Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

My hon. Friend makes a good point. On the tax credits episode, the special adviser in the Treasury, who was notoriously the intermediary between the Chancellor and Treasury officials, is now Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. He was described on the radio yesterday by his hon. Friend—that may be the wrong way to put it—the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) as a "bit of a bully". When pushed, he said, "Well, actually, he is a bully", not being inclined to wrap things up. That sort of arrogant approach is, "No, we know best, don't bother us with these pettifogging details about how to implement this, just go and do it." The consequence has been a lot of misery for many hard-working people and families on low incomes. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) referred to the article that appeared in The Times on Friday, which seemed to suggest, in a rather hysterical way, that we had secret plans—even though I had announced them, admittedly in the obscurity of the Conservative party conference, 10 days previously—that amounted to a politicisation of the civil service. That is absolutely not what our proposals would involve. I was heartened to say that the report of what I was apparently proposing received the endorsement of the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Watson), a notable blogger, who published in his blog on Friday a post headlined, "In praise of Francis Maude". I found that most encouraging—these days one welcomes praise and support from wherever they come. The hon. Gentleman is in a position to know as he was until recently a Minister in the Cabinet Office with responsibility for civil service matters. It is important to stress that we are not talking about giving Ministers the uninhibited right to hire and fire civil servants. That would be in conflict with the provisions and protections that will rightly be put in place by the Bill, but Ministers who are rightly accountable to this House for the conduct of their Departments must have the ability to ensure that their policies are delivered. This is not about hiring and firing officials, but about building on a broadly beneficial innovation that this Government introduced—the departmental boards. These did not exist when the Conservatives were last in government, and have since been introduced by this Government. It is a pity, however, if—as in most cases—these boards are attended only by officials. Some are or have been chaired by Ministers, and we think that that is the right approach, because by bringing together politicians and officials they provide an opportunity to create a genuine collective leadership that can be really powerful in giving direction, purpose and energy to a Department. The boards have non-executive members, but at present some 90 per cent. of departmental and public sector board members come from a public sector background. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is a missed opportunity to bring in non-executive board members with serious experience in running big commercial organisations. Such people would be able to transfer their skills and experience to interrogate proposals and check up on their implementability. We have said that, in extremis, we would expect non-executive members of a departmental board to be able to recommend to the head of the civil service and the Prime Minister that a permanent secretary who was an obstacle to delivery of the Department's objectives should be removed. Without such a last resort power, the proposal would be seen to be window dressing, and the kind of people who could deliver great benefits for the taxpayer and the users of public services by improving their efficiency and quality would not be attracted to make that contribution.