There are so many governmental scandals that it is difficult to keep up with them all, and one horrific scandal this blog has not before covered is about contaminated blood.
This week this inquiry report was published, and even a cursory view of its conclusions is evocative of the public policy failures that have been covered here.
There are two points in particular which will stand out for followers of this blog.
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The first point is that it appears that officials did not tell ministers everything. You may recall that this was also the problem with the Post Office horizon scandal. You may also recall that the Afghan war crimes inquiry has also revealed that officials were not forthcoming – and even obstructive – even when there was a determined minister seeking explanations.
It is this disconnect – if not breakdown – between ministers and departments that undermines and indeed discredits the old doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility (which I also wrote about at Prospect).
A minister cannot be meaningfully responsible to parliament (and thereby to the media and the public) if they themselves are given duff and misleading information. As the techies among you will know: GIGO – or garbage in, garbage out.
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And this leads to the second point: this inquiry is yet another example of an exercise in accountability that should and could have been undertaken by parliament and in real-time. (My Prospect piece on this is here.)
Instead, and long after many of the key events, it has been left to an inquiry to show what happened at the material times – and what went wrong at the material times.
As such, this is another example of failure by our parliamentary system to provide proper, real-time scrutiny.
Parliament is simply not well-equipped to force information and materials out of an unwilling government. Parliamentary questions are easily batted back; select committees have few real powers to prise out documents.
And our media is also not well-equipped. Press offices are unhelpful when the queries are unwanted; freedom of information in the United Kingdom has no real teeth. A great deal of press scrutiny – perhaps too much – is dependent on briefings: information is disclosed only when it suits someone in government.
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How many more inquiries – with damning detail and revelatory narratives – are we to have before we realise that it is parliament that needs significantly strengthening?
Parliamentarians should have access to coercive powers to compel evidence from ministers and officials which are no less powerful than those available to public inquiries.
And parliamentary questions as a norm should be addressed to and answered by the actual officials responsible, rather than the evasive and convenient fiction that ministers are responsible for entire departments.
But all this would require taking parliament seriously.
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On Parliament, one major weakness is that time is allocated by the government. A proposal that the agenda be set by MPs was first made by the Jesuit Robert Parsons in the 1590s. Some progress was made by the Wright Committee in 2009/10 (for more info on this: https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20100217_1.htm
Commons Reform from Robert Parsons to Tony Wright).
If a Business Committee set the agenda then Select Committees would immediately acquire teeth as reports would be debated, motions for witnesses and papers could be moved and the government could not absorb time in uncontroversial legislation.
What is meant by ‘real time’ – in context here; or in general. Promptly, perhaps – ie in good time?
That the accountability happens contemporaneously with the public policy mistakes; in contrast to being dealt with subsequently by an Inquiry. I am sorry, I did not realise it needed further definition!
We cannot expect Ministers to be effective unless they are first competent and second in post long enough to grasp the issues over which they have decision authority. The lines of authority and distortion between officials, SPADs and Ministers of varying ranks are apparently unclear and the opportunities for kicking difficult cans down Whitehall are legion. And, as you outline, no-one is really accountable to Parliament without an enormous amount of fuss and the approval of the PM.
The rules are complex and/or unwritten. And many are disguised by the cloak of advising the Crown.
At least a judge-led enquiry has the appearance of the Rule of Law(yers).
Very true. Ian Dunts book “How Westminster works ,,, and Why it Doesn’t”. Is compulsory evidence in this tegard.
“And our media is also not well-equipped.”
I would say it is under resourced, inexpertly staffed and subject to questionable editorial choices.
Too often stories that require an expert grasp of the subject matter, say Brexit are treated purely as a party political story and shunted straight across to a political correspondent or member of the Commentariat with little input from a specialist where one is employed by the media outlet.
Brussels correspondents being pushed to one side either on air or in person by their London based political reporter colleagues did seem to become the norm after the Referendum for a while.
The quality of the coverage suffered as a result.
In a similar vein this morning, the BBC’s website piece on the public launch of a report by Catherine, the Princess of Wales’s Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood was covered by a Royal Correspondent.
The report became a convenient hook on which to hang news about the health of the Princess.
The detail of the report was seemingly copied from the press release and without critical comment.
The temptation to copy and paste must be quite strong in our 24/7 news world.
Political correspondents, like royal correspondents, are subject to capture by their prey.
Like double agents, they need to provide good intelligence for their paymasters without putting their access to the sources of valuable copy at risk.
And, as a rule, the average reader, listener or viewer is expected to be more interested in human interest stories than dry facts or so I was told when as a civil servant I was trained how to read and write press releases by someone who had worked in Fleet Street.
The ideal release is one copied and pasted without addition or subtraction and only followed up on positively.
This sidelining of expertise becomes *very* apparent, especially on the BBC, when a big news item breaks overseas. The news anchor gets flown out and the local correspondent who’s done the research, knows the place and has likely been providing reports on the run-up to the affair is lucky if their face gets to grace the screen.
It is interesting that in local government senior officers often have their names on reports and are accountable to elected councillors. Presenting a report to a committee, and dealing with questions from councillors (usually in a meeting open to press and public) promotes a culture of transparency.
Checks and balances of formal scrutiny by councillors are complemented by local people being able to ask questions to committees and councils. Local media also latch onto local topics of interest and act as a further light into shadowy places.
While nothing is perfect it does seem to me that central government could learn a lot from the accountability, statutory official’s monitoring responsibilities for finance and legality and culture in local government
Paul’s last point about local government is a very good one.
I find myself very angry with the civil servants who thought their job was to obfuscate and hide the truth, and who received good salaries and pensions for this, paid by us all.
Parliamenterians with powers to scrutinise government? Oh that was even remotely possible.
Apart from the obscenities of the whipping system, I have only come across a very few MPs with the ability for critical examination.
Tony Benn, Michael Meacher are two Labour MPs who knew their stuff, but of course, they were ministers at one time, so not just back benches. From the more recent crop perhaps Darren Jones, I am not familiar with so many these days but even so, unless big changes happen, they are unlikely to surface.
Perhaps PR voting for general elections might get a more collaborative atmosphere.
For now we are stuck with the abomination that is government by dictat, dressed to appear democratic, but actually very undemocratic.
‘A minister cannot be meaningfully responsible to parliament (and thereby to the media and the public) if they themselves are given duff and misleading information.’
No. Sorry. This does not hold water. It may be an accurate statement of what ministers are allowed to get away with in terms of accountability for their job role and a real description of the lack of powerful checks on mismanagement but it comes nowhere close to absolving them of the requirement to discharge their duties.
As the ultimate manager of a sector of the lives of British people they bear the responsibility to actually manage the outcomes we experience. Many may say it is naïve but I’m pretty sure most of the population would agree with the position that they have the responsibility to avoid problems, manage circumstances and deliver beneficial outcomes as far as possible. Maybe even to ensure a gradual improvement in the outcomes for which they are responsible.
The standard they need to be held to is the effectiveness of the best and brightest people this country can produce. I completely accept that our politics at the moment selects for quite different skills and characteristics (which is a long discussion for another time) but that merely highlights the disparity between what ‘is’ and what ‘ought’ to pertain in ministerial selection.
It doesn’t change what the requirements are; to deliver effective ministerial job performance.
Even middling managers are effective at anticipating problems, realising they need to ‘trust and verify’ key aspects of their role performance, dealing with secretive and information-hoarding subordinates, realising when discrepancies between plans and reality occur and widen, and generally accepting the full responsibility of their job. Ministers have the remuneration required for high-level performance, they have in most instances the requisite powers to be able to manage problems, they are gifted vast resources with which to attack issues that develop, they are ideally placed to request, cajole, recruit, sequester and corral almost anything necessary to do a good job.
There should be no excuses. And certainly not the weakest one ‘no-one told me X’.
Absolutely agree with your point about parliamentary and media accountability though 😊
So what of the Mercer scenario, where a even a determined minister gets no where?
That could still happen because it happens now in any complex organisation. Humans are human. But the possibility that outcome exists should not stop the work of instilling a set of motivating factors and powerfully-enforced rules to create system outcomes of far greater benefit to all.
R.W.Hoyle asks (below) for a general rule aimed at tickling the shame gland of civil servants to consider the effects of engaging in a coverup. I’d prefer something like the Nuremburg Trials, might have more effect. And for those who say that such a demanding standard would deter all but the most highly effective people from applying for senior roles which affect our country I’d reply ‘Good’.
Wait till I tell you about the ‘Physician Associate’ debacle that will someday unravel.
“Nurse! The screens…”
Privatisation has been very handy for ministers in fending off accountability. They aren’t directly accountable any more, unless in the Braverman-like sense of being found to have acted unlawfully. Ministers set the parameters for regulators and privatised services to operate. It’s ironic then that the Infected Blood Inquiry dates from an era when ministers and officials were directly accountable.
Hillsborough certainly could and should have been dealt with at the time. It very nearly was. The Taylor report established that the police had altered evidence and that the fans were not responsible, but the subsequent inquest verdicts of accidental death unnecessarily prevented the families from getting justice for decades.
The Government response to Covid could have been addressed in real time, but the Labour Opposition chose not to question ministerial actions during the emergency, allowing ministers to act, for good or ill, with no accountability at all. At least we are having the inquiry relatively soon after the event.
Toothless as it is, the Select Committee system has been quite successful in putting those responsible in the hot seat and asking awkward questions. Rupert Murdoch was suitably humbled when he was called to account. Paula Vennells made some statements under questioning that she may soon regret.
A great comment, thank you.
“It’s ironic then that the Infected Blood Inquiry dates from an era when ministers and officials were directly accountable.”
This is an insightful point, well-made.
“Toothless as it is, the Select Committee system has been quite successful in putting those responsible in the hot seat and asking awkward questions. Rupert Murdoch was suitably humbled when he was called to account. Paula Vennells made some statements under questioning that she may soon regret.”
Yes, but.
As many advocates would say: oral questioning is theatre. The real thing is access to documents and other internal materials/information. The vivid questioning of Post Office executives and lawyers at the current inquiry is only made possible because of the prior disclosure of materials under coercive powers; the supposed “humbling” of Murdoch was because of documents disclosed in prior criminal and civil litigation. Without effective disclosure, select committee questioning will tend to be grandstanding and/or ill-informed rather than forensic.
This is highlighted by the changes of departmental names from “Department Of…” to “Department For…,” the change from being managers to cheerleaders.
I would suggest that we need a general rule to be applied throughout government. When covering up mistakes for immediate advantage, both ministers and civil servants need to ask how their coverup is going to look after twenty years or quarter of a century when the details of the policy failure become clear. What we have seen in a succession of cases is a mixture of private individuals and journalists who have worried away at injustices until they have unravelled. There is no reason for a civil servant in post now to believe that policy errors will always remain concealed in the back of the filing cabinet when people who have a sense of what happened – what went wrong – persist in searching for answers. The same is true of miscarriages of justice. Making a balls up of something is easy: admitting it harder. Having the truth dragged out into the daylight is worst of all.
Government needs more openness, unless it’s a matter of national security. I don’t understand the need for locking up cabinet papers for 20 years. How will we ever learn lessons from historical mistakes if this persists.
Cut to the chase. What are the consequences of wrongdoing? At worst, losing a gong. Unless there are dramatic consequences such as slopping out in some Victorian jail, we will see continual repetitions.