Additional written evidence is available in Volume 3, available on the Committee website www.parliament.uk/pasc

At present the Prime Minister can only veto a candidate selected on merit. But new proposals put forward by the Civil Service Commission would give the Prime Minister the power to choose between two candidates considered equally well qualified for the role. This report follows a long-running debate between the Civil Service Commission and the Government on the appointment of lead permanent secretaries - the most senior civil servant in a department. In January 2014 the Civil Service Commission put out to consultation two proposals on expanding ministerial influence on the recruitment process. PASC has concluded that the first option - to formalise the recruitment panel's powers to seek, and take into account, the view of the relevant minister during the appointment process - should be adopted. The Committee has warned that the adoption of the Commission's second option - allowing the Prime Minster or Secretary of State to effectively appoint a permanent secretary by choosing between two candidates 'of equivalent merit' risks the appearance that the choice will be made on grounds other than merit alone

There has been concern in the last few years that former Ministers and Crown Servants have inappropriately used knowledge they gained in Government to seek new employment in other sectors. Over two years ago the Committee launched an inquiry to examine the effectiveness of the Business Appointment Rules in ensuring propriety in the future employment of former Ministers and senior Crown servants; and to consider the potential of the Big Society agenda to increase traffic through the "revolving door" between the public sector and business and the voluntary sector. The report "The Business Appointment Rules" was published on 17 July 2012. Some twenty months later, the Government has not responded to the Report. The Committee has raised this matter both through correspondence with the Rt Hon Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, and by way of Parliamentary Questions. The Committee views the Government failure to respond to a Select Committee Report as unacceptable behaviour and in this instance as obstructive and secretive, both showing a cavalier attitude in its responsibilities towards Parliament and thereby deliberately impeding a cross-party scrutiny of Government policy in this area.

At the start of this Parliament, the Minister for the Cabinet Office indicated the ten-yearly census should be axed and the 2011 census should be the last. But in this report the Public Administration Select Committee urges the government not to scrap the 2021 census. Good figures on the people in the country are of fundamental importance to the statistical system, policy makers and society more widely, and the ten-yearly census gives detailed information on small areas. This report follows the National Statistician's announcement in March 2014 that she recommends that Government keep the Census in 2021, but that it should be conducted largely online, and that the Government should make much greater use of the data which it already holds in order to improve the accuracy of population estimates. The Committee supports the recommendation from the National Statistician, but urges the Office for National Statistics to do much more to make the best use of the data which the Government already collects, for example through the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs and the Department of Health. The Committee says that the Office for National Statistics' work on the future of the Census has, to date, been limited, and recommends that the Office for National Statistics now sets out a much more ambitious vision for the use of this data to provide rich and valuable population statistics.

In this report the Public Administration Select Committee recommends that departmental press officers and government statistics staff should work together much more closely to ensure that press releases give an accurate and meaningful picture of the truth behind the figures. Government statistics press releases do not always give a true and fair picture of the story behind the statistics, sometimes going too far to create a newsworthy headline. And the Committee says the ways that statistics are presented can be a challenge even for expert users. The lay user is left confused and disengaged. The Office for National Statistics website makes figures hard to find and statistics are often presented in a confusing way, for example, in formats which are not easily understandable. Other recommendations include: the UK Statistics Authority should work proactively to bring together and clearly present key statistics, from various sources, around common themes or events, such as elections and referendums, as well as broader topics such as the labour market and economic trends; the ONS website must be improved; the Statistics Authority should find more creative ways of communicating statistics, for example, through interactive guides; publication of more raw data in machine-readable format for experts who want the full results, not just the edited highlights presented in releases for a mass audience; government statisticians produce thousands of pieces of data on demand, known as 'ad hoc statistics' and these should be published proactively, rather than simply in reaction to requests.

There has been little analysis of the constitutional framework for management of the UK economy, either in constitutional law or regulatory studies. This is in contrast to many other countries where the concept of an 'economic constitution' is well established, as it is in the law of the European Union. Given the extensive role of the state in attempting to resolve recent financial crises in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, it is particularly important to develop such an analysis. This book sets out different meanings of an economic constitution, and applies them to key areas of economic management, including taxation and public borrowing, the management of public spending, (including the Spending Review), monetary policy, financial services regulation, industrial policy (including state shareholdings) and government contracting. It analyses the key institutions involved such as the Treasury and the Bank of England, also including a number of less well-known bodies such as the Office for Budget Responsibility. There is also coverage of the international context in which these institutions operate especially the European Union and the World Trade Organisation. It thus provides an account of the public law applying to economic management in the UK. This book also adopts a critical approach, assessing the degree to which there is coherence in the arrangements for economic management, the degree to which economic policy-making is constrained by constitutional norms, and the degree to which economic management is subject to deliberation and accountability through Parliament, the courts and other institutions.

The Public Administration Select Committee says special advisers (SpAds) should be 'men and women of standing and experience' with a legitimate and valuable function to play in government, but they need better training and support to prevent future problems and misunderstandings about their role and conduct. Ministers must recognise that they have responsibility, not just accountability, for the conduct of their special advisers, and actively ensure that they are fully aware of what their advisers are doing in their name. The Committee says that it remains concerned that this responsibility has 'proved to be more theoretical than actual' and says it cannot recall any minister ever resigning over the conduct of a special adviser, despite some astonishing cases. PASC says that the special advisers' role protects the impartiality of the Civil Service, by performing tasks which it would be inappropriate for permanent, impartial officials to perform, and helping to ensure that the Government's policy objectives are delivered, but that ministers must be able to justify that the tasks they undertake are in the public interest. Despite concerns raised by PASC's predecessor Committee more than ten years ago, the training and support for new special advisers remains inadequate. The Committee makes a number of recommendations including that the PM's Adviser on Ministers' Interests should be empowered to instigate his own investigations of potential breaches of the Ministerial Code, so that the Prime Minister is not able to protect his ministers from appropriate investigation of the conduct of their advisers, and that the PM's Adviser should himself be independently appointed and subject to a pre-appointment hearing