TNAG-1841-FCO40-2616-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 49

Annex

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concerned it may well be necessary for the body which co- ordinates Government action in that field to submit it. It seems desirable, however, so to organise such memoranda as to indicate, for each aspect covered, which Department is primarily responsible and at least by implication the limitations of the co-ordinating responsibility. This should assist the Committee in summoning the witnesses appropriate to the aspects it wishes to investigate at each session; and if the questions asked are misdirected, no doubt the witnesses will say so.

27.

Normally the Cabinet Office and other similar co-ordinating offices will not be required to give evidence to a Committee, though the Office of the Minister for the Civil Service (OMCS), a part of the Cabinet Office, may give evidence about its work (as did the former Management and Personnel Office and the Civil Service Department). Requests for evidence from co-ordinating offices such as the Cabinet Office and "non-departmental" units or officials, should be referred to Ministers. A Committee also might seek evidence from a particular official (for example the head of the Government Statistical Service) who is not directly answerable to a departmental Minister but who in his professional capacity has a special knowledge of the subject of an enquiry. In these cases too, Ministers should be consulted.

LIMITATIONS ON THE PROVISION OF INFORMATION

General

28.

Committees' requests for information should not be met regardless of cost or of diversion of effort from other important

It might prove necessary to decline requests which appeared to involve excessive costs. However, requests for named officials who are serving overseas to attend to give evidence should not be refused on cost grounds alone. Most Committees will be willing to arrange for evidence from these witnesses to be heard on a mutually acceptable date. If it is proposed to refuse a request Ministers should be consulted.

Conduct Of Individual Civil Servants

Further supplementary guidance, principally concerning evidence on the *conduct" of individual civil servants, was published in April, 1987, following the Government's Response, entitled Accountability of Ministers and Civil Servants (Cm 78, February 1987) to the First Report from the Treasury and Civil Service Committee (Session 1986/87, HC62) and to the First Report from the Liaison Committee (Session 1986/87, HC 100). This supplementary guidance is attached at Annex A.

29.

The Procedure Committee recognised that there may be Occasions when Ministers may wish to resist requests for information on grounds of national security. Appendix C, Annex III, of the Committee's First Report (Session 1977-78, HC 588-1) reproduces the text of a letter of 9 May 1967 to the Chairmen of certain Select Committees from the then Lord President of the

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