Whitehall has received a lot of attention of late, what with interesting civil service appointments prompting claims of cronyism. And now Mr S can reveal that the Tories are calling for a civil service probe – and a ministerial apology – over impartiality concerns. The shadow minister to the Cabinet Office, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, has today written to Lord Livermore, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, over fears that he may have ‘inadvertedly misled the House’ after he was quizzed about whether a party political document was uploaded to the official government website. Oh dear…
Lord Livermore was this month questioned about the publication on the gov.uk website of the Chancellor’s statement on public spending inheritance. Quizzed about what updates had been made to the document since it was first published and whether a ministerial speech had been posted without the removal of party political content, the Labour peer replied that ‘due to an administrative error, an unredacted version’ of the speech had been uploaded. The life peer claimed that ‘best practice’ advice had been followed, and that the document had been flagged as being updated. Yet Lord Livermore did not respond to the shadow minister’s query about why the inappropriate copy had been posted in the first place, nor did he specify what action is being taken to ensure the error is not repeated. What would Sir Humphrey say?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe was rather unimpressed with his response, describing the ‘incorrect, or at least misleading’ parliamentary answer as seeking to ‘brush this breach of the civil service code under the carpet’. In a letter sent today seen by Steerpike, noted her own rather fascinating investigation into the matter. Pointing out that the original version – which can be accessed via an online archive – had already been ‘partly redacted’, the Conservative peer pointed to how certain party political statements had rather curiously remained. Giving examples of retained political statements – including a line that claims the former Tory government ‘covered up’ financial details from ‘this House’ and ‘the country’ – she wrote: ‘Clearly, a choice had originally been made to remove some content, but to keep in other political lines.’ It certainly looks that way…
Of course, if the civil service circulates party political information, it is a breach of the civil service code. Indeed, the government’s propriety and ethics guidance is clear that official communication should be ‘objective and explanatory, not biased or polemical’, and states that ‘government communication should not be – or liable to be – misrepresented as being party political’. More than that, the ministerial code asserts that an ‘inadvertent error’ should be corrected ‘at the earliest opportunity’ – and if ministers knowingly mislead parliament, they have (traditionally) been expected to resign. The pressure is on…
It’s yet another blow to the new Labour administration on the transparency front. So much for ensuring ‘probity in government‘, eh?
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