Question: The Cabinet Office said its recent announcement on the powers of special advisers was an acceptance of recommendations from the Commons public administration committee and was announced in the usual way. Is that an adequate explanation for the way the announcement was made?

Sir Alistair Graham: I think the first point is they constantly made references to say that they were just implementing a recommendation from the public administration select committee.

But that recommendation was related to the whole, and for us very critical issue, of the government coming forward with a Civil Service Act which would have provided a framework for parliamentary scrutiny of any changes to the orders in council and any changes to the code of practice.

Therefore they were really making this recommendation out of context, it wasn't in the context of a Civil Service Act. They were making these changes unilaterally, without any prior consultation with parliament or any other stakeholders.

Therefore I think Sir Andrew [Turnbull, former Cabinet secretary] missed the fundamental point. He wasn't really at liberty just to cherry pick one recommendation that he happened to think was useful and ignore the context in which the recommendation was made, which was about the government coming forward with a Civil Service Act.

Question: Is it an issue for the civil service, or is there a question over how far politicians and Number 10 make these decisions?

Sir Alistair Graham: I don't want to overblow this. I think it was probably a routine review after the general election. So I think they were going through a process and of course they have to make recommendations to the prime minister and Cabinet Office ministers about these matters.

But undoubtedly, when you look at small changes that are made to arrangements for special advisers you are seeing a gradually creeping increase in their authority and powers.

And also there is this strengthening the position of introducing expert advisers. We really don't need expert special advisers because we have got provisions under the Civil Service Commission rules that allow expert people - providing everyone agrees they are an expert - without having to go through a competitive exercise and without having to apply the merit principle which is central to senior civil service appointments.

So we thought, why extend the powers and roles of special advisers where you don't need to do so?

We were consulted about the changes to the arrangements for special advisers, but that was a behind-the-scenes consultation. We made fairly substantial and lengthy representations as to why we were uneasy about some aspects of the changes.

But the central issue was that special advisers, in the political scheme of things, are important people. We have seen tricky issues like the court case relating to Railtrack in which the role of special advisers has come out as very important. There was the Jo Moore case which caused great political controversy and led to the resignation of a minister.

So the position of special advisers in the political hierarchy is very important which is why we are so keen that any changes - no matter how minor they may seem or even if they arise from a recommendation of the public administration select committee - are subject to further public debate and parliamentary scrutiny.

That is the key issues which we really objected to and I don't think Sir Andrew has really addressed that central point.

Question: And does that lack of transparency mean the Cabinet Office is breaching the 'seven principles of public life', one of which is openness?

Sir Alistair Graham: Where this particular issue is concerned, yes.

Question: How do you respond to criticism that it is just 'nitpicking' to talk about the way in which this announcement was made?

Sir Alistair Graham: I don't think it is nitpicking, because of the reasons I've outlined about the importance of special advisers. I don't think it is nitpicking and I think there would have been some genuine parliamentary debate and comment if they had put forward their proposed changes.

And if they are so minor, then what's the worry? They would have gone through without any controversy whatsoever. Therefore why use what I described as the "hole in the corner" method of bringing about these changes without any full-scale public or parliamentary discussion?

Sir Alistair on the Civil Service Bill

Question: Turning to the Civil Service Bill, are you frustrated by the slow progress being made in implementing it?

Sir Alistair Graham: I am frustrated because I think the case has been made out for such a Bill to be brought forward and for it to become an Act.

At a time when the issue of trust between the people who are governed and the people who do the governing is a central political issue, I would have thought it would give the right gesture.

The importance for me of a Civil Service Act - spelling out the values and impartiality and integrity of the civil service - is that it would give the civil service confidence, not that it needs to happen very often, in facing up to ministers and saying, 'we don't think this is the appropriate way to go forward' and at times saying, 'no, we are not prepared to do that because we don't think it is appropriate for us as civil servants to do it'.

Question: In his farewell address, Sir Andrew argued that a Civil Service Act could reduce flexibility while introducing parliamentary oversight could have led to more, rather than less, politicisation. Aren't they fair points to make?

Sir Alistair Graham: I was there when Sir Andrew made his speech. I really thought he picked on one issue that not all of us agree needs to be in the Civil Service Bill anyway. That relates to conditions of service and introduces a rigidity, well I don't think that is necessary.

Of course if they bring forward a Civil Service Bill there will be genuine discussion about what should be the content of that. We've come forward with ideas, the public administration committee has come forward with ideas. But I don't think that in anything that I heard from Sir Andrew that he addressed this fundamental point about statutory embodiment of the values which everyone seems to agree are still relevant to the civil service even in this more delivery-orientated, public service reform world we are now operating in.

People still see those values as relevant, so statutory underpinning of those values, I think, would give a confidence to the civil service as they go forward.

And it might be argued, and I think you can argue this, they would be a very useful part of the government's reform programme for public services. I believe there is a fundamental link between high ethical standards and good quality delivery. We are all in favour of that. I am all in favour of consumers getting a much better deal and I think standards has a part to play in that.

Question: You would like to see new Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell take this up as a top priority?

Sir Alistair Graham: Yes, as I have said publicly I am genuinely looking forward to working with him. He is a highly respected figure, not that Sir Andrew wasn't, across the civil service. I sincerely hope it is possible to do business with him and I sincerely hope that standards issues are part of his agenda. It is part of the Cabinet Office's objectives and therefore I hope as part of his personal agenda going forward.

Sir Alistair on working with government

Question: How difficult is it for the committee to strike the balance between working with the government but also seeking to push them into accepting the recommendations that they are perhaps not so keen on?

Sir Alistair Graham: I personally always prefer to work in a co-operative framework, trying to develop consensus for taking some of these issues forward. But I recognise that we are part of the deliberate awkward squad. We ask the awkward questions, we challenge actions at times if we don't think they fit in with the 'seven principles of public life' or the framework for standards in this country.

At times, I am in no doubt, amongst government ministers and senior civil servants that sometimes causes a degree of irritation. But I think the general view is that people believe the UK public sector system is stronger for the existence of the committee on standards in public life than if we weren't here.

This has been reconfirmed by me in the extensive consultation exercise we have just gone through - including Cabinet ministers, senior civil servants, people in Scotland and Northern Ireland and Wales - in which that is the strong message: 'We want you to be there and we want you to do a decent job'.

Question: Does the committee still have the same influence in Whitehall that it did when it was originally set up? Then you had high profile scandals, constant media coverage of 'sleaze' which creates an impetus for people to act on your recommendations. Is that still there?

Sir Alistair Graham: We haven't had the government's response to our 10th inquiry report, which was our last report, and we will have to see what influence we have had.

There we made a whole series of recommendations covering the ethical stands framework and its operation in local government, where, for example, the whole issue of proportionality was a big issue.

I think the government and others should be encouraged that we are looking at some of the work we have done. Have we moved on and have standards so established themselves now that we can dismantle some of the regimes that have been set up? Or in this particular case, whether having a rather expensive highly centralised Standards Board for England was a disproportionate machinery in terms of what we were trying to achieve in local government.

We made recommendations which said that the existing machinery was too heavy, cumbersome, bureaucratic and disproportionate in terms of achieving the desired outcomes. We made recommendations about slimming all that down, having a much more bottom-up approach, strengthening the role of standards committees in local government and I think people should take encouragement from this.

We had a meeting with the minister, Phil Woolas, to talk about that important area of our report and I think all the signs are - I can't be sure until wee see what ministers formally announce - that they are very interested.

Sir Alistair on local government

Question: London mayor Ken Livingstone faces a hearing before the Standards Board and could face suspension or being barred from office as a result of his comments to an Evening Standard journalist. Is it right for unelected officials to have this power or is there a case for more democratic oversight, perhaps adopting the 'recall ballots' used in the US?

Sir Alistair Graham: I haven't given a great deal of thought to the idea of recall ballots. It seems to me that it isn't a cheap option, to have the ballot and all the effort and machinery of getting the necessary signatures needed to justify a ballot. I am not sure that we necessarily want to go down that particular road.

But what we have suggested is that too many complaints arising in local government have been tit-for-tat complaints, although not in this particular case which raises some sensitive issues. This whole expensive centralised machinery was not set up to deal with this volume of complaints and not surprisingly the machinery has not been able to cope effectively. There has been a fairly strong reaction to that in local government.

So I think our recommendations there, which suggest that you have a smaller body approaching these things in a strategic way, and wherever possible except for the most serious complaints you push them down to local standards committees in local government. But we did set out some key provisos - that there had to be an independent chairman of the local standards committee and there had to be a majority of independent ministers.

I suspect it might be appropriate, if that machinery had been in place, for that committee to deal with an issue of this nature. It would have been dealt with by independent people, but people who have been approved by elected representatives and elected representatives would have been part of the process as well.

Sir Alistair on parliament

Question: What role should parliament be playing in promoting standards in public life?

Sir Alistair Graham: The sort of issues that we deal with, on the whole, come up through parliament's self-regulation. I think it has improved its own arrangements very considerably in recent years. The standards and privileges committee in the House of Commons is a very effective body and we work very closely with Sir George Young, the chairman, and Sir Philip Mawer, the parliamentary commissioner for standards.

So I think parliament itself has got its act together much more effectively.

In terms of the wider public policy sense, the public administration committee has done a very impressive job. We have been very close to the chairman of that committee [Dr Tony Wright] and we are delighted to see him reappointed after the general election.

So parliament has a very important role to play and we are anxious that as far as possible any of the issues relating to standards should be subject to parliamentary debate and scrutiny.

We would like to see the parliamentary scrutiny arrangements strengthened wherever possible.

Question: Do MPs need to reassert their independence from the executive, for example in doing more to push forward the Civil Service Bill?

Sir Alistair Graham: I am in favour of the executive not being all-powerful in these matters and parliament, in a genuine cross-party way, taking an independent stance on these matters.

And I am sure we haven't heard the last of this from the public administration select committee, I am sure that they will want to come back to this issue.

It does seem to me clear now that there is no political will or enthusiasm in government to come forward with this, so we are just going to have to pester away at the issue.

We are just going to have to make sure that it doesn't go dead, and that we keep it alive, select committees keep it alive, selected politicians keep it alive.

It was interesting that when I wrote to the heads of all the political parties, the two opposition parties were very strongly in favour of a Civil Service Act. It is only the government that it out of step.

And I suspect it would have a fair degree of support amongst many backbench Labour MPs so I think in terms of support in parliament it is probably pretty extensive. It is only the government that doesn't see the need for this.

Their current formal position is that they have yet to respond to the responses to the consultation document on the Civil Service Bill. It would surprise me if we didn't see a majority of those responses were in favour of the Bill being brought forward.

Question: Is it going to take a change of prime minister to make any progress on the Bill?

Sir Alistair Graham: I have no idea. I haven't got the impression that the prime minister has a personal strong feeling on this. It has just never gathered up the right head of steam in the Cabinet Office and places like that.

I think it is a general lack of enthusiasm and that is why it needs people like myself and others to keep putting pressure on the government, to demonstrate the relevance of such an Act and that it is not in conflict with the government's approach to public service reform but in fact it genuinely could be complementary reform.

Sir Alistair on the committee's role

Question: Turning to the committee's role - are there still any major flaws in the public sector ethics framework? There don't seem to be the pressing issues that there used to be.

Sir Alistair Graham: I think we genuinely have made progress over the years since the committee was set up.

But nobody can take a great deal of comfort when our independent research has shown that an overwhelming majority of the public still think there is, for example, cronyism in public appointments.

I do think we need to see a narrower gap - I am not saying you will ever close it totally because there will always be a degree of cynicism about government in these matters - between public perception and what we think is the reality.

Question: We discussed earlier the committee's work in going back and reviewing the effect of previous reforms to local government standards. When the committee is going back and reviewing its own work, does that suggest the committee is looking for things to do rather than having any pressing work that needs to be done?

Sir Alistair Graham: I don't think so, I think it is good business. For example in our consultation exercise on our future work one of the areas that we said we want to revisit are the recommendations that led to the setting up of the Electoral Commission.

The Electoral Commission has been quite a controversial body in recent years. We could have a look at that and see if it is meeting everybody's expectations, are there possible recommendations for change?

What is unique about the Electoral Commission is that it is managed and monitored by parliament directly rather than a government department. We have been in touch with the speaker who chairs the [parliamentary] committee and they are sympathetic about the idea of us revisiting this and holding off their own review until we have come to a conclusion on this matter.

There are other issues. We think, for example, that it might be appropriate if the committee carries out a review of the Freedom of Information Act. Not immediately, because it is still relatively fresh, but from mid-2006 onwards to see if that is genuinely underpinning the principle of openness and transparency. Are officials changing their approach to decision-making and recording decisions as a result of the introduction of freedom of information? That is not a minor issue, that is a very big issue which gets at the heart of our democratic system.

Even reviewing the seven principles of public life themselves - not the actual principles but the wording attached to the principles, particularly the one relating to honesty. Our survey of public attitudes found that the public's view of honesty was a rather sharper, blunter one than the wording that we had attached to the principle of honesty.

I think there are genuinely enough issues of substance. Nothing would please me better than if there was a consensus across the country and across key stakeholders that standards had reached such a high level in this country that a committee like the committee on standards in public life no longer had a useful function to perform.

We are not here for the sake of it. We would be very happy to cry 'victory, we've arrived at nirvana'. I have to say, and you can come to your own judgement, but do you think we have a consensus at the moment that ethical standards in public life are so high in this country that we no longer need a committee on standards in public life?

Sir Alistair on honesty

Question: In terms of that reference to honesty, are you ever going to change the way politicians act with a statement of principles however it is worded?

Sir Alistair Graham: The statement has been enormously influential over the last 10 years and I think, if we were to make a change in the wording relating to honesty, would highlight this critical issue of honesty and trust. The two are so critically intertwined for setting high standards in this country.

The whole Iraq war saga has been riddled by this issue of honesty. If we can be seen to help raise its profile, and after a general election where trust was a central issue, keep it on the agenda and attention is being given to it in the run up to the next election, then we will be performing a very fundamental and useful task

Question: You are consulting at the moment on your next inquiry? Any thoughts on where you will focus next?

Sir Alistair Graham: The Freedom of Information Act could be examined in 2006, revisiting our recommendations on the Electoral Commission, we are currently reviewing the wording underpinning the seven principles of public life.

There are other issues like, for example, conflicts of interest. There are outstanding issues arising from previous reports relating to the ministerial code of conduct. In our consultation issues have come up in Scotland and Northern Ireland relating to the ministerial code of conduct which I think it might be useful for us to do some work on.

There is no problem in coming forward with meaty issues. We are bound, under the convention under which we operate, to consult the Cabinet secretary and through the Cabinet secretary the prime minister and try to reach some understanding.

But in the end we are an independent committee and will address the issues that we think need addressing.

Question: The Conservatives have said the rules on prime ministerial spouses should be one issue under consideration. Is that something on your agenda?

Sir Alistair Graham: Of course we deal with public office holders and the prime minister's wife is not a public office holder. If we were to have a look in some fresh way at the ministerial code of conduct then whether the issue would come up in that context I really couldn't say. We have no plans, for the reason that I have just outlined, to pick up the issue of prime ministerial spouses and their activity.