CONFIDENTIAL
Policy
28. In the past the Estimates Committee (like the Public Accounts
Committee) was concerned, not with policy, but with the way in which
given policy was implemented. It had no locus to question the policy
lying behind the expenditure figures. This limitation does not apply
to the Expenditure Committee or to the specialist Committees but care
must be taken in the interpretation of these Committees' interest in
policy. It is for officials to answer questions of fact and to
explain the administrative reasoning behind a policy, and to answer
questions in the field between day-to-day administration and high
policy which might be called "administrative policy". keyond this,
the Committees' concern with policy should be interpreted as concern
with existing policy, which officials should be prepared to explain
and which the Committee will, of course, be free to criticise. It
is not, in the Government's view, any proper part of the Committee's
role to enter into the process of the formulation of policy, which
is a matter for Government, or to put forward alternative policies
to those embodied in the published expenditure figures, and officials
should avoid being drawn into discussion covering this sort of ground.
In some cases Ministers muy agree to proposals for new policies being offered by Departments for discussion with the Committee, and in such
cases officials will, of course, have to be ready to give relevant
evidence. But this which is entirely at the Government's own
choice should be regarded as the limit of the Committees' role in
policy formulation. If officials are asked questions in the field
of political controversy, using the term in its widest sense, they
should say that this is a matter for Ministers on which they cannot
answer. It is recognised that the dividing line may often be
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