a radical government, but how can you have a radical government without radically minded officials?" Is this not true and is this not what we need now, these radical solutions, and do we not have our civil servants with their eyes bandaged and their minds switched off? Ms Paraskeva: Again, you ask me a question which, in many senses, it is not my role to reply to, but I will not resist it. I actually think that having as one of our values political impartiality is absolutely vital to the Civil Service. On the question that you asked about special advisers, we have special advisers who are there to put the political overlay. I think that what we have in this country is an impartial Civil Service and it is one that has stood the test of time. I do have a worry about its future and that is that, frankly, that could be changed overnight if we do not get the Constitutional Renewal Bill on to the statute book because of course the values of the Civil Service, which include political impartiality, are only there by an Order in Council which at the moment means that any government of the day could change that at the stroke of a pen. At least, if we are going to have a debate about whether or not the senior echelons of the Civil Service should be more politically involved, let us have that debate in Parliament and, therefore, let us have the values of the Civil Service on the face of a Bill which, I know, this Committee has tried to promote. We are very keen to get those values on the face of legislation. Chairman: We could go much wider than we are this morning and I want to hold us back, if I can, to the territory that we are on. Q239 Paul Flynn: I have just a final one about the figures, the statistics. I represent a large number of civil servants who work in the statistics office who have been coming to see me since 1988, very concerned that the value of their work, the objectivity of the work they produce could be wrecked by a partial government of one side or another. The Government, to their great credit, have set up the independent national Statistics Authority and we find ourselves now in a position where there is tension between the civil servants and the Government on these figures. Have you any view of this in your role on the Commission as to how you should be protecting, in my view, the freedom of the civil servants in the Statistics Authority to make their case for objective statistics that are not distorted by politicians of either side? Ms Paraskeva: Clearly, one of the ways in which you could help us is to help promote our role if people in the Office for National Statistics do believe that they are put under pressure in that way. One of the other questions you have asked me from time to time is the whole business about whether we should have discretionary powers to investigate, and for a while I was not keen and then I was encouraged by you to think that through in greater detail for where else could people expect an investigation to come from? I think we agreed in the end that we might well be involved in an investigation if we saw a matter so serious or in fact so systematic, and I repeat that because, if what we were hearing from any source was that there was a systematic concern, then clearly that would be exactly the kind of issue that might cause the Commissioners to launch an investigation of their own to see just what was going on. Q240 Chairman: Yes, I think that comes out of Paul's last question and, as you say, we have sort of touched on this with you before, but it is the extent to which you just have to rely upon individual complainants coming to you so that, if you read in the newspapers that there is an issue around the Civil Service, even you, as the Commissioners, cannot actually just wade in there and try and find out what is going on, can you? Ms Paraskeva: No, we cannot. Chairman: Which is a kind of disability. Q241 Paul Flynn: On your mouse mats, is there a duty on civil servants to blow the whistle if they come to a situation like the Iraq War, for instance, where we know that one civil servant resigned, but has never made a statement since then? You obviously have a lead there of saying, "Do not do this and do not do that", but should it be urged as the positive part of your problem that at certain points, when something is so awful, they have to blow the whistle and it is their duty to blow the whistle? Ms Paraskeva: But there is not, but indeed that has been the subject of some conversations between Commissioners and our Office over the last weeks partly because of your inquiry on whistleblowing and partly because of one or two of the things that we have read about in the newspapers. We have ourselves wondered whether or not that would be a way of promoting and we have concluded that we should not put under everybody's mouse hand, "Call us if you're in doubt" because actually we do not think that is the right thing to do. What they should do is call their nominated officer within their department, so what we want to try and do is to encourage permanent secretaries to really promote the role of the nominated officer in that department. As I say, we have established this network of nominated officers with a confidential website for them to talk with each other and with us so that we will be getting much more information about what is actually going on in the body of the church, so to speak, in the future. I think it is in those kinds of ways that we should be working rather than setting up something kind of alongside which, apart from anything else, would just be ridiculously expensive to resource because there would be then no structure within the department for weeding out that which is important from other just general everyday enquiries. Q242 Mr Prentice: Digby Jones is a great showman of course and he told us a few weeks ago that half the Civil Service should be sacked and he clearly thought they were pretty useless. Were you disappointed by what Digby Jones said? Ms Paraskeva: You do keep asking me questions outside my remit! Chairman: I think we would like an answer though! Q243 Mr Prentice: It neatly leads on to my next question, but I would like your observations on my first. Ms Paraskeva: I was disappointed with that kind of statement, yes. Where is the evidence, is, I think, what I would want to say. Mr Walker: Good for you! Q244 Mr Prentice: Last week, we had Liam Byrne in front of us and he spoke about the incredible shrinking Civil Service, down 70,000 or 80,000. Those jobs have not just disappeared into the ether, but many of them are being carried out by private contractors and your writ does not run to the private sector. Is this an issue that you are addressing? Is there a problem there? Ms Paraskeva: You are absolutely right, we have no remit to deal with anything other than that which comes to us from a civil servant. Q245 Mr Prentice: Have you examined this in any depth at all because great slabs of work that used to be covered by people operating under the Civil Service Code and under the Official Secrets Act are being carried out by people who may well be agency staff, may well have a criminal record, may well be dealing with sensitive information, but be wearing a tag? Have you looked at this? Ms Paraskeva: Interestingly, the issue of agency workers has come on to our radar screen, not actually because of the whistleblowing issue, but because of the other part of our role which is being the guardians of entry to the Civil Service because you can imagine that a large department needing to employ caseworkers very quickly could go to an agency and take the first thousand names off the agency list and then, after a little while, want to convert them into full positions of civil servants. We do not let that happen in fact because of the regime that we have about appointment on merit, and departments, I have to say, have been, by and large, very straightforward about this. Where they have wanted to do this, they have telephoned the Office and said, "We'd like to make these people civil servants now", and we have said, "Well, sorry, you can't just do that. There has to be a proper process of merit test which would enable their conversion from agency worker to full Civil Service status". Q246 Mr Prentice: What about a situation, let me be specific, where the Department for Work and Pensions contracted out to Capita responsibility for managing the personal files of millions, eight, nine or ten million files, on citizens that had personal details? Have you spoken to the Department for Work and Pensions about the nature of the contract that they have with Capita to ensure that this sensitive information is going to be handled appropriately? Have you made those kinds of enquiries? Ms Paraskeva: We have not because that is part of the management of the Civil Service and that would be really treading across the line from our role as regulator into different territory. Q247 Mr Prentice: But you understand what I am getting at, do you not? Ms Paraskeva: I do understand what you are getting at and I think that while not stepping outside of our role, if you like, there is a question about how the values of the Civil Service are upheld by those who are contracted to deliver for the Civil Service, and I do think that that is an important issue for us to look at and indeed to raise to see how those matters are handled. The contractual arrangements and the way in which departments deal with that is a management issue, but how the values of the Civil Service are translated and then how we can make sure that those values are protected, I think, is a question that we could be asking, so thank you for that. Q248 Chairman: That is a fruitful line, is it not, because the Ombudsman, if you remember, confronted this same issue about people who complain about public services that are being delivered by other people, and she has taken the view, and this has now been acknowledged, that her writ can run wherever those public services are being provided whomsoever they are being provided by. Ms Paraskeva: Yes. Q249 Chairman: By extension, those people who are acting, as it were, as civil servants by carrying out Civil Service functions, you would think, ought to be governed by something like your Code. Ms Paraskeva: We have meetings planned with Ann Abraham to explore best practice as regulator in this area, and that is something that we may well discuss with her. It is not within our ambit, but I do understand the question that you are raising and I can see that, whilst the management of the Civil Service is not our business, actually asking the questions about how and who looks after those interests through that kind of delegated responsibility probably is. Q250 Paul Rowen: I want to ask you about blogs. Is it permissible for civil servants to blog, do you think? Ms Paraskeva: It was a question that we asked in one of these question time sessions that we had with around a thousand civil servants last year, and I asked it of a panel of retired permanent secretaries, even of Sir Gus O'Donnell, and there was a qualified yes. They thought it was okay, provided that the information that they place there does not breach the values of the Civil Service, the same as any other kind of communication any civil servant might have. I think there are those of us, and we are probably in not dissimilar generations, who still think of something that happens electronically as different, but it is only another way of speaking to each other, and I think for young people, certainly my grandchildren, it is just how they communicate, so why would you not put it in a blog if you would say it or write it in public, so why not write a blog? It is not the writing of the blog that is the problem, it is what you put in the blog that is the issue. Q251 Paul Rowen: Well, there was of course one instance last year of an unnamed civil servant who used a blog as a mechanism to actually release sensitive information. Ms Paraskeva: But in olden times, before we had all of this electronic stuff, they might have put it on a placard somewhere. It is just another way of saying it and it is a pretty effective way of getting the word out of course and, therefore, in every sense it is more accessible to many more people, but, as I say, it is not the blog, it is the content of the blog that one would be concerned about. Q252 Paul Rowen: Given you talked about modern communications and modern technology, how are you using that to actually encourage civil servants who have concerns to whistleblow in the right manner? Ms Paraskeva: A couple of years ago, we decided to do all sorts of things on our website instead of through paper, including our Annual Report and Statistics. I have to say that the huge numbers of people who do not just click on, but actually use the video clips and so on has been really very rewarding because it does show that actually that is the way that increasing numbers of people are communicating. But, as well as that, there are the channels that we have, as I was saying earlier, with nominated officers opening up confidential chatroom-type facilities with each other and with us. The other group of people that we found out were important in all of this when we dipped our toe in the water with the informal survey this year were the heads of internal audits. One of the things that we found out was that, where departments had effective arrangements for whistleblowing, they often used their internal audit staff to deal with the investigations, so, when I met with permanent secretaries yesterday morning to make sure that they were fully aware, having written to them about the audit because it is a pretty fast timetable they are being expected to work to, I said that it was really important that they involved their director of HR, their nominated officer and their head of internal audit, but, in addition to that, of course we would expect the permanent secretaries themselves to actually sign off the arrangements that they were responsible for. Q253 Paul Rowen: Do you, or do the departments, have a facility for someone to whistleblow anonymously? For example, if a civil servant, and it could well be a senior civil servant, does not wish to damage their career, but is concerned about a certain action, are they able to send you a confidential email? Ms Paraskeva: Absolutely. Confidentiality is tricky but may be necessary, but, yes, of course we would receive them. Q254 Paul Rowen: Would you expect them to say who they were or can they do it anonymously? Ms Paraskeva: They can do it anonymously, yes, and, if it sounds like something serious, one needs to be careful, I think, with anonymity. Sometimes it is the only way people can feel safe and, therefore, they may be telling you something terribly, terribly serious, or they may also be frivolous and just trying to cause a bit of nonsense because they have not got the promotion they wanted or whatever, so you have to be terribly careful with every complaint that comes before you, whether or not somebody has said who they are. But there is absolutely nothing at all to prevent somebody raising a concern with us anonymously; we will take it just as seriously as we would if there were a name attached. Q255 Paul Rowen: Going back to the issue of agency workers or outsource work, would you consider it if an agency worker or somebody working for Capita, say, emailed you to say, "Are you aware that the Ministry of Defence are doing this and it is illegal?"? Ms Paraskeva: Formally, we can only receive complaints from civil servants. I think the question that Mr Prentice raised is an important one that we need to think about because, if an agency on contract to a department is carrying out a piece of work and the complaint comes from there rather than the civil servant, if that was a concern, whilst we are not empowered to do anything about it, if we were concerned about it, I cannot imagine for one moment that I would not pick the phone up. Q256 Kelvin Hopkins: Just following the Chairman's arguments in his opening, even anonymity is difficult because, with a subject area, the finger would be pointed pretty quickly one would think. However one wraps it up, the reality is, and you can use metaphors, that, if you whistleblow, you are going to finish up managing a power station in Siberia rather than having the dacha in the sunlit woodland. That is just inevitable. What I am concerned about are the long-term effects on the Government and the Civil Service. Is there a degree of progressive degradation? Public trust is not high and we have seen a number of unfortunate statements by ministers which have seemed to be not absolutely true perhaps. There was the knife crime statistics issue most recently which was very worrying, but we have in the past had a reputation for honest government, I think, and effective democracy. Is not all of that threatened with progressive degradation if we do not really take these matters much more seriously? I should say that I agree with everything you have been saying. Ms Paraskeva: Of course, there is a threat that things go wrong if we do not take these issues seriously which is, I think, why we have upped our profile and why we are trying to do more and more to make sure that there is a safe place for people to go. It is a shame, is it not, that the press will not cover some of the good things that happen because we all know that good news does not sell newspapers, but there is an enormous amount of proper challenge that goes on within the Civil Service. Those of you that have been involved yourselves with civil servants know that senior civil servants who engage with you are not a pushover and they come with objective advice which might not always be at ease with what particular ministers are looking for. I do not think the kind of degradation and fear that we see individual examples of is in any way endemic across the Civil Service. We have no evidence that that is the case. Q257 Kelvin Hopkins: We blame the media, but the media pick up on things which are real problems, and while the 90% may be inconsequential, the ten% is serious, for sure. Ms Paraskeva: Yes, I do not deny that, but I do think we need to be careful to keep it in proportion, I do think we need to be careful, while doing that, to listen to the messages in all of that and to see what it is we can do, if there is any weakening, to actually shore up the muscle within our Civil Service to behave well. Q258 Kelvin Hopkins: Finally, looking at it from the other end, the problem for the civil servant is that recent governments have been media-obsessed, and have been concerned with presenting ideas - and an image. 'Spin' is a word we use a lot, and the pressures on civil servants to go along with things which are not quite true or are not quite accurate must be much higher now than they were in the past when Clement Attlee used to read the cricket scores in the newspaper and ignore the rest. The world has changed. Should we not be pointing the finger at government and saying that government has to clean up its act and stop doing these things? We had a number of issues during the Blair era, in particular, "A good day for burying bad news", that kind of thing. It is very difficult for you actually in your position perhaps to say this, but should we not say to government, "If we want to save the reputation of government in Britain, if we want to restore public trust, we have to stop doing things which sometimes necessitate civil servants leaking, sometimes whistleblowing, and being concerned constantly about things not being as they should"? Ms Paraskeva: I think that, while our business is the Civil Service Code, there is alongside it of course the Ministerial Code, and I think we would be happy to be involved in anything in a discretionary way, if you like, which would help ministers also recognise the kinds of pressures that they put on their civil servants, which in the end, if they got out of proportion of course, could disproportionately damage the Civil Service that is there to serve them. Q259 Kelvin Hopkins: It seems from your Annual Report that not every civil servant is given a copy of the Code as soon as they are employed. Would it not be sensible, especially for those who come from outside, that they are given a copy of the Code and given a very thorough induction course, "You are now a civil servant and you have different values. This is not about making money, this is about serving the public honestly"? Would that not be a good thing? Ms Paraskeva: Absolutely. Every civil servant should have a copy of the Code. When we are involved in competitions we ask about the Code and one of the things we ask in our compliance monitoring is whether the Code is part of the information pack given to all applicants. We have also suggested that this should be something that is rigorously applied in the induction process. When we chair competitions, which we do for the top 600 posts, then the Commissioners will themselves ask questions about the values of the Civil Service to all candidates not just those who come from outside. Because we are the guardian of those values we want to make absolutely sure that people coming from outside understand that those values are things that they are signing up to and that they understand what that actually might mean for their behaviour. In the Best Practice Guidelines that we produced with permanent secretaries in 2007, we talk there about induction and the promotion of the values and the Code as being an integral part, and it would be one of the series of questions that we will ask about in our audit, "What's going on? What happens?", and then, when we come to the staff surveys, as I said, we will ask the staff, "That is what was intended, that is what the permanent secretaries signed off is on offer. Did you get it?" Q260 Chairman: A final question regarding what we were talking about earlier on, the whistle-blowing matters, just so that we can complete the circle. When we talk about this, we tend to talk about it entirely in terms of the Senior Civil Service. People who have these problems working in a particular environment and so on. What I would like to know from you is, do you get complaints from down the ranks of people who just think that there are fellow civil servants who are not doing things which the Code says that they should do? Ms Paraskeva: Yes, we do. Q261 Chairman: In numbers? Ms Paraskeva: Not disproportionately. The meeting in Q262 Chairman: Thank you for all that this morning. I have tried to stop us getting into the wider territory. We are allies in trying to get the Civil Service to build in the legislative programme this year and I hope that our alliance will bear fruit. Ms Paraskeva: I hope so too. Chairman: Thank you very much for this morning. |