Inappropriate use of civil service resources is criticised by the FDA

FDA general secretary Jonathan Baume appeared on BBC Radio Today programme this morning criticising the Government's use of Treasury officials to produce costings of Conservative policies which were then used for political campaigning purposes.

Baume said: "The rules governing the civil service make clear that civil servants are allowed to cost Opposition claims about policies and to respond to Freedom of Information requests and you can understand why this might well happen in the middle of a Parliament when the parties are debating policies going through the House of Commons.

"However, we are now in an election campaign and there is a real temptation - and Conservative ministers before the 1997 election had the same temptation - to use the civil service to cost the policies of the Conservative Party, or for that matter the Liberal Democrats, and then to take advantage of that material in party political campaigning.

He added: "There have been clear signs of unease in the autumn in the civil service that this kind of approach might be taken by ministers, because we have seen it before and... we need to put a moratorium on [those] particular aspects of policy. All the parties need to be very clear that the civil service is not there to serve any of the parties in their election campaigning."

Also today, The Times published a letter from the FDA (which was also covered extensively in a separate Times article) calling for a moratorium on costings by civil servants of Opposition policies.

FDA general secretary Jonathan Baume on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme 5 January 2010
(two hours 20 minutes into programme)

Letter to The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article6975839.ece

Other Times articles
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6976009.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6976038.ece

Other recent FDA media coverage
FDA in the Media