Mr. David Moloney:

I refer to my opening statement. The Ministers and Secretaries Act 1924 makes the Minister for Finance responsible for the Civil Service. That has changed a few times. It became the Minister for the Public Service at one point, back to the Minister for Finance and now it is the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. Section 17 of the Civil Service Regulation Act is fundamental to the Chairman's question because it places the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform as the person politically responsible for the regulation and control of all the Civil Service and all that flows from that.

We also need to bear in mind the point about the appropriate authority. The Government is the appropriate authority for the Secretaries General. That is also set out in the Civil Service Regulation Act. The statutory provisions we have there set out a large and significant role for the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, but there is also a role for the Government as a whole. One of the changes made since 1924 is exactly the one the Chairman mentioned, which is that the responsibility for employing people is no longer a central responsibility but is now within the remit of individual Departments. A set of responsibilities goes up from individual Departments to Ministers and then, of course, Government has a collective responsibility. I suppose that is-----