Chamber and committees

Continuing on the theme of the speed of decision making, we have, to be frank, had mixed views from different committee witnesses. For example, if we take Covid, some witnesses said that the speed was great—it was quick and decisive and so on—but others, especially from women’s groups, said that it was too fast and that there was not enough consultation. I have to say that I share your experience that, generally, decision making can be quite slow.

We also had evidence from businesses that they make a decision when they are 80 per cent certain about something, while their suggestion was that Government waits until it is 90 per cent, 95 per cent or 99 per cent certain before making a decision. Is it that there has to be a different speed for different decisions or are there principles to follow? How do you get the balance?

That is helpful, thank you. It is good that we have had evidence from such a wide range of witnesses. We particularly appreciated meeting civil servants at St Andrew’s house, which was a slightly unusual experience for all of us but a very good one. They were very helpful.

On the issue of how transparent advice should be, you mentioned transparency in your opening remarks, and most of us would say that transparency is a great thing. However, some previous civil servants and ministers have said that there can be a bit too much of it. If all the advice is written down, for the sake of transparency, it is very difficult for a civil servant to give confidential advice or to give options in a more general sense. How do you feel that we can get the balance on that?

I will ask something else and then Ms Fraser can come in if she wants to. Does the relationship between the minister and the civil servants matter? Does it vary a lot? We get the impression that, in some cases, a minister can be quite overpowering, let us say, so they force the civil servants to do what they might not want to do. On the other hand, sometimes, the minister is quite weak and just follows what the civil servants want. Is that big variety of views something that we should worry about? I am sorry to put it all together—

That makes sense. I think that some people expected to see the reserve balance in the consolidated accounts, in which there is a limit of £700 million, but I do not think that that figure actually appears. Is that correct?

Thank you.

I am a little unclear about what we can cover today. Are the consolidated accounts something that I can raise?

They were the ones I picked up. I am sure that there are more, but we are time constrained.

I understand that bit, but do you think that civil servants are sometimes reluctant to give frank advice because it will be written down and might come back to haunt them?

I will leave it at that.

Tied in with that is the issue of churn. Civil servants change quite often, so the minister does not know who they are speaking to, but so do ministers, so the civil servant does not know who they are speaking to.

Is that fixed for ever or does is change over time?