Whitehall focus MPs unhappy as Birt shuns their questions

24 Nov 05
Prime Minister Tony Blair this week rejected criticisms that he hindered Whitehall transparency by refusing to allow his strategy adviser Lord Birt to be questioned by a Commons committee.

25 November 2005

Prime Minister Tony Blair this week rejected criticisms that he hindered Whitehall transparency by refusing to allow his strategy adviser Lord Birt to be questioned by a Commons committee.

But Blair's defence served only to heighten concerns over the former BBC director-general's unpaid role at Number 10, and the perceived lack of openness in how government advisers operate.

A senior parliamentary source told Public Finance that public administration select committee members were 'deeply unhappy' that 'the powerful triumvirate of the Cabinet Office, Number 10' and its advisers had conspired to 'block legitimate calls for improved transparency on Whitehall's decision-making structures'.

Birt was this week accused of hampering the PASC's investigation into central government's strategic decision-making and planning by refusing to answer the committee's questions.

In a special report published on November 21, the PASC makes it clear that Birt's refusal was backed by Number 10 and the Cabinet Office.

This is seen as defying a new commitment by Whitehall departments to allow special advisers to appear before MPs.

The committee released a transcript of a 2004 liaison committee hearing that includes assurances from the former leader of the house, Peter Hain, that the Cabinet Office's revised Osmotherly Rules – which govern the submission of evidence to select committees – were now assumed to cover special advisers.

Yet MPs found their investigation 'hampered by an unwillingness to permit key advisers from Number 10 Downing Street to give evidence', the PASC's report states. That is a specific reference to Birt, whom PASC chair

Tony Wright described as 'ideally placed' to help the inquiry.

Number 10 chose instead to allow Stephen Aldridge, acting head of Downing Street's Strategy Unit and a paid civil servant, to provide the PASC with feedback.

Blair told the liaison committee, which comprises Commons' committee chairs, on November 22 that Aldridge, and not Birt, was best placed to answer the PASC's questions.

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said that the Osmotherly Rules were still clear that 'it is open to the minister to determine who is best to appear in front of the select committee'.

Magistrates' staff prepare for strikes over pay offer

Magistrates courts could be forced to close in the run-up to Christmas if staff go ahead with strikes over a delayed and disputed pay deal, it was claimed this week.

The Public and Commercial Services union, which represents thousands of magistrates' staff, has warned that the Courts Service faces serious disruption over the coming months.

A PCS spokesman said that staff 'may have no option but to walk out' over what the union claims is a below-inflation pay offer from the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

Public Finance has learnt that the PCS could ballot staff over potential strikes from November 25 after rejecting the DCA's 'outline' (informal) 2005 pay offer, which was put to the union in August.

The DCA has still not presented staff with a revised and formal offer. However, the PCS claims that the department is insisting on limiting any deal to average rises of 2.2% - below the current 2.3% inflation rate and a full percentage point below the rate when the pay offer was put to staff.

'PCS members in magistrates courts have made it clear that they are not prepared to accept what is in real terms a pay cut,' a union spokesman said.

PCS negotiators claim that the merger of magistrates courts into the Courts Service, an executive agency of the DCA, was accompanied by guarantees about improved and harmonised departmental pay.

The union claims that a 2.2% offer would leave magistrates' staff pay lagging behind the rest of the department.

But a DCA spokeswoman told PF that the department's outline offer amounted to an above-inflation 3.7% - 1.5% from an existing commitment and a rise of 2.2% for this year following the Courts Service merger.

'We're also unhappy that the union has presented this as a delay caused entirely by the department - we put the outline pay offer to staff in August and it was rejected,' she added.

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