Jim Harra, permanent secretary and so CEO of HM Revenue & Customs has objected to two of Sunak's announcements this week. As the BBC report:
Two schemes unveiled by Chancellor Rishi Sunak to stem coronavirus job losses may not be value for money for taxpayers, a top official has warned.
HM Revenue and Customs boss Jim Harra wrote to Mr Sunak to express concerns about paying firms a £1,000 bonus to retain furloughed staff.
He also questioned the value for money of a discount scheme offering 50% off restaurant meals.
The chancellor rejected his concerns, saying action was needed to save jobs.
This is the letter on the Meal Deal:
This may be unprecedented given that direction letters of this sort have been as rare as hen's teeth until this government came along.
Even Sunak's officials think he's getting his economic policy wrong. And they're right on this one.
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Firstly, it is not correct to call it his economic policy. Secondly, has economic policy ever been correct in it’s entirety?
I don’t know how many toothed hens you have seen, but this page lists 88 known ministerial directions since 1990, and 28 since 2010. (I doubt there are many more, as they are meant to be published.) https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/ministerial-directions
That is about 3 per year, although there have been a dozen or so since December 2020 linked to coronavirus. For obvious reasons, there is much uncertainty at the moment, so constitutionally cautious civil servants don’t have the evidence to demonstrate value for money to their satisfaction. Even ignoring that exceptional period, it is still about 2.5 per year. I’m not sure why this particular “meal deal” ministerial direction has become so prominent, when others were issued for DfT spending on transport, grants to local authorities, the various BEIS loan and grant schemes, and indeed the £1,000 job retention bonus.
Jim Harra doesn’t actually say this decision is wrong (although, frankly, I think it is bonkers). He says it is not clear it is value for money. Here is Sunak’s reply to this letter, and the letter and direction for the job retention bonus.
* https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eat-out-to-help-out-scheme-ministerial-direction (“there are broader issues that I am able to weigh in my decision that you are not able to accommodate in your own assessment.”)
* https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/job-retention-bonus-ministerial-direction (this letter from Jim is similar, but contains an extraordinary phrase about “the propriety risk of nugatory spend”!)
There is a great quote from John Denham here – https://www.civilservant.org.uk/directions-overview.html : “There is no point in having a democracy if Ministers are unable to make a judgement that civil servants are wrong.” In this case, neither person is saying the other is wrong: Jim is saying “I don’t have the evidence to prove this is worth it”, and Rishi is saying “this is my political decision”.
The IoG is on record as saying there are unprecedented numbers of these now
Well Jim will be on the naughty step….
So, will this be another publicly minded servant who will be erm….’asked’ to leave?
thanks for drawing attention to this Richard, those government catchphrases seem to be designed to get people to focus on the absurd headlines instead of whats happening behind the scenes.
After reading your article i found this –
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/ministerial-directions
and its interesting to note that all four criteria – Regularity, Propriety, Value for money and Feasibility – were cited by the First Secretary as grounds for requesting ministerial direction.
In other words, he thought it was really bad
yes I agree – although I now think I misread the the data on that link – I can only see “value for money” now. apologies for the error
It really annoys me that even Larry Elliot portrays Sunak as being Keynesian, but all I see is money being made available that is not adequate and also seem destined to go into the wrong pockets (those that are ‘One of Them’) – the Tories that is.
Wishy Washy Rishy has no credibility with me whatsoever.