Maude says civil servants blocked centralised procurement plans

Cabinet office minister Francis Maude has made comments that appear to accuse civil servants of blocking plans to centralise government procurement.

Campaign4Change reports that, during a radio interview, former cabinet secretary and head of the civil service Gus O'Donnell questioned Maude over comments he had made about ministerial decisions not being implemented in the current and previous governments.

He asked Maude whether this was the fault of ministers or civil servants, to which Maude replied "I'd be astonished if it's ministers".

Maude went on to speak about plans to centralise procurement. According to Campaign4Change, he said: "I had a meeting the other day around this table ... where a decision was made by a cabinet committee, more than a year ago, on the centralising of procurement. It had happened to a very minimal extent."

Maude reportedly added that: "If there is a problem with it, that can be flagged up and tell us. Just to go away and not do it is unacceptable ... it is protection of the system.

"What is unacceptable is not to challenge a ministerial position but then not to implement it. That is what corrodes trust in the system."

Earlier in the broadcast, Maude had said that the majority of civil servants "do really good work".

In reply, O'Donnell said that Maude was "overstating the issue". He added: "These sorts of problems mainly arise when ministers at the centre of government want to impose their will on secretaries of state who want to be left alone to run their departments as they see fit."

The programme was part of the two-part In Defence of Bureaucracy series, where O'Donnell praised the stability of the civil service and spoke about the important role bureaucracy plays in a functioning democracy.

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