Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I look forward with interest to the Minister's response to that question—[Interruption.] She is looking anxiously to the civil servants' Box for advice on that important matter—so at least it should come from the horse's mouth. Executive non-departmental public bodies, with the exception of three Crown NDPBs, are not counted within civil service head counts, and regional development agencies are not deemed to be part of the civil service either. In the last year for which there are numbers, there were more than 200,000 NDPB employees. Furthermore, there are a series of what are effectively public bodies yet are not deemed to be part of the public sector at all—the Carbon Trust, Envirowise, the Energy Saving Trust, Network Rail and UK Financial Investments Ltd are not counted as civil service, central Government or even the public sector, yet all are funded by the Government. Of crucial importance, at a time when it is enormously important for the health of the country that the Government can, in the years to come, get more for less, given the pressing demands of the budget deficit, is the fact that the growth in the number of employees has been accompanied, sadly, by a productivity decline. The ONS's own figures show that between 1999 to 2006 there was an average fall of 0.7 per cent. per year in education productivity and a decrease of 2.1 per cent. per year in social care productivity, and that between 2001 and 2005 there was a decrease of 2 per cent. in health care productivity. We would like a more transparent and efficient civil service that is a better place in which to work. Many extremely capable people, imbued with a public service ethos—we value that enormously—work in the civil service, but morale is very low. That is partly the result of a lack of transparency, efficiency and productivity. Public accountability is crucial, which is why we think that there should be a civil service annual report clearly laying out the definition of the civil service. That is what new clause 33 would achieve. We support amendment 10, which was moved by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), but if that does not proceed to a vote, we will want a Division on new clause 33 at a later stage. It is important for there to be a proper definition of the civil service, and for the numbers and costs associated with civil servants, in each Department and agency, to be laid out. The civil service has been waiting since, I think, 1854—not the current crowd of civil servants, clearly—for a civil service Bill, and it would be almost an insult were this eventual enshrinement in statute to be without any attempt to define it. It would then remain in the gift of the Government to decide arbitrarily and at whim who is to be covered. We therefore wish there to be the possibility of a Division on new clause 33, if amendment 10 does not proceed to a vote.