This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

None of the civil servants who asked for permission to take up a job in the private sector were rejected under rules that are supposed to stop them profiting from their official roles, a report on eight government departments has found.

The study by the National Audit Office found rules that are meant to stop civil servants abusing their contacts and knowledge in the private sector are not being consistently applied or monitored.

Despite the fact that every civil servant included in the report has been allowed to go ahead with private sector employment, the investigation found that the Cabinet Office has not taken action to ensure departments are complying with the rules.

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The NAO report has been seized upon by opposition parties as evidence that the government lacks the will or the ability to stop civil servants from profiting from their former positions in government.



Jon Trickett, the shadow cabinet office minister, said that the auditors’ inquiry shows that the system which is supposed to monitor the careers of an elite group of mandarins is broken.

“It is often said that there is a ‘revolving door’ for members of the elite passing between Whitehall and big business,” he said. “Today’s report shows that there is complete lack of oversight and a toothless system. It’s a scandal waiting to happen.”



Tim Farron, the outgoing Lib Dem leader, said not enough was being done to address the risks. “It shows that the government have a system that doesn’t work, has no teeth and isn’t even being properly implemented. If the watchdog does not bark, it is time to put it down,” he said.

The investigation was launched by auditors to see how eight government departments monitored the recruitment of senior civil servants below the rank of permanent secretary and director general.



Auditors undertook their investigation between March and July in departments including the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, and HM Revenue and Customs. The report was formally cleared by all departments except the Cabinet Office, which provided no formal comment.



The study said: “No department has assurance that former civil servants remained compliant with the rules for up to two years after they had left public service.



“It is not possible to know from transparency data whether all those leaving the civil service that should have made an application under the rules did so.”

The Cabinet Office, which is supposed to oversee the enforcement of the rules, has not exercised its right to examine the business appointments process of any departments examined by the NAO.



“The Cabinet Office currently relies on departments enforcing compliance, as well as transparency and public scrutiny to promote compliance with the rules,” the report said.

According to the report, since October 2014, the rules have required departments to publish on their websites summary information on the outcomes of business appointment applications from senior civil servants of levels one and two.

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As at June 2017, central government departments had published 170 decisions under the rules. Three departments have never published information, and one has published a nil return. The Cabinet Office does not consider it necessary to publish nil returns, so it is not clear whether the publicly available transparency data are complete.

Only 14 of these jobs were elsewhere in the public sector, while 145 were in companies or charities.

The report found most departments do not inform outside employers of conditions imposed on departing civil servants.

“Departments must inform prospective employers of any conditions attached to the approval of an appointment or employment. In our sample, only one department consistently informed prospective employers of conditions attached to a business appointment approval, as required by the rules.

“The remaining seven departments have attached conditions to at least 187 approvals in the past five years. However, only two departments have informed prospective employers of conditions attached to an approval, and in total only six notifications have been sent.

“One department told us that it never writes to prospective employers, but it expects leavers to share the department’s decision with their new employer,” the report said.

The report noted that a parliamentary committee had said expecting journalists to expose breaches of the rules was wrong.

“The Cabinet Office relies on transparency, public scrutiny and reputational risk to promote compliance with the rules. The public administration and constitutional affairs committee considers that it is completely unacceptable to rely on media coverage to expose perceived or actual breaches of the rules, and ‘trial by media’ only serves to further weaken public confidence,” the report said.