Under the current rules, only former government ministers and the most senior civil servants are required to seek advice from the watchdog about any role they plan to take up within two years of leaving office. They must comply with Acoba restrictions which range from delaying their start date in a new job to time-limited lobbying bans.
But that means potentially hundreds of civil servants who fall outside the watchdog’s remit face no restrictions on their ability to take up jobs in the private sector each year — despite their experience in sensitive commercial roles.
Despite repeated warnings from Pickles since he took up the job in early 2020, the Acoba boss said Whitehall departments had failed to take action to alleviate the potential risk of companies buying influence.
“I volunteered that we’d do some training for departments,” he explained. “We said we’d do an audit for them. They said they’d do it themselves — but they’ve done the square root of nothing.”
Much media attention is paid to big name former government ministers taking up industry jobs after leaving office. But Pickles argued that firms looking to exert influence over government policy “couldn’t care less” about making box office hires.
“I certainly wouldn’t give a threepenny damn about ministers,” he said. “I would be interested in the people that actually did the job, the people that put together the contracts, the people that had the commercial links, and there’s anecdotal evidence that people are doing that.”