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Wednesday 8 October 2008

The wise woman of Whitehall

An audience with the wise woman of Whitehall

An interview with Janet Paraskeva

The scope for trouble is clear already in the informal system. Last year, Dave Roberts, then head of the removal and enforcement section of the Home Office’s Immigration and Nationality Directorate, was asked by the Home Affairs Select Committee how many of those he had instructed to leave these shores had actually gone, and replied that he had ‘not the faintest idea’. A few days later John Reid, the then home secretary, told the same committee that the directorate was ‘not fit for purpose’ (Roberts was moved shortly thereafter). While Reid’s observation was self-evidently correct, the episode caused bad blood in Whitehall and prompted Jonathan Baume, general secretary of the First Division Association (the senior civil servants’ union) to accuse ministers of ‘cowardly’ tactics and ‘an ill-disguised attempt ...to make excuses, and shift responsibility for struggling policies from ministers to the staff who serve them’.

This, says Ms Paraskeva, is precisely why clarification is needed. ‘I think those of us that are keen on this legislation are keen just because we need to prevent situations like that reoccurring. There has got to be a proper process of accountability within the department and a much greater clarity of the accountability for the delivery between the permanent secretary and his staff, and the Secretary of State in terms of policies than I think there has been. In any organisation, you would not expect the chairman of your board to go and rubbish the entire delivery arm of the company, you just wouldn’t expect that to happen.’ So there: ministers tempted to use the phrase ‘fit for purpose’ again, be warned.

Born in 1946 in Newport, Monmouthshire, of Greek–Cypriot extraction, Paraskeva was chief executiveof the Law Society for six years before taking the helm at the Commission in January 2006, where she presides over 15 commissioners and a small staff of eight. There is talk of amalgamating the Civil Service Commissioners with the Appointments Commission (which oversees recruitment to NHS bodies, ministerial advisory bodies and other arm’s-length bodies in England) and the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (which regulates applications by Crown servants to take up jobs outside public service).

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