HC Deb 10 February 1969 vol 777 cc866-7
18. Mr. Dalyell

asked the Minister for the Civil Service whether he will expand the rôle of the Treasury Solicitor, and create a Head of the Legal Service.

Mrs. Hart

This proposal and the Fulton Committee's other recommendations about the management of Civil Service legal work and staffs are being studied in consultation with the Treasury Solicitor and the Departments concerned.

Mr. Dalyell

Is this recommendation accepted in principle?

Mrs. Hart

Our view is that we need to consider the recommendations as a whole and then to decide what exactly the functions of the Head of the Legal Service would be.

Sir E. Boyle

Did not the Fulton Commitee put forward a very strong case for attaching more importance to the work of the legal aspects of the Civil Service? Is the right hon. Lady aware that her answers might lead some people to feel that the Civil Service Department ought to try to make haste a little less slowly than at present with some of the suggestions that have been made?

Mrs. Hart

The right hon. Gentleman should not draw that conclusion from my answers. We are now at the stage when, necessarily, a tremendous amount of work is going on within the Civil Service Department on all the Fulton Committee recommendations that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister indicated were accepted. It is very detailed work and it will inevitably be some little time before, on a number of these recommendations, we are able to report final conclusions to the House.