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(ii) Other political activities
15. Thegmaig forms of political activity in the national fold,other than Parliamentary candidature, which we have had in mind and to which we shall refer in this Report as other political activities " are:
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(a) holding office in party political organisations, whether national or local ;
(b) speaking on public platforms on party political matters;
(c) writing letters to the press or publishing books or leaflets on party political matters;
(d) canvassing.
16. There exists no universal regulation governing these matters comparable with that for Parliamentary candidature. Civil servants may vote and belong to political parties, but the only all-Service rule on the extent to which they may engage in general political activities--apart from the overriding limitations imposed by the Official Secrets Acts-is a general exhortation of long standing that "civil servants are expected to maintain at all times a reserve in political matters and not put themselves forward prominently on one side or the other." This rule applies only to non-industrial staff. It is promulgated in the manual of instructions issued by the Treasury to all Establishment Officers. Some Departments reproduce it textually in their Staff Rule Books; others have adopted slightly different forms of the rule, as will be seen from the examples given in Appendix 5. Other Departments again rely on the Handbook for the New Civil Servant, a general publication first issued by the Treasury in 1946, which, in a section on conduct, says that "a civil servant must not take any part in political controversy." The Hand- book also contains the following relevant extract from the report of a Board of Enquiry which was set up in 1928 to look into allegations which had been made about the conduct of certain civil servants; and in addition the passage is included by most Departments in their office instructions:—
There are spheres of activity legitimately open to the ordinary citizen in which the civil servant can play no part, or only a limited part. He is not to indulge in political or party controversy, lest by so doing he should appear no longer the disinterested adviser of Ministers or able impartially to execute their policy. He is bound to maintain a proper reticence in discussing public affairs, and more particularly those with which his own Department is concerned."
A Treasury Circular of 1928 instructed Departments to draw the attention of all members of their staffs to this Report, to incorporate its statement of principles into their rules, and to bring them specifically to the notice of each new entrant.
17. We have made enquiries into the extent to which civil servants are now in fact aware of these rules. Apart from one or two new Departments which are in the process of drawing up their regulations, the practice of most Departments is to issue either a copy of their staff rules or the Handbook for the New Civil Servant, or both documents, to new staff; some, but not all, draw specific attention to the general code of Civil Service conduct and require new entrants to sign a statement that they have read these instructions. Since 1939, however, on account of the greatly increased intake of temporary staff and the shortage of paper, a number of Departments have restricted the issue of personal copies of such booklets to established staff. Although the rules in one form or another are generally available in all Departments, there may now nevertheless be a number of civil servants who are unaware of them.
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