Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

A central issue in this Bill is the question: to whom does it apply? Who counts as a civil servant? There has been debate for many years on the merits of a civil service Bill, and about the importance of giving statutory protection to civil servants, so that they do not rely simply on the good will of the Government of the day in important aspects of their working lives. Obviously, once one accepts the principle of statutory protection for civil servants, the question of who counts as a civil servant becomes very important. In this Bill, the Government have simply not attempted any definition, or even any description, of what counts as the civil service. The Minister may be able to point me to a part of the Bill where I can find such a definition, but I have not been able to find it. Clause 1(1) simply states:""this Chapter applies to the civil service of the State."" It makes no further attempt to say what that means. In contrast, in the Government's consultation on the 2004 Bill, they said:""Because there is no satisfactory, authoritative and comprehensive definition of the term 'Civil Service', in order to achieve the necessary clarity and certainty about coverage, the draft Bill proposes that there should be a comprehensive listing of every part of the Civil Service to which the Bill is to apply."" Then, the Government accepted the fact that it is difficult to define the civil service in abstract terms, so the solution was to list in the Bill the organisations and bodies that would count as part of the civil service for the purposes of the Bill. The 2004 Bill included that list in a schedule. That is an important list, because it includes organisations that, if the only definition in the Bill was""the civil service of the State"," could be defined as being in or out of the civil service. For example, is ACAS in the civil service or not? Are the people who work for ACAS civil servants or not? The 2004 Bill included ACAS. I do not want to go through the entire list, but there is ambiguity about other similar bodies. For example, does the civil service include regulatory organisations such as Ofwat, the Office of Rail Regulation and Ofsted, or the various inspectorates such as Her Majesty's fire service inspectorate, or the Health and Safety Executive? Are the people who work for those bodies civil servants or not? In every case, the answer according to the 2004 Bill is yes. All those organisations were covered. Are they covered by the present Bill? The problem is that we do not know. This amendment asks the Government why, if in 2004 they thought that it was not satisfactory to leave the question alone and that we needed not only a vague general definition but a list of the organisations to which the Bill would apply, they have now suddenly changed their mind, and say that the lack of an authoritative and comprehensive definition is satisfactory. This is not an abstract point. It is important, because on this question turns who counts as a civil service employer—and that is important because it is the only way we have of telling whether the various rights in the Bill apply. In particular, clause 9 includes the right to an investigation by the Civil Service Commission. How can it possibly be a matter of dispute whether someone is entitled to invoke that right? I hope that at some stage in our discussions we will consider the duties of civil service employers and Ministers to act impartially towards their employees. We do not know whether that will apply to some sets of employees unless we know who counts as a civil servant. The important issue of appointment on merit was raised in the previous debate. Does the requirement of appointment on merit apply to a particular job? If we cannot tell whether that is the case, the Bill collapses into unacceptable uncertainty and vagueness.