Civil Service: Permanent Secretaries — Question

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 11:26 am on 13 December 2012.

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Photo of Lord Wallace of Saltaire Lord Wallace of Saltaire Lords Spokesperson (Cabinet Office), Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip) 11:26, 13 December 2012

My Lords, the Prime Minister in speaking to the Liaison Committee in July made clear that he holds very strongly to the Northcote-Trevelyan principles. But one has to modernise to some extent and going further into his speech I was interested by his talking about the gradual opening up of the question of accountability. We are talking about Civil Service accountability to Ministers but also ministerial and official accountability to Parliament. There are some interesting long-term issues here which we need to discuss further. To quote him again:

"I would like to see a gradual opening up of this accountability, with Ministers being given more discretion about permanent secretary appointments, and Select Committees being able to see more civil servants, particularly on implementation and major project issues. Those would be sensible reforms. Let's do that and see how that works before taking another leap".