Cabinet Office guidelines under which officials appear before select committees only as representatives of ministers should be “re-examined” to allow for greater scrutiny of civil servants, according to Treasury select committee chair Andrew Tyrie.

Tyrie made the suggestion in a lecture on the future of select committees, which he gave at the Institute for Government on Monday.

He said it was time to break down the conventions which mean that select committees do not usually call named civil servants, instead requesting that ministers send people working in a particular field. The guidelines setting out that civil servants who do appear speak only on behalf of ministers, said Tyrie, act “to protect them from scrutiny”.

The reform proposal was supported by former Labour minister Jack Straw, who said that in some areas of departmental work ministers do not have any real control over decisions. He mentioned large-scale procurements, describing major IT schemes as “juggernauts over which ministers have no effective control”.

Jonathan Baume, general secretary of the FDA union, questioned the proposal, saying the ‘Osmotherly rules’ – as they’re known – form part of the wider system of ministerial accountability and the impartiality of the civil service. The rules also aim to protect the concept of collective accountability: civil servants are not allowed to discuss advice given to ministers, nor interdepartmental negotiations or discussions.

Baume suggested that summoning civil servants as individuals rather than as representatives of their ministers could undermine the impartiality of the civil service. He said that the way to tackle procurement issues “is to ensure that all the contracts reached are opened up to public scrutiny”.

Straw agreed that it is important to “ensure that the different roles of ministers and civil servants are preserved”, but said officials should answer for the decisions for which they are responsible.

Accounting officers already appear before the Public Accounts Committee as principals, not as agents of the secretary of state, Straw said, and this should be extended to other areas.

Returning to the example of IT procurement, he mentioned a long-running programme to centralise records in the criminal justice system. One reason for slow progress, he said, was the “high turnover of senior officials and their own lack of IT expertise”. In such cases, he said, permanent secretaries should appear as ‘principals’ rather than as ‘agents’ of their minister.

Tyrie’s lecture set out nine reformswhich, he said, would allow select committees to better hold government to account. These include changing the parliamentary week to give more time for uninterrupted committee work, and creating smaller committees with more resources and external advisers. All select committee members – not just chairs – should be elected by secret ballot, he suggested; and he praised the IfG proposals for select committee vetoes over key appointments.

Written by Suzannah Brecknell, CSW