3 days ago
Sir Edward Osmotherly, civil servant behind the Osmotherly Rules on select committees and Whitehall
Sir Edward Osmotherly, who has died aged 82, became the stuff of Whitehall legend by formulating in 1980 the rules governing how much information departments and senior civil servants need provide to Parliament's select committees.
To this day the 'Osmotherly Rules' – revised in 2014 by Francis Maude – govern that relationship. In 2016 one of the Cabinet Office's two new rescue cats was named 'Ossie' in his memory; its mother was christened Evie after Dame Evelyn Sharp, Whitehall's first female Permanent Secretary.
Osmotherly had a varied career in public service, including three years at the Department of Transport responsible for British Rail and eight as a tenacious local government ombudsman. But his early work during a few months heading the Civil Service Department's machinery-of-government section would prove his legacy.
The Osmotherly Rules were drawn up as the Commons, with Norman St John Stevas to the fore, set up a set of select committees to shadow and monitor each Whitehall department; previously the panels had been organised by theme, with considerable gaps.
Working to his political masters Paul Channon and Barney Hayhoe, Osmotherly produced a set of internal guidelines determining Whitehall's relationship to select committees of both Houses. And although they have 'no formal parliamentary standing or approval, nor claim to have', the Osmotherly Rules stuck.
A similar document had been circulating during the 1970s, but Osmotherly codified the rules. 'Prepared entirely for use within Government', they were formally issued in May 1980.
They start from the principle that civil servants are not directly accountable to Parliament, as are ministers and PPSs. Rather, they are carrying out actions under ministerial authority, so are protected by the same rule that prevents MPs being summoned. If there is a dispute about an official appearing, the relevant minister should attend instead as a courtesy.
Osmotherly set out the limitations of Select Committees' powers to 'send for persons, papers and records'; the procedures on committees summoning retired officials; the impact of parliamentary privilege; the point at which the cost of supplying information is reckoned excessive; the rules of sub judice with respect to current, likely and pending litigation; and when evidence can be withheld or redacted on grounds of national security and public interest.
During the Westland affair of 1985-86, ministers became concerned that MPs might question officials too closely about the conduct of individuals; they were reassured that the Osmotherly Rules were tightly drawn.
Edward Benjamin Crofton Osmotherly was born on August 1 1942, to Crofton and Elsie Osmotherly, and educated at East Ham Grammar School and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
Graduating in 1963, he joined the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, serving from 1966 as a private secretary to ministers. He spent 1972-73 as a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington and at Berkeley in California.
Osmotherly returned to what had become the Department of the Environment as an assistant secretary, then in 1979 was briefly seconded to the British Railways Board before joining the Civil Service Department and drawing up his Rules. Soon after he had finished Margaret Thatcher abolished the CSD, and he moved to the DoT as Under Secretary (Railways), just as the Serpell Report suggesting drastic cuts in the network was published then hastily shelved.
In 1985 Osmotherly was given charge of the personnel, management and training departments of the DoE and DoT. From 1989 to 1992 he headed the DoT's public transport and research department, before briefly serving as its establishment and finance officer.
He left Whitehall in 1993 to be Local Government Ombudsman, then from 2003 to 2010 was clerk adviser to the Commons European Scrutiny Committee. Osmotherly also chaired the Commission for Local Administration in England, and in 1996 a review of Government business statistics.
He was appointed CB in 1992, and knighted in 2002.
Osmotherly developed a rare dementia called posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), which affected his spatial awareness, but left his memory largely intact. Aged 76 he took part in a study at University College London investigating the balance problems caused by PCA, in which he was fitted with motion sensors and asked to paint lines of yellow paint on a canvas.
He told the BBC's Fergus Walsh that he had enjoyed the experience ('much more fun than a drug trial') and he appealed to the public: 'Please talk to people with dementia as if they were human beings. Don't be frightened of them.'
Edward Osmotherly married Valerie Mustill in 1970. They had a son and a daughter.
Edward Osmotherly, born August 1 1942, died February 18 2025
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