By Tony Collins
Margaret Hodge spoke incisively this week about her five years as chairman of the 160 year-old Public Accounts Committee.
It’s assumed that civil servants answer to ministers who are then accountable to Parliament when things go wrong. Hodge mentioned failed IT projects several times.
But she painted a picture of senior officialdom as a force independent and sometimes opposed to Parliament. She said some senior officials had a “fundamental lack of respect for Parliament”. She had come up against an opposition that is “akin to a freemasonry”.
She said:
“With accountability comes responsibility. I can’t think how often we ask whether those responsible for dreadfully poor implementation are held to account for their failures.
“It rarely happens. People rarely lose their job. Those responsible for monumental failures all too often show up again in another lucrative job paid for by the taxpayer…”
Some excerpts from Hodge’s “Speaker’s…
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