Recommendation 6

We questioned the Department about how it decided which bids from other government departments it would provide funding for. Special advisers were invited to discuss the initial assessments from the Department’s officials before final advice was given to Ministers.15 Correspondence from the Department showed that in the meeting to discuss bids five special advisers were present alongside officials from the Department, HM Treasury and the Prime Minister’s Office.16 The Department told us that advice was often written by officials which special advisers then commented on, as was appropriate. However, in the interests of working at pace it had brought the two processes together, which the Department recognised was an unusual form.17 We asked whether the Department had, or planned to, publish information that would allow Parliament to tell what influence special advisers had or the advice submitted to Ministers.18 The Department emphasised that while special advisers were involved in discussions and that these discussions informed the advice that went to Ministers, the advice provided to Ministers was from officials who had been comfortable with the proposals that had been put forward.19 We noted that special advisers had a very important and useful role to play in government, but that if the distinction between special advisers and civil servants is blurred “there can be a real danger constitutionally, and it can case real questions”.20 We remarked that the level of influence exerted by special advisers and their involvement at the point of decision making appeared to go beyond anything we had previously witnesses as Members of this Committee or in previous Ministerial roles.21 We were concerned that there had been a lot of senior advisers “making very candid and detailed comments on these [Minister’s] briefings”.22