Complaint could not be pursued as if they had themselves been the subject of a complaint.
107. The DExEU Complaint was made after the investigation had been announced. It was promptly added to the Terms of Reference. Some of the same subject-matter had been raised by the individuals concerned with Cabinet Office in March 2019 (after the DPM had ceased to be the relevant Secretary of State and had left the Government) but it was not intended to be pursued and was not pursued. Cabinet Office considered that those matters did not warrant an investigation. There were real difficulties in my investigating matters which were said to have occurred more than four years earlier. No contextual documents were available. The allegations were inevitably less specific and it was more difficult for the DPM to respond.
(3) The different roles of a Minister and a line manager
108. A Minister does not have line management responsibilities for the civil servants who work as policy officials in the relevant department or those who work in the private office. Such line management responsibility resides within the department itself, ultimately with the Permanent Secretary as the department's most senior civil servant.
109. However, a Minister may to a significant extent depend, in order to progress his or her policies and other goals, on the quality of work provided by civil servants, in the form of advice (including written submissions and other papers) and general management and administration.
110. There is an unresolved policy issue of some general relevance, material to some of my findings, as to the extent to which it is appropriate for a Minister to provide comments to civil servants in the nature of performance feedback. In this context, there is of course an important difference between a constructive comment to the effect that a piece of work can be improved by taking a certain step and an unconstructive and unfair general criticism, and there is a range of intermediate possibilities. There can be a degree of real urgency in relation to a Minister's priorities and it may be a source of frustration if those priorities cannot be successfully pursued.
111. Many of the civil servants working in a Minister's private office (engaged in the role of 'Private Secretary' or 'Assistant Private Secretary') are relatively junior in status or grade. The most senior private office official, the 'Principal Private Secretary', would normally be at the level of the Senior Civil Service ("SCS"), but is sometimes at the
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