The civil service commissioners have revealed why they rejected an appeal from the Welsh first minister to block a top appointment.

Publishing their annual report on Tuesday, the Whitehall senior staff watchdog said Rhodri Morgan was wrong to ask them to stop the selection of a freemason as the chief legal officer to the Cardiff assembly.

Gerard Elias QC was picked for the position of Welsh counsel general by a recruitment panel earlier this year.

Morgan then asked for the appointment to be scrapped on the grounds that the lawyer had links to a pro-hunting group and was known to be a freemason.

The first minister's actions caused controversy when they came to light in March, as the man who finished second to Elias in the race - and would have therefore taken the job - was a Labour supporter and former adviser to Blair Cabinet member Lord Irvine as lord chancellor.

The opposition parties in Wales accused Morgan of intervening on behalf of his party in a politically neutral civil service procedure.

However in an assembly statement the first minister claimed the commissioners had found no breach of the recruitment code.

But the annual report makes clear that while Morgan may have done nothing wrong, his appeal for the appointment to be blocked by the commissioners was rejected.

"We could not accept that the exception in the Order [in Council] should be invoked on the basis of the first minister's concern that the first ranked candidate's membership of the Independent Supervisory Authority on Hunting, in conjunction with his being a freemason, would make it very difficult for him to command the necessary authority as the National Assembly's counsel general," they wrote.

"It was not unlawful to be a member of either organisation and, if the first minister believed that these interests were incompatible with the post of counsel general, the candidate could be given the opportunity to relinquish his memberships."

Ethos

Launching the report, first commissioner Baroness Prashar said that more must be done to ensure that new recruits to the government's staff understand the ethos of the civil service.

"At a time when the civil service is under pressure to adapt to new ways of doing business, it is extremely important that the Civil Service Code, which sets out the values and boundaries which underpin the work of a civil servant, is actively promoted and properly understood," she argued.

"We continue to see a substantial number of appointments to the senior civil service being filled by open competition.

"New blood and new skills are vital to the organisation, and getting the best people available is imperative. We must also ensure that they understand the Code and values that protect the impartiality of the service.

"Following the government's response to the ninth report of the committee on standards in public life, the commissioners will be taking on a new responsibility to work with departments to promote the Civil Service Code as well as hearing appeals under it. We hope we can reinvigorate the Code and make it 'part of the furniture' for Britain's 500,000 civil servants."