Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Oral evidence: The Work of the Civil Service Commission, HC 625
Tuesday 28 January 2025
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 28 January 2025.
Members present: Simon Hoare (Chair); Richard Baker; Markus Campbell-Savours; Charlotte Cane; Sam Carling; John Grady; Peter Lamb; John Lamont; Luke Taylor; Mr Richard Quigley; Michelle Welsh.
Questions 1 - 87
Witness
I: Rt Hon. Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston, First Civil Service Commissioner.
Witness: Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston.
Q1 Chair: Good morning, colleagues, and a warm welcome in particular to our witness, Baroness Gisela Stuart, the First Civil Service Commissioner, late of this parish and now gracing the red Benches at the other end of the Palace of varieties. Gisela, as always, you are welcome. Thank you so much for finding the time to come before the Committee this morning.
You are almost three years into a five-year term as the First Civil Service Commissioner. What has changed in that time in terms of your duties and the expectations of what the commission and the commissioner are, and should be, doing? Would you then cast forward to think what challenges you may see on the horizon, how you would like to see the role conclude at the end of the five years, and what the landscape might look like?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: The Civil Service Commission, in essence, has a very enduring duty, which goes back to Northcote-Trevelyan, of ensuring that the best people are appointed to the civil service, that they are appointed by a process that is open and fair, and that the appointment itself is done on merit. We have benefited as a commission from the Constitutional Reform Act and CRAG, the 2010 Act, which set us up on a statutory basis and was a very enabling piece of legislation. We also have the recruitment principle. What has remained is that enduring duty.
What has changed since I became the First Civil Service Commissioner, and is the most obvious, is that there is a new Government. We have not had a real change of Government since 2010. In 2010 there was a coalition, but now we have a change of Government. On top of that, all of you—apart from you, Chair, and me—are testament to a huge turnover of Members of Parliament, and that meant that the role of the commission as educator, as much as a regulator, was probably more acute.
From my point of view, it has been really important that the commission itself is now in a very steady state. We have a full staffing complement. We have an organisational structure of one chief executive with three organisations: the Civil Service Commission; ACOBA, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments; and OCPA, the Office for the Commissioner for Public Appointments. That is a good efficiency. We have 12 commissioners, as well as me as First Civil Service Commissioner, who have a good balance of background, both in the public and private sectors. What is equally important is that we have specified link commissioners, one for Scotland and one for Wales. I have interactions with the First Ministers.
The 2010 Act of Parliament said that we should have a memorandum of understanding with our sponsoring Department, and that that memorandum should be renewed on a triennial basis. We are almost there in having a new framework agreement. I am slightly disappointed that we are not completely there yet, but it makes clear in the relationship with the sponsoring Department that we are not a business unit of the Cabinet Office.
Looking ahead, two things are important. One is that, in terms of the commission and as we have the rotation and a good balance, the Government will in due course make appointments in a timely fashion, given that we are all five-year, non-renewable. You heard evidence from Cat Little, the permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office and chief operating officer of the civil service. She talked about the need for better HR data across the civil service. I think that would help both the civil service to function better and us as a regulator.
Q2 Chair: The civil service is an amalgam. It has been described by some as “the blob,” with a Sir Humphrey who sits there trying to frustrate Governments of all stripes from achieving their objectives. Others would describe it as the Rolls-Royce of public administration. I am not quite sure whether they were drawing or sitting in the tepid bath that the Prime Minister spoke of some weeks ago. Have Government, Cabinet Office or No. 10 shared with you, as First Commissioner, their vision of the civil service, and how current and future recruitment can help them deliver that?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: If you are a regulator, you have to make a decision as to how you wish to regulate. We, as a commission—my fellow commissioners—feel very strongly that success is that the whole system is as rule-compliant as possible and that we educate whenever possible. When we audit and we find that things are as they should be, that is success. With a new Cabinet Secretary—there is not just a new Government but a new Cabinet Secretary—there are currently a number of conversations going on across Government, but I feel that the role for us as regulators is to come in at the end and say, “These are the decisions you have reached. How do we facilitate them to deliver you the best?”
May I say one other thing? You talked in relation to the civil service. It is really unfortunate that the only popularly attractive version people can see of the role of the civil servant is the Sir Humphrey image. As a profession, there are more than half a million people who fulfil some of the most diverse roles, and some of them are really tough. We should probably do more to recognise, first, their professionalism and, secondly, the variety of challenges that they have to meet on a daily basis.
Q3 Chair: That was a very courageous answer, in the words of Sir Humphrey. You talked about the ongoing conversations. You are right that we have heard from Cat Little. There is some degree of frustration at the siloisation of the civil service. Each Department is effectively its own limited company or plc, for want of a better phrase, which some would see as an inhibitor to driving forward a mission-led, target-focused, cross-cutting Government. What is your assessment of the urgency of the conversations that are being held in Government? We all know that a five-year term is quite a short thing when you are trying to turn around—if turning around is required—a very significant machine of, as you say, half a million people.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: The urgency is driven by technology. It is important that Government utilise, as quickly as possible across Government, the potential both of artificial intelligence and of data gathering, which can give them comparable data across the Whitehall Departments and the nations. That is important so that you can measure things.
There is a wider challenge, which is delivery. If, as we all do, we support democracy, part of the face of democracy is delivery that is visible to the voters. That is why a competent and able civil service is important to allow the Government to deliver quickly. The world around us is changing very quickly. It is not a question of whether the Government have a choice. It is democratic Governments across the world.
Q4 Chair: When filling senior positions, or making recommendations as to who should fill them, are you handed a skills gap audit so you are then teed up to ascertain which of the candidates may best possess them to fill it?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Looking ahead, one thing I would observe is that at the top level—at permanent secretary and director general level—the skills management done by the Cabinet Office team and HR is very good. Where I think it could improve is by having more at director and deputy director level, so that you do your skills management at the top level, which is currently very much supply driven, and move more to be demand driven. You touch on something that is always one of the dividing lines between the commission and the HR function of the civil service. I am always very keen, as a regulator, that we can hold up a mirror but then say, “And this is the HR function.”
When it comes to the appointment process, a lot of effort goes into writing the job specification and agreeing with the vacancy holder—very often the Secretary of State—what skills they are looking for. The interviewing process is then that you make the decision of whether the appointment is of merit, and to what extent, at the time, they match the skills you have put in the job specification. A lot of effort has to go into getting that right, and then the rest will flow from it.
Q5 Mr Quigley: I have a brief question. How would we, or the general public, know if the commission didn’t exist?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: For a short period you probably wouldn’t know because interviews would still go on. What would change over time is the independent member on the panel who oversees and has a view across Whitehall and Departments outside Whitehall for the senior appointments, and therefore can make comparators of a given time. What is always difficult to quantify, but we all know it exists, is that if you have a group of people who professionally work together, you have working relationships and you have falling-outs, but the minute an independent member chairs that panel you introduce the element of structure. That is really where the merit of the Civil Service Commission is.
The second thing is that it is important that the commission itself has a balance of skills. Successive Governments have acknowledged that you will have a better civil service if people move in and out of the civil service, with experience outside. Therefore, I think the regulator itself has to have people who bring that mix to the table.
Q6 John Lamont: Good morning, Baroness Stuart. It is very good to see you. In relation to the recent recruitment of the new Cabinet Secretary, could you outline in a bit more detail what your role was, when you became involved, and how you were involved in the actual recruitment process?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I have a few things to say about it. My involvement was in my capacity as the First Civil Service Commissioner, and not in the capacity of the commission. The only guidance you have in the Cabinet Manual on how a Cabinet Secretary should be appointed is: “The Cabinet Secretary is appointed by the Prime Minister on the advice of the retiring Cabinet Secretary and the First Civil Service Commissioner.”
As that process started, I had conversations with Simon Case, the outgoing Cabinet Secretary. Simon was of the view, and I agreed with him, that, first of all, in line with modern recruitment practices, it is unusual for an outgoing officeholder to play an active part in appointing a successor. Therefore, we discussed the job specification. We discussed the panel composition that we would put to the Prime Minister, but after that Simon Case’s advice was apart from my role.
My role, having suggested the panel to the Prime Minister, was to talk it through with the Prime Minister so that he was content with the job description. The panel itself, if you look at it, was of diverse backgrounds: a former Cabinet Secretary; a former career civil servant who went into the private sector; the lead Government NED, who also had a business background; and me chairing it.
The Prime Minister agreed. He didn’t have to because he has great discretion as to how to appoint them. For the first time we had a process that started with an agreed job advertisement, which was published, and a panel that would interview and very much go through a process almost analogous to a senior civil service appointment, complying with the broad principles of recruitment. We ended up giving the Prime Minister a recommended shortlist of people who were appointable. At that moment the Prime Minister engaged again to meet the candidates. I was present at all those meetings, as would be the case with permanent secretaries. Then he made the decision. What we found was a way forward that showed both flexibility and much greater transparency and openness. From the commission’s point of view, I was grateful that the Prime Minister showed the confidence in the Civil Service Commission to conduct that.
Q7 John Lamont: Thank you; that is extremely helpful. We will come back to the recruitment principles later in the session. In relation to the devolved Governments, do you have a similar role in the appointment of the Scottish Government’s permanent secretary and the equivalent in the Welsh Government?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Yes. Indeed, we are currently recruiting a new permanent secretary for the Scottish Government. I will be going up to Edinburgh in a fortnight’s time. Both Scotland and Wales have chosen to be part of the UK civil service. Northern Ireland has its own arrangements. In the case of permanent secretary appointments, it is not the Prime Minister but the First Minister who fulfils that role. When the vacancy arose for the permanent secretary in Scotland, I had conversations with the First Minister as to the job description. The First Minister sees shortlisted candidates and I am in the room for that. He will be given the choice of appointable candidates.
Q8 John Lamont: Did your appointment come after the appointment of John-Paul Marks, the current permanent secretary? Were you involved in his recruitment?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: No, I wasn’t. It was my predecessor, Rosie Glazebrook, who did that appointment.
Q9 John Lamont: How do you, as an organisation, learn lessons? Obviously, there was a controversy in Scotland involving Lesley Evans and the late Alex Salmond’s case. What was your takeaway and reflections coming into your role on what happened in that particular case, and what could we be doing better in terms of the impartiality of the civil service at a senior level?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: That is why the process for those kinds of appointments—like now with the permanent secretary—which are open to applicants all across the United Kingdom, is chaired by the Civil Service Commission. I still think that is your best safeguard.
The other point to remember about the role of the civil service is that, if there are any complaints against the civil service code or questions about it, they would come to us at the Civil Service Commission. I always think it is best when Departments themselves deal with pressures or problems that occur. At the commission level, we are there to assist, but I think these problems are best resolved in the home Department.
Q10 Mr Quigley: When was the decision taken that the role of Cabinet Secretary would be open competition rather than a prime ministerial appointment, and who made that decision?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: That was a decision by the Prime Minister. As soon as the process started, he was quite clear in the conversation that it would be an open process and as transparent as possible, very much building on the previous one. My predecessors had made first steps towards making that process an open recruitment process. At the same time, you need to provide the flexibility that, if circumstances demand, you could do it differently.
Q11 Mr Quigley: What role did the Prime Minister play in the recruitment process compared with previous recruitment processes for a Cabinet Secretary?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: At the beginning, it was agreeing the job description and agreeing a panel—we had an external panel—and the interviewing sessions at the end as a result of that recruitment. That was unusual.
Q12 Mr Quigley: Do you think that is the right level of prime ministerial involvement? You didn’t feel it was too much or too little.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I think it was the right level. As I said, he gave a lot of his own time. It is such an ad hominem appointment. It is such an important decision for the Prime Minister of the day, and the relationship with the Cabinet Secretary. Looking ahead, I hope that we do a bit of succession planning on Cabinet Secretaries. The Cabinet Secretary in 10 or 15 years’ time is probably a deputy director now in some Department. I think the openness of the process is good for the civil service as well.
Q13 Mr Quigley: Do you think it sets a good precedent doing it that way?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Yes, I think it does.
Q14 Chair: You mentioned at the top of your remarks that it was a new Government coming in. I welcome and applaud the Prime Minister’s approach to this. I hope it has now embedded itself as something that can evolve and further develop, as you suggested.
This may be tricky because they were figures of a different party, but do you know if he took any soundings or asked any questions of prime ministerial predecessors? The current Prime Minister’s experience of being Prime Minister and chairing the Cabinet was quite a short window of experience.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I wouldn’t know, but just as there is a gathering of former Cabinet Secretaries, I would be very surprised if former Prime Ministers do not have a similar, good working relationship with each other.
Q15 Chair: Sometimes they offer advice, even when it’s not requested, but there we are. It can happen behind the scenes, as it were. Do you think there is that sort of audit of skills? Certainly, it has been our impression that something new Ministers are alert to is just how different the doing of government is in 2024-25 than it was in 2009-10, the last time they were in office. I think that has come as quite a shock.
Do you think it is an important principle to sound out predecessor Prime Ministers and say, “What skills did you think your Cabinet Secretary might have, and then you found that they were wanting? What skills do you think they may need?” Particularly because we have gone through inflation, Ukraine and an international pandemic, and a whole new set of skill demands have been placed on very senior civil servants.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Allow me to tackle that from a slightly different angle. If you look at the job description of the Cabinet Secretary as it was published, and you look at the role, it is not just as the Prime Minister’s principal policy adviser; you are also the secretary to the entire Cabinet. It is a role that is often forgotten. At the same time you are the head of the profession—the head of the civil service.
It is one of those things where, whoever you end up choosing as your Cabinet Secretary, the next step is a reflection on what the other roles are that support the Cabinet Secretary. In that sense, I think the role of the permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office, who is also the chief operating officer of the civil service—Cat Little—is really important. I would have thought and expected that, once you had the appointment, you would ask, “Where are the other sources of support which we need in order to fulfil this function?” By definition, one person cannot completely fulfil that.
Q16 John Lamont: I want to come back to the process of recruiting and appointing the current Cabinet Secretary, and the desirability of that process. Is there anything that you or Parliament could do further to enshrine the process, to avoid the scenario of a future Prime Minister making a purely personal appointment? Is there some way of enshrining the process or making it more protected for the future?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: At the risk of now sounding a great advocate of precedent and flexibility, I think it is not always true that by creating legislative frameworks you can guarantee stability. The constitutional reform Act—the CRAG—which set us up, and the reforming principles, is a piece of legislation that is both clear in its purpose and provides flexibility to respond when circumstances demand quick actions.
To go back to when Theresa May was Prime Minister and did not run a competition to appoint Mark Sedwill, that was in response to circumstances where it was felt that the vacancy needed to be filled quickly. A Prime Minister ought to have that flexibility when it is needed because it takes some time. It requires several months of processes, and a Prime Minister may not always have the luxury to do that. That is why I think the current statutory framework provides for both. It gives the option to run the full process.
The only thing I would do, looking ahead, is to keep an eye on how the private sector recruits for such very senior positions. While when you appoint a permanent secretary you can do such things as staff engagement exercises and get psychological feedback, you cannot really do that for the Cabinet Secretary role. At that moment, internal and external candidates declare their hand, which is not always the best thing.
Q17 John Lamont: What do you mean when you say “declare their hand”?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: You couldn’t really do a staff exercise with candidates for the Cabinet Secretary.
Q18 John Lamont: Because?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Because a small number of people are applying and you want to protect the confidentiality of HR processes, particularly when external candidates apply. It is really important that you don’t put off candidates who may have been in the civil service, went out and want to come back in again. You may want to use professional psychologists to do additional assessment. That, again, requires time.
Q19 John Lamont: On the one hand you are saying that we should be looking at what the private sector is doing, but that there are some methods they deploy that might not be appropriate.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Yes.
Q20 Luke Taylor: We spoke about advice from previous Prime Ministers and whether that was involved in the appointment. I have a query about what role the outgoing Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, played in the appointment process.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: At the outset, Simon Case and I discussed what the potential job specification would look like. We discussed what external panel composition would be appropriate, but the final word over agreeing that was with the Prime Minister. I then took charge of the process of chairing the panels, and Simon provided advice to the Prime Minister separate from what I did in terms of the panel.
Q21 Luke Taylor: Do you think that because Simon Case standing down was so long telegraphed his role in the replacement was more appropriate than, say, if a Cabinet Secretary was being replaced on a much more urgent basis?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: No, I don’t think so. The Cabinet Manual says “the retiring Cabinet Secretary”. That advice role, and just how active it is, is a choice of circumstances. The second thing is “the First Civil Service Commissioner’s advice”, and to me what was important was that there had to be a process on which I could justify my choice. On what basis does the First Civil Service Commissioner, particularly when in my case I was not a former permanent secretary, arrive at a decision? A panel with external candidates, where we tested, gave a good basis for that report, and Simon Case, as former head of the civil service, provided a different dimension that would directly go to the Prime Minister.
Q22 Luke Taylor: Are you content that that should be the case in the future? Would that role be more formalised? In the private sector you would have an exit interview when an employee was leaving an organisation. You might take feedback from them in shaping or changing the role or assessing the suitability of future employees. Do you think that process should be more formalised, or is it very much a case-by-case basis, as it were?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: You are now tempting me into HR decisions within government, which is probably not the regulator’s task. The Government made two significant decisions in that context. One was that the Prime Minister decided that the role of Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service would remain in one function. Historically, we have seen that there have been attempts to separate them at some stage. Similarly, the fact that the Cabinet Office permanent secretary is the chief operating officer of the civil service was also a fairly recent innovation. That gives you an indication that the Government made some decisions to keep those structures.
Q23 Chair: Lady Stuart, may I take you back to something you just said in reply to Mr Taylor? In asking this question I am not casting aspersions on Simon Case at all.
You are the First Civil Service Commissioner. You have your panel. You are following the rules and the rubric. You are conducting a process for which you are ultimately accountable. The outgoing Cabinet Secretary plays a part in shaping and sculpting the job description but then, of course, has ready access to the ear of the Prime Minister. It could be in circumstances where the person who the commission is recommending to the Prime Minister as suitable for appointment has crossed swords with the outgoing Cabinet Secretary on a previous occasion and may have got the best of the outgoing Cabinet Secretary in a certain scenario. They sit very quietly in the confines of the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister’s study, unaccountably dripping poison, or honeyed words, for their potential friend in a process that could render all the professionally scrutinisable work which the commission is doing utterly worthless. In a culture which now seeks transparency, openness and accountability, how does one frame that in order to reduce that opportunity? As I say, I am not attributing that at all to Simon.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: At the end of the interviewing stage, in front of the panel—a panel with diverse backgrounds—we issued a report that gave the Prime Minister the choice of a diverse range of candidates. We said that they were appointable, that there wasn’t a merit order and that the report would outline the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses. Then the Prime Minister would see all those candidates and ask them questions. He would arrive at his own decisions, and then go away, reflect and make the final decision.
In politics we all know and have experienced hearing voices to make this case or the other case. At the end of it, it is part of the skill and the duty of politicians—the whole point of politicians—that, having listened to all sides, you arrive at your own decision. I think that process has allowed this Prime Minister to have a good set of choices. He went through them and arrived at his decision. The Cabinet Secretary, whoever it is, will be one of the voices he or she will hear.
Q24 Chair: Is there any merit in codifying or formalising how an outgoing Cabinet Secretary discusses the vacancy with the Prime Minister of the day?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: A good Cabinet Secretary is a professional civil servant at the top of their career. In my experience, civil servants have a very developed sense of what their duties are and of the principles of honesty, integrity and impartiality. I would have thought that that is a much stronger safeguard—a professional culture for their conduct and being reminded of that—than trying to codify a process that has to be sufficiently flexible to respond to the needs.
Q25 Markus Campbell-Savours: Chair, I think you are looking to wrap up the section on this, so now might be a good time to ask a question about what changes you would like to see, Baroness Stuart, in the future on the appointment of Cabinet Secretaries. You have touched on various things. In terms of where the process might be reformed, moving forward, how do you see things going?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: With the Cabinet Secretary in particular, and generally with the top jobs, we need to keep looking at how the private sector does it in terms of psychological assessments and testing and moving in and out, which is one of the really important things. There is this notion of your career structure from beginning to end just within the public sector. I wouldn’t say that the private sector or the public sector is best, but I think the interaction of learning is really important.
For example, personally I would have thought that any top role should at some stage have been in one of the devolved Administrations or had some exposure to the very large local authorities. That is why I think the whole removal of some of the big functions out of London is important. It is just to keep checking whether the processes we have are still in line with HR in the wider world. That is probably the most important one from my viewpoint.
Q26 Markus Campbell-Savours: Is the role of the Civil Service Commissioner being used correctly? Are there any lessons to be learnt?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: It is interesting. Because the First Civil Service Commissioner—I draw very deliberately a distinction from the commission—is the default position for chairing all the interviewing panels for permanent secretaries, it gives—
Q27 Markus Campbell-Savours: I am new to this. I see that there is a distinction in the role that gets played in that appointment, but within the organisation is that a real distinction? Is there not a conflict later down the line if there are complaints being handled about roles and the First Commissioner has been involved at that point? I want to understand that relationship a bit better, and how it is managed within your organisation.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: You have 12 commissioners and, for most of the time, it is equal in terms of chairing and interviewing panels, whether it is for deputy directors or directors general. The recruitment principles actually say that there is a presumption that for permanent secretaries it is the First Civil Service Commissioner who chairs that competition. They can delegate the role. For example, I recused myself from chairing the Cabinet Office permanent secretary because, before I became the First Civil Service Commissioner, I was the lead NED in the Cabinet Office. When I came in front of PAC I said that I would recuse myself for two years, as would be normal practice. It can be done by others. There are very rare occasions where it is the office of the First Civil Service Commissioner specifically, but I have not come across anywhere there would be a conflict of interest. Can you think of an example where that might arise?
Markus Campbell-Savours: Maybe next time.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Maybe I should watch out for it, but I have not yet come across it.
Q28 Chair: I have a quick question about the differential between theory and practice. In theory, anybody can apply for these posts. In practice, only somebody from within the civil service is going to get them.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: You mean the Cabinet Secretary post?
Q29 Chair: Yes. The system—I know this is pejorative—is stacked in favour of internal appointments rather than applicants from overseas, or applicants from the private sector, charitable sector, local government sector or devolved sector.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Which is why I say that, if you really want greater moveability in and out, it is at a lower level. You want to be at deputy director or director level, grade 6s, where you want people to move in and out.
The key thing for me is that, first of all, the job specification for the Cabinet Secretary did not specify a background in the civil service. That was not one of the central criteria. Having said that, given that it is also the head of the profession, I would find it most unusual in any profession that you would have as the head of the profession someone who did not have experience in that profession itself.
Q30 Chair: Does that not then speak to an argument that the Cabinet Secretary should not necessarily be head of the home civil service? If the organisation needs radical drive, reform and a fresh set of eyes from any of the other non-civil service sectors that I mentioned, because there is the expectation that you are the head of the professional service and therefore you have to have some experience from within it, is there any merit in formally divorcing those things? The Cabinet Secretary does the job of the Cabinet Secretary. The head of the civil service does the job of the head of the civil service. Given that those two jobs are enormously demanding, speaking back to the point that you made that nobody exists with the full complement of skills required to discharge at a level of excellence across the whole piece, it might help, might it not?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: It is a very seductive argument. It has been tried and turned out not to be—having tried to separate them. I was very attracted to that model. Two years ago, I would have said, “Brilliant idea, yes; I think this is the right way of going about it.” What I have observed is that in order to have the authority which you carry as head of the civil service, you actually require regular access to the Prime Minister. You also require an understanding of managing and advising the whole of the Cabinet.
Q31 Chair: They could sit in Cabinet. They could attend Cabinet. It doesn’t preclude them.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: In what role?
Q32 Chair: I take your point entirely.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: In what role?
Q33 Chair: As head of the civil service.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: And what would they contribute at that moment to a Cabinet meeting?
Q34 Chair: Forgive me if I misheard you. I thought you said that it was important that they had access.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: That is why I think the Cabinet Secretary, as both the Secretary to the Cabinet and the head of the civil service in one role, is at the Cabinet.
Q35 Chair: Two people could be.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I am not saying—
Q36 Chair: We have had more Ministers of State attending Cabinet than you and I have probably had hot cooked lunches. Cabinet is not a fixed thing, apart from the number of Cabinet Secretaries. Given the fact that the whole process of governance is now more complex—
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: It has been tried. The separation of head of the civil service and Cabinet Secretary into two figures has been tried in the recent past. The fact that it has not been repeated leads me to believe that it was not deemed to be successful. Looking at it now, what is underestimated, in my view, is how important the relationship is between the Cabinet Secretary and the permanent secretary, the Cabinet Office and the chief operating officer. Those two together, and their relationship, gives you the maximum prime ministerial involvement, making sure you serve the Government and inspire and deal with the civil service.
Q37 Chair: I understand and see the foundations of it, but speaking back to a point that we were discussing earlier in this session—the de facto siloisation of the civil service and that each Cabinet Secretary is effectively the CEO, the managing director—the head of the civil service as we understand it can urge permanent secretaries, can nudge permanent secretaries and can chivvy permanent secretaries, but they cannot tell.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: But it is the Cabinet Secretary at the end of the day who will do the performance review of the individual permanent secretaries, and, I think, the senior leadership committee. There are a whole lot of levers and mechanisms by which the Cabinet Secretary can structure, influence and ensure that his cadre of permanent secretaries is performing well.
I am not sure that fragmentation at the top of the roles gives you greater coherence further down. There is much more coherence across—
Q38 Chair: That may be the case, but you may get better outcomes if you have two people focused on very distinct channels of work, whereas at the moment we have one person doing, effectively, two very demanding and challenging jobs in an international scenario that does not suggest that international affairs and governance challenges are going to get any easier or quieter any time soon.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: That is why I think the team they surround themselves with is so important—what is underneath there. As I say, I have moved away from thinking that the division is the answer. I think it is much more that you have the Cabinet Secretary, and then you look who you effectively work with. They almost become your deputies. Then you need your senior leadership committee and the most senior of your permanent secretaries who support you in those tasks. That is the team where you will deliver across Government.
Q39 Chair: I don’t think I am going to persuade you on this one.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: No.
Q40 Chair: If you think of an individual Government Department, you have the Secretary of State who is the political lead, and the permanent secretary, who is the lead deliverer and the lead professional. We separate the two roles at departmental level and yet combine them in the role of Cabinet Secretary when it comes to that.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Because, just like the role of the Prime Minister, at some stage you reach the top of the pyramid. If you have a twin peak, I don’t think that ultimately delivers for you. There has to be one final stop where the buck stops, with delegation at a lower level.
Q41 Chair: One presumes that the buck stops with the Prime Minister.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Yes, and the Cabinet Secretary. It is the two together. That is why that relationship is so absolutely important. That is why it is right that the Prime Minister, at the end of the day, has the final say as to who they appoint as their Cabinet Secretary. One is the permanent civil service and the other is the political control. The political control trumps—forgive the word—the permanent civil service ones.
Q42 Chair: The buck stops with the Prime Minister.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Yes.
Q43 Chair: Not with the Cabinet Secretary.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: The buck stops with both of them, but the civil service part—
Q44 Chair: It cannot—
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: The permanent civil service buck stops with the Cabinet Secretary, and then you have the Prime Minister as the head of the Government.
Chair: We may just have alighted on the governance problem, which may point to all sorts of other things.
Q45 Luke Taylor: Anecdotally, it could be argued that the role seems to have quite a heavy toll on the bearer. First of all, does that come into the workload of having both those hats to wear? Is it potentially the single point of failure if that person is incapacitated or signed off sick for a while? Does that lead to any conclusions on the wisdom of all of that responsibility being on one pair of shoulders?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: You now seriously lead me astray into areas where, probably, if you had former Cabinet Secretaries to give evidence, you would have much more first-hand experience of the lived experience of that role, how they feel, how they can handle it and how they respond to it.
Q46 Luke Taylor: Are those questions not part of the appointment procedure?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: The part of the appointment procedure that we really tested was in terms of the question of their personal resilience, how they deal with stress and what their responses are when they have those demands and how they end up prioritising. That is a set of questions you probably have with most top roles, but with that one specifically that was an area of questioning.
Q47 Chair: Did any of them ask you that question: “How are we expected to—?”, or, “I am a bit worried about—”?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: No.
Chair: That is slightly worrying.
Luke Taylor: It is very worrying.
Q48 Sam Carling: I am going to talk a bit about the recruitment principles and perhaps some of the exceptions to them. First of all, the recruitment principles were published in 2018. Are you confident that they are still up to date, or do they need to be updated?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I come back to the beauty of the legislation that governs us, which says, “There shall be recruitment principles,” but does not specify what they say. I recommend them. I find them really quite extraordinary. For any kind of eventuality, it is very thoughtful. This is the culmination of an institutional experience that goes over 100 years of the kinds of things that might happen.
In 2018 the review of that was responding to a particular initiative dealing with apprentices going forward into employment. Part of the things that I hope that we, as a commission, can do, and I want to do, in the last two-odd years of my term, is to review a number of our documents and policies to see whether they are the most appropriate, or whether we could bring changes to align to what is the practice.
Q49 Sam Carling: Could you outline a little bit more about the role of the Civil Service Commission in relation to appointments that are made, and exceptions to the recruitment principles?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Yes. The thinking behind that process is that we are governed by the recruitment being open, fair and based on merit. There is also recognition that there are sometimes urgent needs of the Government, or very specialist skills or just very special circumstances. You might need to recruit a whole lot of people to deal with the census, so you have bulk recruitment, or you are dealing with nuclear submarines or very sensitive inquiries, where non-civil servants are brought in, and you extend that for a period. The principle for exceptions, which have to be exceptional, is very long-established. It helps the civil service to operate. In the recruitment principles, there are various exceptions for senior civil servants. For the majority of those it requires permission from the Civil Service Commission, but a lot of it is delegated to Departments themselves.
What we did this summer was to look at both those processes. We looked at our own processes, and then we did an audit of how delegation works in Departments when they use the exceptions. We were largely satisfied with the process as it was. The only change we made, and the Committee may want to look at that, is that up to now we have always published in our annual report the exceptions which we granted. We are now doing that on a monthly basis on our website. Greater transparency is always a good thing, when you can achieve it.
Q50 Sam Carling: There was quite a lot of media interest quite early in the new Government’s term about a few particular appointments that were made under the exceptions. Did the Civil Service Commission have any particular interest in those, or did you have any input into those processes?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: We looked at the numbers after the change of Government. There wasn’t a spike in numbers of applications, which is why we did the review of the processes. Our decision is very much fact-driven. Is it a very specialist skill? Is there some urgency? Is it a very short-term appointment? If the facts match granting an exception, then we do that.
As I said, we also looked at the delegation. There was one change. When the forms get filled in by Departments, we said to Departments that they should make it clear that the conflicts of interest and all those things have to be handled by the Department itself, and that there is an expectation that that is dealt with, not just that it may be. I think Departments themselves looked at their forms and we looked at ours. As I said, we were largely satisfied that the process works well.
Q51 Sam Carling: That is really helpful. Just to confirm, you are saying that the number of those appointments being made under the new Government is not significantly different from the previous Government.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: There was no spike in their numbers.
Q52 Sam Carling: On a somewhat related note, could you tell us a bit more about what role or influence the Civil Service Commission has when the Government perhaps want to remove a permanent secretary in unusual circumstances?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: The Civil Service Commission has no role in that.
Q53 Sam Carling: Do you think that is wise? Should it have a role in regulating that?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: It depends on what you mean by removal.
Q54 Sam Carling: There were a number of cases toward the end of the previous Government when certain permanent secretaries were taken away or encouraged to step down. There was a lot of media interest in that.
Chair: “Taken away” sounds rather—
Sam Carling: Apologies. That is why I changed my phrasing.
Chair: Taken away, never to be seen again.
Sam Carling: Encouraged to step down.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I now recall that I gave evidence to a House of Lords Committee on that. It is purely an HR function. What we regulate is entry into the civil service. There is an argument to be made that, if we want to attract external talent at the senior level, and we want to have that movement, the Civil Service Commission should also regulate the exit in terms of conflicts of interest, or what business appointments a Department makes, so that you have clarity at the point of entry as to what the rules of exit will be. There is an argument to be made that, maybe, the Civil Service Commission should have a similar point, but contracts not being renewed is an HR function.
Q55 Chair: Baroness Stuart, the civil service prides itself on its political neutrality. We don’t have the American system, nor do I think anybody would want to see the American system, but, over several Governments and over many years, we have had the rise of the special adviser, who is often seen as an adjunct to the Secretary of State and the ministerial team and a bridge between the two and the “political bit” of the quasi-civil service. It has always struck me that political neutrality is important, but political antennae, political understanding and political empathy of what is going on around one is quite a key component of the civil service, particularly at the senior levels. Do you share that view? It does not make them party political, but should there be a broader political delivery team driving that in Government Departments, led by a director general or whoever, as a way of improving overall the operational ability of the civil service?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I would use the word impartiality rather than neutrality. Impartiality is something that every civil servant at any given moment has as their function to implement the policies of the Government of the day. For that, they must have small p political antennae. They need to understand how Parliament works. They need to understand how the whole system works, how you bring people along, but that does not make them party political.
Chair: No, quite.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Nevertheless, the party politician also wants party politics. It is part of the problem of political parties in Government, renewing their party political mandate while they are in Government. I accept the role of the special adviser who has the party political interest at heart. From the Civil Service Commission point of view, the one thing in the Constitutional Reform Act that is absolutely clear and a red line is that special advisers cannot play any role in the appointment of a civil servant. There is a clear dividing line; you either are a civil servant or you are not a civil servant. Therefore, special advisers are a decision for the Government. The Civil Service Commission does not get involved there. What is more, they do not get involved in the work of appointing civil servants.
Q56 Markus Campbell-Savours: Where we have seen the use of exceptions for appointment for the civil service roles, is there an argument that some of these could have or should have been spad or PAD appointments instead? Does the commission have any role in deciding whether these should be mainstream civil service roles or whether they should be in that different category?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: No, we do not get involved in that decision at all. How many special advisers you have, or policy advisers, is a decision for the Government of the day. What we regulate is when they become civil servants. At the moment in the acceptance process when they become civil servants, we remind them, in their appointment letter, that they are bound by the civil service code and that includes impartiality. Where they draw the line for numbers and individuals is a decision for the Government.
Q57 Markus Campbell-Savours: Are you convinced there is that check to see whether the purpose of the role is suitable for a civil service role or whether there is an attempt to move somebody potentially from a party political position into a civil service role?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: As a former politician, I think that in a democracy the fact that you have been politically active does not bar you from any future civil service roles. What matters is how you conduct yourself in the role and that you follow the very strict guidelines for impartiality in serving the Government of the day.
The decisions on whether you bring people in are always up to every particular panel. It is whether there is a political background and that kind of due diligence; you resolve conflicts of interest. All that has to be done by the recruiting Department. We have an expectation that they handle that and deal with it, whereas when it comes to the Civil Service Commission for sign-off, we look at the facts—the reason given for why it requires that appointment and the facts of that appointment. If those two match, it can be done.
Q58 Markus Campbell-Savours: Many members of the public would struggle with acceptance of people from a party political background going then into impartial civil service roles. Does it matter that there may be people outside who perceive it that way?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Those are always moments when it is incumbent on us, whether the civil service side or the politicians, to respect those dividing lines. It is through your conduct; it is always through your conduct that you prove your impartiality. It would be a sad day when—I say this in a room full of politicians—in a democracy the fact that you have been a democratically elected politician would be deemed as not making you suitable to hold responsible positions after that. That would be sad.
Markus Campbell-Savours: Some people just accept that.
Q59 John Lamont: Thinking about what is happening across the Atlantic in America with the new President Trump and the 4,000-odd appointments that he has to make, or any new President makes, do you see any merit in that type of system, where an incoming Government have such control and power over all the middle management and senior management? The rules do not seem to be the same. Does it enhance the power and ability of a President or a Government to make decisions, or is there nothing that you see attractive in that at all?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I would almost say that in the one extreme there is the most extreme separation of power with its safeguards and then we have the British system. If I draw on continental Europe, my country of birth is one where you, broadly speaking, have coalition Governments. It is very rare that one party is in power.
There is no perfect system. What always matters is that there are checks and balances, that there are constraints, and that power and authority is always checked in some way, and that you are predictable and people know on what basis decisions are being made. One of the strengths of our system is that we have two strands. One is institutional memory, which is very much within a permanent impartial civil service. Then there is a party political system that, by and large, tends to deliver functional majorities, which allow for decisions to be made. Within that, you have rules. As the Civil Service Commission, it is the clarity of our rules on how civil servants are appointed to serve the elected politicians of the day, but with true flexibility of circumstances demanding quick action to be an enabling regulator. I find that a really good system.
Q60 Chair: These appointments are always inclined to happen at the start of a new Government at the height of their powers. Civil service uncertainty exists about how their new Ministers and others will settle in, and issues they will take on. The public have a legitimate worry, or a legitimate expectation, that positions paid by taxpayers’ money are advertised and can be competitively applied for. Some appointments seem rather niche, bespoke; there is no advertisement. Somebody is appointed to do them. They may then exercise entire impartiality and never go anywhere near the boundaries of the acceptable operational techniques and tactics of a civil servant, but all those appointments should be not within the gift of one person in a non-competitive appointment, surely. We had some instances at the start of this Government when Friend X was appointed to do a newly created job with no audit trail of advert, interview, appointment.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Looking at the exceptions, sometimes it is for very short-term appointments when it is three or four months in order to do a very specific job. There are other exceptions—for example, when you are planning machinery of government changes and you must bring in an expert, and part of their job is to advise you on how you bring those in.
Chair: Yes.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: In other areas, as I mentioned earlier, particularly for any of the positions to do with nuclear submarines these days, there is such a small pool of people who would have the expertise to do that. You may tell me otherwise, but I have not seen any big appointments where I would have thought that I would not be satisfied with the process, because applying for an exception is also a process that gets checked against the facts. You either go through open and fair competition or you go through exceptions.
Chair: Yes.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Then there is still a process by which you check against the facts, whether you grant that exception or not.
Q61 Chair: Forgive my ignorance on this. It is a huge gap in my knowledge, for which I crave your forgiveness. In a temporary appointment to fulfil a machinery of government-type task or there is somebody in industry and business who has a particular bit of expertise, they are appointed through the exception route. It is task and finish.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Yes.
Q62 Chair: What restrictions are placed on them, having worked, albeit on a temporary basis, within the civil service, at the heart of Government, when going back with that accrued knowledge and increased rolodex of contacts to their business world? What, if any, restraints exist on those who have been appointed by exception?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: They would go through exactly the same process of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. In the exit process, which currently we do not control, there would not be any difference for their appointment.
Q63 Chair: That is not discretionary; it is mandatory.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: It is mandatory, yes.
Q64 Peter Lamb: Building on that previous point, last year there were a number of appointments made—three in particular—at director general, director and deputy director level. Exceptions from the recruitment principles typically are only allowed in cases of temporary appointments. In these particular cases—I am happy to give you the names of the people involved—was it the case, as part of the process through which they were appointed, that they were temporary? What was the justification for those recruitment principles not being used? They were Emily Middleton, as director general, who previously had been working for Peter Kyle; Ian Corfield, as director, who had previously donated to Labour Members of Parliament; and Jess Sargeant, as deputy director, who had previously worked for a number of Labour MPs and organisations.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: With all those appointments, you would have had them either as temporary, because it is a very short period, or for specialist skills. As I said earlier, whether you had made political donations or done any of those things, that is the due process we expect the Departments to deal with—conflicts of interest and any ethical matters. When it comes to us, it is a question of justification. If the job is just for four months, it becomes a temporary appointment. If it is machinery of government, the word temporary is on the appointment.
Q65 Peter Lamb: In the case of each of those three roles, if they were a permanent appointment, we would expect them to have a unique set of skills that could not have been found through open recruitment.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I am not sure it is right, in this context, to go into the details of individual HR matters.
Q66 Peter Lamb: I appreciate that. What we are trying to get at is how effectively the rules are being applied as these roles are being filled. If there appear to be exceptions—they have been discussed in the public domain quite extensively—that would raise questions as to how effectively the recruitment principles were being applied.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Yes. That is why we did the review as it comes into the ones that the commission has to sign off and how it has been delegated. You quite rightly say, “How can you be satisfied that the rules are being applied properly?” For the delegated ones, for example, we do audits; we pick out individual cases. We check to satisfy ourselves that all the exceptions are being applied properly. As a result of the review we did in the summer, we now, on our part, said that we will publish more quickly, on a monthly basis, those we grant. If anybody is concerned, it is a matter of public record who has just been appointed on what exception.
In terms of delegation, our auditing process regularly goes through that. If we find anything that we think is not quite right, we can do further deep dives. We also changed some of the forms to make sure that there is an expectation that any potential conflicts of interest are dealt with in Departments. The best thing we could do, having been largely satisfied with the process, is to publish on a monthly basis on our website those appointments and the reasons for the exception being used; it is published very quickly and then it is in the public domain.
Q67 Peter Lamb: In the event that someone has been appointed temporarily and a decision is taken to extend that or to potentially turn it into a permanent role, what role will the commission play in either permitting or denying that change?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: They have to come to us if they want an extension, or if they want a new one within 12 months they have to get our permission. If they want to have an extension beyond three years, again it has to come to us. There are occasions when, for example, if you are a specialist in victim protection in an ongoing inquiry which goes beyond two, three or four years, you extend that because the role is a very sensitive one that requires you to have that experience. Then we extend it, but it always has to come back to us and has to be justified.
We make the decision by looking at the facts. It is an executive decision, largely by the team in the Civil Service Commission who have experience in handling those processes. That gives a consistency in the basis of decision making that certainly makes me feel confident that the process is handled properly.
Q68 Peter Lamb: Building on that, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has recently set out his vision: his intention to recruit more people on a temporary basis to the Civil Service, particularly into data and software-based roles—the No. 10 innovation fellowship programme being the main source of that. While these will be roles well below what the commission would typically look at, given your role in ensuring that recruitment principles are applied consistently across civil service appointments, are there any concerns that this broadening out of the civil service to include a large new tranche of people who are appointed on a temporary basis may well be weakening the recruitment principles in their application in the civil service?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: It doesn’t worry me. AI—digital in particular—and nuclear are areas where we know there are real shortages of skills and where the civil service competes with the private sector in getting those skills in. As a regulator, it is important that we provide a framework in which, if you require temporary permission for the skills to be brought in or sometimes more long-term to allow the civil service to build up its own skills, we very much want to be an enabler to allow Government to be as effective as possible. We have regular conversations with Departments when they want to bring in temporary staff as to what is the best way of doing it, what is the best way of framing it. We always have that before we grant authority.
In the years I have been doing this, I have not detected a desire, on behalf of Departments, to evade rules. In fact, they want to be as rule-compliant as possible. It is our role to be their educator-regulator. The rules, as they are at the moment, are flexible enough to accommodate most requirements of Government.
Q69 Chair: Is it a system that could be played?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Forgive me, could you say that again?
Q70 Chair: Is it a system that could be played? “I am going to make a temporary appointment; it will last two years. The project has gone on a little longer. We haven’t made the progress we wanted to. We want to reappoint them on another temporary contract for two years.” That is the lion’s share of a Parliament. Is there a finite point where for renewals of temporaries somebody would say no? If so, who?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: They can say no and we say no. That is why, in my experience, it is a very respectful relationship. In my experience, people come and ask for advice as to how best to accommodate a particular requirement. I have not seen evidence of the system being played as you suggest, but that does not mean, theoretically—
Chair: Yes.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I am not sure what the incentive is. I would almost turn it around to say, “What is the incentive?” I put the counter-argument that if anybody takes a position in the civil service, and has been appointed in open and fair competition and on merit, it puts them in a much stronger position. It gives them much greater credibility and makes it easier for them to do the job.
Q71 Chair: I am always quite keen that we future-proof. We all know that western democracies, particularly those without a written constitution, for example, work basically on practitioners, irrespective of party, having a basic appreciation of and a commitment to a set of common rules and playing by them. You could call it the good chaps ethos, if you wished. With the rise of populism, disruptors, challenges to the institutions, lack of respect generally for the institutions and impatience of how things have always worked, do we do enough? Do the commission and the relevant people do enough? Are they doing enough future-proofing to guard against the malign, rather than just presuming it will always be a good chap who knows where the boundaries are?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: The answer to your concerns, which are legitimate, is always transparency, predictability and accountability, so that you know at the outset the rules that will be applied and who is enforcing those rules. Then the results of what you do get published. If I go to appointment by exceptions, it is a good step that we ended up doing it on a monthly basis because then it is published and you know who it is. It is live data rather than being told a year later. Rather than future-proofing, because the future is always slightly tricky, it is predictability, transparency and clarity over who makes what decisions. Then you can trace it back to who is responsible for what.
Q72 Chair: So people go, “Yes, okay. You’ve published. It’s all transparent, etc., but I’m in charge. You can’t stop me. This is what I want to do. This is what I am going to do and I don’t really care about convention. I’m a disruptor and I wear that as a badge of honour.” It is the, “And so?” It is potentially a problem, isn’t it?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I genuinely don’t think it is a problem within the civil service. I think—
Q73 Chair: Not necessarily a problem within the civil service. It is a problem within politicians.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Yes, but as the First Civil Service Commissioner and the regulator for the civil service I have confidence in the professionalism and the processes by which they are appointed. The transparency is the important thing.
Q74 Luke Taylor: On governance, the commission’s MOU with Cabinet Office was agreed in 2010 and was due for review in 2013. When you appeared before this Committee in 2023, the review had still not taken place. Has it occurred yet?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: We are so close to having that document with you that I am really disappointed that I cannot sit here and say, “Yes, we’ve done it.” It is written. It is in the very final draft stages and it just needs the final nod. The key thing I was keen on in the framework agreement, as they call it now, was recognition that we are not a business unit of the Cabinet Office. Also, the new framework, when we finally get it over the hurdle—next time I am in front of you I definitely will hold a copy of it in my hand—makes a whole number of things much clearer around the relationship with our sponsoring Department. I have an expectation to have it renewed on a triannual basis. It will not just be an aspiration; it will be done.
Q75 Luke Taylor: How does that become more stringently imposed?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: This is when you just have to keep pushing those processes. Genuinely, across Government, there has been a push over the last few years to renew a lot of the framework agreements with ALBs and sponsoring Departments, and a greater awareness of just how important they are. I honestly think that probably this Committee could have quite an important role in ensuring that that is being done, not just with an individual framework agreement but generally with framework agreements of ALBs.
Luke Taylor: Others have questions about how that may have changed.
Chair: Markus, you have indicated and then I will go to Richard.
Q76 Markus Campbell-Savours: To get a better understanding of the issue around being perceived as a business unit of the Cabinet Office, could you tell us a little bit more about what that entailed and what issues it was causing the commission?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: If you want to ensure the independence of a regulator, there are certain things you require. Part of it is that you know what your budget is and that you can decide grades of staffing levels. The most obvious one is if Cabinet Office says, “We need to save money across the Cabinet Office and each Department needs to find 7% savings.” If you are a small regulator, you should not be part of that kind of approach to business units. You would say, “This is our budget and we are not a business unit. Therefore, if you want, across the Department, a kind of savings, we are not affected by that.” The importance of not being a business unit is the importance of making sure that the regulator is independent and can function as an independent regulator. That requires two things from my point of view. One is timely appointments to vacancies by the sponsoring Department, and the second is that there is a predictable, defined budget as you start off, and you are not subject to the vagaries of top-slicing.
Q77 Richard Baker: Are there any significant changes to the role of the commission where you have been in discussion with the Cabinet Office? If so, might they be incorporated into a new memorandum?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: With memorandum as it stands, the key thing for me was the recognition and spelling out that we are not a business unit, and the understanding that timely appointments are being made. I know the Government may want some changes, and our statutory framework allows us to take on additional tasks. While it defines the role of the Civil Service Commission, it also has the line that the commission may undertake tasks that it is asked to do and agrees to do. That is why I mentioned that I would welcome a conversation about the extent to which we regulate not just entry to the civil service but also exit from the civil service. That would really be the only area where it is a main discussion point.
Q78 Richard Baker: Thank you. Is there anything currently outside your remit that you would like to bring into your remit?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: The statute extends to two areas. One of them is the diplomatic service and the other is national security. If others wanted us to look into that, we would be very open to those discussions.
Richard Baker: Thank you.
Q79 Sam Carling: On a similar note, around the general functioning of the regulator, you have about 20 staff at the moment and 12 commissioners, as you mentioned earlier. Is that the correct staffing level? Is that working?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: This is where I need to follow my instructions.
Chair: This is one I prepared earlier.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: The one that was prepared for me earlier. We have a structure where one chief executive is the chief executive of three organisations. There are some very useful economies of scale. There are back office functions that go across Departments but, at the same time, you have to ensure that the independence of those three functions is maintained. At the moment, we have, for the first time, all the vacancies filled and there are 32 members of staff. This is the bit I thought was important: 12 members of staff are allocated to the commission; 10 are allocated to ACOBA; and three to OCPA. We have six in the corporate service team and one chief executive. That is a good structure because, coming back to the notion of how you ensure that the regulator is independent and remains independent, it requires a certain element of institutional resilience. This allows us to have cohesion around the people who are together and, at the same time, a size that makes it much more resilient.
Q80 Sam Carling: Do you find that the budget you have available is sufficient to carry out your work?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Of course we would always like more, but there is always a question of tension as to what roles you fulfil. Broadly speaking, the budget allocation allows us to fulfil our role. However, digital transformation is something where we need to look at how we can make ourselves more effective; or, if they want us to undertake any extra tasks, to what extent that would require extra funding.
Sam Carling: Thank you.
Q81 Chair: The final question from me is, hopefully, a shortish one. The terms of service of the majority of commissioners are due to end within the next two years. You outlined, and the Committee appreciates, the important work the commission does and its usefulness. What steps do you or the Government take to find new commissioners, to ensure they are selected in good time and that there is a seamless transfer between outgoing and incoming?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: That is why in part of the framework agreement the expectation that vacancies are being filled in a timely manner is stressed. What we have at the moment is a good balance between former civil servants and people who have experience in the private sector or the NHS; we have a good link commissioner for Scotland and Wales, which was an important thing. We have three tranches of appointments. That means that as their terms of office come to an end, and it is five years non-renewable—always acknowledging that from advertising the role to filling it and having done the induction, you should really allow a year—I think we have given the sponsoring Department a good set, on which they can ensure institutional continuity in the current arrangements as long as the positions are filled in a timely manner.
Q82 Chair: Does it still make sense that they are non-renewable? Did it ever make sense?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: When I started this, if you had asked me whether it made sense, I would have slightly shrugged and said, “Well, maybe it should be renewable.” I now think it is the right thing to make it five years non-renewable for the simple reason that, as a regulator, you regularly make quite tough decisions. You fulfil the role of the independent person on the panel. To make it five years non-renewable makes it absolutely clear when it begins and when it ends, and allows you to maintain that robust independence. I think it makes sense, yes.
Q83 Chair: One cannot be robustly independent in year six?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: No, it comes back to saying—
Q84 Chair: It is an exhaustible reservoir of independence.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: No, it comes back to what I said earlier about how you ensure that systems are reliable, compliant and all those things. It is predictability. You know at the outset what the rules are and then everybody is clear what the expectation is. It allows us, as I say, for the moment, because we know how the commissioners come in, to do a very robust rotation for ensuring that. Similarly, we are now in a position where I know that the commissioners and I will be there for the next two years. When you do some deeper policy work, when you want to reflect—“Let’s look at the recruitment principle; let’s look at some policy ideas”—you want a body of people who have a shared understanding and still bring their independence, and you have a good work programme. Yes, there is merit in that.
Q85 Chair: Is it you who kicks off the process of finding your successor or the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: It is the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
Q86 Chair: Has he given any indication as to when he may kick off that process?
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: I would be rather worried if he had already talked to me about that. In a year’s time, I hope that we have that conversation.
Q87 Chair: You are confident a successor could be found within the year, and they could be inducted and hit the ground running on day one.
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston: Yes. Part of the things for those tranches of commissioners coming in—the induction processes, annual reviews, professional development and all of that—is well in place now. It has given us, as an institution, quite a robustness.
Chair: Baroness Stuart, thank you. Thank you for the work you do on behalf of democratic appointments, ensuring the machine stays well-oiled and ticking over. Thank you for appearing before us, taking our questions and answering them so comprehensively this morning.