Whitehall top jobs opened to outsiders: Major welcomes efficiency report backing compulsory redundancies for underperforming staff

THE SAFE, secure world of the Whitehall mandarin could soon be over after publication yesterday of a study by the Cabinet Office efficiency unit. Among its recommendations are:

More Civil Service people to be hired from outside the public sector where appropriate;

Throwing senior posts open to competition;

Advertisements for some top jobs in the national press;

Filling posts with people with more 'frontline' experience;

An end to the 'job for life' ethos by introducing compulsory redundancy for staff who underperform or are surplus to requirements;

Greater representation from ethnic minorities, women and the disabled at senior levels;

Restructuring jobs to cater for people with families or relatives to look after;

Encouraging the development of specialist expertise or 'career anchors', rather than moving people around departments and jobs.

In welcoming the report, the Prime Minister said the Civil Service was undergoing great change, with departmental head offices concentrating more and more on policy-making and agencies and private firms increasingly providing services. 'The systems for recruitment, appointment and career management of civil servants need to be matched to these changing tasks and responsibilities and the skills and qualities needed in the civil service in the future.'

No decision on the recommendations will be taken until the spring but John Major said he accepted that the systems for career management and job succession needed to be made more open.

The report, focusing on the 626 most powerful civil servants with the rank of permanent secretary, deputy secretary and under secretary, was commissioned by Sir Robin Butler, head of the Home Civil Service, and Sir Peter Levene, the Prime Minister's efficiency adviser.

Sir Peter said: 'The private sector recognises the importance of having the right mix of homegrown and bought-in talent amongst its senior managers. The proposed move towards the same practice in the Civil Service is a significant step in the right direction.'

Pay structures, Sir Peter said, would have to be reviewed to reflect the recruitment of better paid outsiders.

The downside, as the report makes clear, is that the days of the sinecure are surely numbered. Its author, John Oughton, head of the efficiency unit, claims that not enough civil servants were made redundant because they were no longer needed.

Peter Hennessy, Professor of Contemporary History at Queen Mary and Westfield College at the University of London, said the document was a major modernisation. Pointing out that the last time the Civil Service actively recruited from industry was in the two world wars, he said: 'It could make the most single important contribution to deciding how policy advice is given to ministers since the Kaiser and Hitler.'

Provided that ministers did not use the opening up of senior jobs as a means of achieving 'back door politicisation', Professor Hennessy was in favour. 'They must go for skill and merit, and not people who are ideologically sympathetic.'

Sir Peter Kemp, a former permanent secretary, who recently called for a major overhaul, said the review was partial vindication of what he had been saying. 'It has to be welcomed; the Civil Service has got to get people in who are relevant to the job.'

Elizabeth Symons, general secretary of the First Division Association, the senior civil servants' union, said: 'It is of great importance that assurances are given to young civil servants and young people considering joining the Civil Service that they have a reasonable expectation of reaching the top of their chosen career.' She would be 'very concerned' if the report were used to undermine the service's traditional political neutrality.

Sir Robin is likely to be questioned today on the study by the Treasury and Civil Service select sub-committee, chaired by Giles Radice, which is investigating the civil servant's role. Mr Radice said last night he was disappointed that the report did not go further and end the Oxbridge-dominated 'fast stream' entry system.