In front of a panel of academics giving evidence to PASC on the role of special advisers (spads), Bernard Jenkin questioned top politicians’ ability to police the activities of their closest advisers.
“With the greatest respect to my friends who are ministers, I would have thought that they were the least competent and the most conflicted in terms of supervision of a special adviser,” he said. “Surely it is the permanent secretary who is responsible for the conduct of all civil servants within his or her department [and] who should be responsible for the enforcement of the [Special Advisers’] Code in respect of the special adviser.”
In an apparent reference to the April resignation of culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s spad, Adam Smith, Mr Jenkin said it is necessary to “de-confuse” the system “so that special advisers aren’t thrown to the wolves in the way that we have seen”.
In his comments, Jenkin appeared to back the views of cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, who believes that management of spads should be tightened. Heywood told PASC recently that he’s working with Number 10 spads “to see whether we can develop a slightly more managerial framework around special advisers and in particular to give them some feedback on their performance,” while The Times reported last Friday that Heywood hopes to see spads reporting to departmental permanent secretaries or the prime minister’s chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn.
Speaking to CSW after the hearing, Jenkin emphasised that he had not been pre-empting the findings of the committee’s forthcoming report on spads – publication is expected next month – but challenging his witnesses in order to draw out their views.
Speaking at yesterday’s PASC hearing, Zoe Gruhn of the Institute for Government told MPs that special advisers should discuss the Special Adviser Code with their minister, their department’s permanent secretary and the civil service’s head of propriety and ethics on their first day at work.
She also stressed that even if there is greater civil service oversight of spads, ministers must retain some accountability for their advisers’ actions. “If there is a transgression, that should be part of the Ministerial Code, as well as the Special Adviser Code,” she said.