Problem addressed: – See Entry A, Entry B, Entry C and Entry D
The civil service should work as four different entities
• An entity supporting government
• An entity supporting policy making by government and opposition
• An entity supporting the political process including policy making and public accountability
• An entity administering executive functions according to law.
These entities should work closely together but the constitutional implications for each should be shaped according to their role.
The scientific civil service, and also civil servants concerned with information and statistics and also a selection of other civil servants should fall within the section supporting the political process and should accordingly have a duty that transcends a duty of loyalty to government.
There should be a new type of civil servant. A Political Civil Service should be created alongside the mainstream civil service and the scientific civil service for individuals who want to retain a political commitment and an opportunity for a political career whilst working on a cross party basis on developing policy. This group would be controlled jointly by government and opposition. It would be balanced between parties. It would not have prohibitions on political activity except where there were specific conflicts of interest with its current work. It would play a role in policy making within government and it would also replace the funded support to opposition parties. Together with some mainstream civil servants it would form the entity supporting policy making by government and opposition.
SPADs would be abolished. They would be replaced by two alternative ways of achieving the same objective
• A government could draw some of its own party’s members in the Political Civil Service out of the entity supporting policy making by government and opposition into the entity supporting government.
• If option B has also been implemented, a government could ask some of its part-time MPs temporarily to become full-time and become junior ministers in an area where they have expertise.
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