Civil Service Commission wishes to create distance from the Cabinet Office – which it has found to be one of government’s biggest rule-breakers in recent years

The report also reported that in the 2021/22 year there was a marked increase in recorded breaches of government’s recruitment principles, which rose by more than 50 to 176. Among the repeated offenders was the Cabinet Office, with 11 contraventions. After three years of consistently poor and worsening performance in its recruitment performance, the commission has created a new category to reflect the failings of the central department – which is now rated as “requiring regulatory intervention”.

Whitehall’s recruitment watchdog is negotiating with the Cabinet Office to gain more independence, its leader has told MPs.

Giving evidence to MPs this week, the first civil service commissioner Gisela Stuart told the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that she is determined to update the framework for the relationship between government and the Civil Service Commission to strengthen the hiring regulator’s operational independence.

The Civil Service Commission monitors appointments to civil service roles and, in recent years, this has increasingly involved keeping tabs on the recruitment of technical staff. Its most recent annual report revealed that “post-pandemic, the commission has noted that many departments are increasingly seeking to attract candidates from a science, technology, engineering and maths background… [and] here has also been an increase in the number of digital- and data-driven roles, which can be more difficult to recruit to, due to higher salaries on offer in other sectors”.

The report also reported that in the 2021/22 year there was a marked increase in recorded breaches of government’s recruitment principles, which rose by more than 50 to 176. Among the repeated offenders was the Cabinet Office, with 11 contraventions. After three years of consistently poor and worsening performance in its recruitment performance, the commission has created a new category to reflect the failings of the central department – which is now rated as “requiring regulatory intervention”.

Stuart told MPs of her concerns about the sharing of administrative staff with the anti-corruption body the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments and the Office for the Commissioner for Public Appointments. She noted that the commission is entitled to be “completely independent and employ its own staff” under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, through which it was established.

The commissioner added that it is “a rather curious position that a statutory regulator… has chosen to use the facilities of the Cabinet Office, shares its secretariat with two other organisations – Acoba and OCPA – and at times has been treated as if it was a business unit of the Cabinet Office,” Stuart said.

“And that is where negotiations have happened over the last nine months and I very much hope that we can actually bring about some changes on that.”

The memorandum of understanding between the Cabinet Office and Civil Service Commission, which dates back to 2010, sets out the commission’s independence in discharging its functions. It also states that the Cabinet Office “will actively support the commission in the exercise of its functions across the civil service”.

Asked if she was satisfied with how the Cabinet Office is meeting the framework’s criteria of “actively supporting” the commission, Stuart argued this support is needed in some areas more than others.

“This is a bit of two-edged sword because active support would be that you ensure that the payroll is done, that the pensions schemes are done, that the whole HR function is fulfilled – but you still have to respect the independence of the commission,” she said. “And where I think we require less active support and more independence is by making our own staffing decisions, by deciding on the grades ourselves.”

Stuart said she hopes a new framework for the relationship will combine the operational independence of the Civil Service Commission with the Cabinet Office’s efforts to improve efficiency. Reforms are currently under way to “make the Cabinet Office better, smaller and fairer”.

Stuart told the committee she has set a target to update the memorandum of understanding between the commission and the Cabinet Office by her two-yearly review next year.

The framework was supposed to be updated every years but its renewal was delayed by the Cabinet Office in 2013 and it has remained unchanged ever since.