The report ‘Civil Service: lacking capacity’, published today, endorses appeals previously made by the Public Administration Select Committee for the establishment of a parliamentary commission, adding that it should be a joint operation of both houses “on the same lines as the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards”.
However, the Cabinet Office responded immediately to pour cold water on the idea.
The report calls for the commission to be “established as a matter of urgency and report before the end of this Parliament”, and states that the committee remains “unconvinced that the government’s civil service reform plan for Whitehall is based on a strategic consideration of the future of the civil service”.
Committee chair Sir Alan Beith (pictured above) said that the civil service has “failed to design effective contracts or to monitor [them] effectively … on too many occasions”, adding that officials lack commercial skills and feel “unable to speak truth to power”.
He added: “The Liaison Committee therefore supports the establishment of a Parliamentary Commission on the Civil Service to examine the capacity, skills and operation of government departments.
“We believe that a coherent analysis of the state of the civil service, and the requirements placed upon it, would help to improve governance across Whitehall, and help to eliminate the contract-management failures seen in recent years.”
Today’s report collates examples of failed contract management, citing severe problems with electronic monitoring contracts, the West Coast Mainline franchise, rural broadband, Universal Credit and the UK Border Agency.
The committee says it’s concerned that officials tend to provide ministers with “what they think ministers want to hear” and that an evidence session with prime minister David Cameron earlier this year did “nothing to suggest that the government has a coherent analysis of why things in Whitehall go wrong”.
The committee also praises the civil service for managing last year’s Olympic Games, but adds that “such successes are outweighed by less successful contracts managed across Whitehall departments”.
The report continues: “There remains significant evidence that Whitehall is not equipped to support consistent contract management, and is subject to a tendency to be driven by short-term pressures, rather than long-term value for money for the taxpayer.”
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “We thank the Committee for this report which we will study closely.
“Many of the concerns raised here have already been articulated by ministers and are addressed in our Civil Service Reform Plan. The Government’s reform plan should tackle long-standing weaknesses in the civil service including the gaps in capabilities highlighted in this report.
“A ‘comprehensive’ inquiry would risk pushing urgently-needed reforms into the long grass.”
Peter Riddell, director of the Institute for Government, warned that a commission will only work if it “concentrates on the longer-term issues of the structure of Whitehall and its capabilities” and said it should “address the muddle around accountability at the top of Whitehall”.