The Complete Yes Minister

I was allowed to make an opening statement. I’d done my homework well, and I reiterated everything that Sir Humphrey said in his submission: namely that the Department of Administrative Affairs is run to a high standard of efficiency and does indeed support and service the administrative work of all government departments.

Mrs Betty Oldham began the questioning. She tossed her red hair and smiled a thin, mirthless smile. Then she asked me if I’d heard of Malcolm Rhodes.

I hadn’t. I said so.

She went on to inform me that he is an ex-Assistant Secretary from the DAA. I started to explain that as there are twenty-three thousand people working for the DAA I can hardly be expected to know them all, when she shouted me down (well, spoke over me really) and said that he was eased out, became a management consultant in America and has written a book.

She waved a pile of galley proofs at me.

‘This is an advance proof,’ she announced, with a glance at the press seats, ‘in which Mr Rhodes makes a number of astounding allegations of waste of public money in the British Civil Service, particularly your Department.’

I was stumped. I really didn’t know how to reply. I asked for a quick private word with my officials.

I turned to Bernard. ‘Do we know anything about this?’ I whispered urgently.

Peter said, ‘I didn’t know Rhodes had written a book.’

Gillian just said: ‘Oh my God, oh my God!’ That really filled me with confidence.

I asked who he was. Gillian said, ‘A troublemaker, Minister.’ Peter said he wasn’t sound, the ultimate insult.

Bernard, who clearly knew even less about him than Peter and Gillian, asked what was in the book.

‘We don’t know.’

‘Well, what do I say about it?’ I whispered hysterically, aware that time was running out.

‘Stall,’ advised Peter.

That was a big help. I’d have to say something. ‘Stall?’ I said indignantly. ‘What do you mean by it, stall?’

‘Stall, meaning avoiding answering, Minister,’ interjected Bernard. Like headless chickens in a crisis, these civil servants.

I gritted my teeth. ‘I know what stall means, Bernard.’ I was trying, not altogether successfully, to keep my temper. ‘But what do you mean by sending me out into a typhoon without even giving me an umbrella?’

‘An umbrella wouldn’t be much use in a typhoon, Minister, because the wind would get underneath and . . .’

The Chairman called upon me at that moment, which was just as well or Bernard might never have lived to tell the tale.

‘Have you had sufficient consultation with your officials?’ asked the Chairman.

‘More than enough,’ I replied grimly.

The Chairman nodded to Betty Oldham, who smiled and said: ‘Let me read you some of the scandalous facts that Mr Rhodes reveals.’

She then read me the following passage: ‘At No. 4 regional supply depot in Herefordshire there are two former aircraft hangars used only for stores, but which are centrally heated to 70° Fahrenheit day and night.’ [Quoted verbatim from Rhodes’s book – Ed.] ‘What have you got to say about that?’ she asked.

Naturally I had absolutely nothing to say. I pointed out that I couldn’t possibly be expected to answer that sort of detailed question without prior notice.

She conceded the point, but claimed that she was asking about a principle. ‘What I’m asking is, what conceivable reason could there be for such appalling extravagance?’

The Chairman and the Committee seemed to think I should answer. So I made a stab at it. ‘Some materials deteriorate badly at low temperatures. It would depend on what was being stored.’

I’d played right into her hands. ‘Copper wire,’ she said promptly, and smiled.

‘Well . . .’ I made another guess at what conceivable reason there could be. ‘Er . . . copper can corrode in damp conditions, can’t it?’

‘It’s plastic-coated,’ she said, and waited.

‘Plastic-coated,’ I said. ‘Ah well. Yes.’ They still seemed to want something of me. ‘Well, I’ll have it looked into,’ I offered. What else could I say?

I’d hoped that would be the end of it. But no. It was only the beginning.

‘Mr Rhodes also says that your Department insists on ordering all pens, pencils, paper-clips and so on centrally, and then distributing them against departmental requisitions.’

‘That seems very sensible to me,’ I replied cautiously, scenting a trap. ‘There are big savings on bulk purchases.’

There was a trap. ‘He demonstrates,’ she continued, ‘that this procedure is four times more expensive than if local offices went out and bought what they wanted in the High Street.’

I thought of remarking that you can prove anything with figures, but decided against it. Clearly he, and she, wouldn’t make this claim without some evidence. And my experience of the DAA suggests that Rhodes was probably absolutely right anyway. So I told her that I found this information very interesting and that I’d be happy to change the system if it were shown to be necessary. ‘We’re not a rigid bureaucracy, you know,’ I added.