An influential Conservative MP has joined forces with a top civil servants trade union in demanding an all-party enquiry into the future direction of the civil service.

Chair of the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC), Bernard Jenkin, told the FDA's annual conference yesterday an independent parliamentary committee was needed because the current civil service reform programme was based on longstanding distrust between minister and officials, weak leadership and a media- driven short-term perspective.

‘Any effective administration depends upon trust amongst the leading protagonists, effective governance of the organisation, which in turn depends upon the quality of leadership at the top,' Mr Jenkin said.
 
The PASC chair proposed a parliamentary commission, along the same lines as the much-praised Tyrie Commission into banking, as the first independent civil service review since the Fulton Report in 1968.

FDA General Secretary Dave Penman said: ‘Bernard Jenkin is right to say that civil service reform is too important to be done in a hasty and piecemeal fashion. 

‘The FDA has proposed a commission to take a detailed look at civil service reform – facts not frustration should be the motivation for reform.'