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THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR ADMINISTRATION, THE FOREIGN OFFICE, AND THE SACHSENHAUSEN CASE, 1964–1968

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2010

GLEN O'HARA
GLEN O'HARA*
Affiliation:
Oxford Brookes University
*
Department of History, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane, Oxford OX3 0BPglen.ohara@brookes.ac.uk
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Abstract

This communication follows the evolution, reception, and implications of the parliamentary commissioner's critical 1968 report on Foreign Office ‘maladministration’ regarding compensation for British concentration camp inmates. It explores officials' and ministers' attitude to the investigative techniques associated with this new office, as well as their hostile reaction to the publicity and parliamentary controversy to which his work gave rise. It concludes by exploring the wider implications of the case, especially the inherent problems faced by governments seeking closer and more harmonious relationships with the governed.

Type
Communication
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 771 - 781
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 See e.g. K. Theakston, The Labour party and Whitehall (London, 1992), pp. 171–3.

2 The best secondary account of this case is R. Gregory and P. Hutchesson, The parliamentary ombudsman: a study in the control of administrative action (London, 1975), pp. 416–25.

3 G. K. Fry, The administrative ‘revolution’ in Whitehall (London, 1981), p. 173.

4 R. Gregory and P. Giddings, The ombudsman, the citizen and parliament (London, 2002), pp. 159–72.

5 K. C. Wheare, Maladministration and its remedies: the Hamlyn lectures (London, 1973), pp. 125–6, 132, 157; Abraham, A., ‘The ombudsman as part of the UK constitution: a contested role?’, Parliamentary Affairs, 61, 1 (2008), esp. pp. 214–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Schrafstetter, S.. ‘“Gentlemen, the cheese is all gone!” British POWs, the “great escape” and the Anglo-German agreement for compensation to victims of Nazism’, Contemporary European History, 17, 1 (2008), esp. pp. 41–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 House of Commons debates, fifth series (hereafter H. of C. debs.), vol. 696, col. 242, Butler statement, 9 June 1964.

8 The National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew (TNA), FCO 64/54, Foreign Office memorandum, ‘What Is nazi persecution?’, n.d. but 1964.

9 Conservative party Archive, Bodleian Library, Oxford, CRD 3/10/15, Conservative Foreign Affairs Committee, minutes, 10 June 1964

10 TNA, FCO 64/60, Samuel to Rodgers, 19 Jan. 1968.

11 P. Churchill, The spirit in the cage (London, 1954), pp. 126–7.

12 TNA, FCO 64/67, Foreign Office memorandum, ‘Scheme to compensate UK victims of Nazi persecution’, 6 July 1965.

13 S. P. Best, The Venlo incident (London, 1950), p. 76.

14 TNA, FCO 64/56, Foreign Office memorandum, ‘Comparative statements made in 1945 and 1965’, July 1967.

15 On Neave's campaigning in general see P. Routledge, Public servant, secret agent: the elusive life and violent death of Airey Neave (London, 2002), pp. 14, 237–40.

16 TNA, FCO 64/62, Littler memorandum, White meeting with Neave, 14 June 1966; TNA, FCO 64/67, Neave to Brown, 26 Oct. 1966.

17 TNA, FCO 64/67, Brown to White, 1 Nov. 1966, White to Brown, 4 Nov. 1966.

18 H. of C. debs., vol. 735, col. 975, Brown, oral answers, 7 Nov. 1966.

19 TNA, FCO 64/67, Neave and other MPs to Brown, 7 Feb. 1967, Brown to Neave, 24 Feb. 1967.

20 TNA, FCO 64/56, Neave to Compton, 22 Mar. 1967.

21 TNA, FCO 64/58, Brooks to Hohler, 11 July 1967.

22 Ibid., Hohler to Gore-Booth, 12 July 1967.

23 TNA, FCO 64/56, Foreign Office brief for Compton, 7 July 1967.

24 TNA, FCO 64/58, Simpson memorandum, ‘Interview with Sir Edmund Compton’, 30 Oct. 1967.

25 TNA, FCO 64/57, Gore-Booth meeting with Compton, minutes, 24 Nov. 1967.

26 Ibid., Gore-Booth to Watts, 26 Nov. 1967.

27 Ibid., Rodgers to Gore-Booth, 14 Nov. 1967.

28 TNA, FCO 64/60, Vallat to Rodgers, 17 Jan. 1968; TNA, FCO 64/62, Smith memorandum, ‘The aerial photographs of Sachsenhausen’, 13 Feb. 1968.

29 PCA, Third report for 1967/1968 (London, 1967), pp. 15–17.

30 Lord George-Brown, In my way (Harmondsworth, pbk edn, 1972), p. 143.

31 TNA, PREM 13/2274, Foreign Office to Palliser, 30 Jan. 1968.

32 R. Crossman, The diaries of a cabinet minister, iii:Lord president of the council and leader of the House of Commons, 1966–1968 (London, 1976), pp. 661–3.

33 TNA, FCO 64/61, Brown meeting with Neave, note for the record, 6 Feb. 1968.

34 H. of C. debs., vol. 758, col. 115, Brown statement, 5 Feb. 1968.

35 Ibid., col. 117, Neave in Sachsenhausen debate, 5 Feb. 1968.

36 ‘The real scandal of Sachsenhausen’, Spectator, 9 Feb. 1968, pp. 3–4.

37 TNA, FCO 64/61, Rodgers to Brown, 5 Feb. 1968, Samuel to O'Neill, 5 Feb. 1968.

38 Cmnd. 3638, Report of the committee on the civil service, 1966–1968, i (London, 1968), pp. 93–4.

39 TNA, CAB 164/640, Armstrong to other permanent secretaries, 20 Jan. 1969, Part to Armstrong, 4 Feb. 1969, Marre to Stevenson, 3 Feb. 1969.

40 TNA, FCO 79/86, Barclay to Larmour, 23 Apr. 1968, Wyatt to Morrison, 26 Apr. 1968; TNA, FCO 79/87, Osmond to Hay, 30 Apr. 1968.

41 TNA, FCO 64/64, Baker to Gore-Booth, 1 Apr. 1968; TNA, FCO 79/86, Gore-Booth to Rodgers, 2 Apr. 1968.

42 TNA, FCO 64/64, Samuel to Beith, 3 Apr. 1968; TNA, FCO 79/86, Rodgers to Brown, 17 Apr. 1968; TNA, FCO 79/87, Samuel to Brown, 1 May 1968. He backed this up in public: ‘Anonymous civil servants rule defended’, Evening Standard, 15 Aug. 1968, p. 4; ‘Sir Elwyn puts case for not naming civil servants’, Daily Telegraph, 16 Aug. 1968, p. 5.

43 TNA, CAB 129/135, Crossman memorandum to cabinet, ‘Evidence to be given to select committees’, 5 May 1968; TNA, CAB 128/43, cabinet minutes, 6 Feb. 1968.

44 First report from the select committee on the parliamentary commissioner for administration, session 1967–1968: Sachsenhausen (London, 1968), Neave evidence, 13 Mar. 1968, p. 70.

45 See e.g. ‘Foreign office in error on Sachsenhausen’, Daily Telegraph, 31 May 1968, p. 19.

46 Second report from the select committee on the parliamentary commissioner for administration, session 1967–1968 (London, 1968), Armstrong evidence, 29 May 1968, pp. 99–100.

47 TNA, HLG 124/348, Gore-Booth to Petch, 4 Nov. 1968.

48 TNA, FCO 79/86, Gore-Booth to Rodgers, 2 Apr. 1968.

49 TNA, FCO 64/58, memorandum on ‘Interview with Sir Edmund Compton’, 16 Oct. 1967.

50 M. A. Jogerst, Reform in the House of Commons: the select committee system (Lexington, KY, 1993), esp. pp. 59–70, 118ff; Blick, A., ‘Harold Wilson, Labour and the machinery of government’, Contemporary British History, 20, 3 (2006), pp. 343–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 E.g. Gwyn, W. B., ‘The British PCA: “ombudsman” or “ombudsmouse”’, Journal of Politics, 35, 1 (1973), esp. pp. 59–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘The ombudsman in Britain: a qualified success in government reform’, Public Administration, 60, 2 (1982), esp. p. 183.

52 Justice, Our fettered ombudsman (London, 1977), p. 27.

53 Harold Wilson papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Wilson c. 893, ‘Speech at Stowmarket, Suffolk, 3 July 1964’.

54 P. Hennessy, Whitehall (London, 2001 pbk edn), pp. 398–407.

55 Blaazer, D., ‘“Devalued and dejected Britons”: the pound in public discourse in the mid-1960s’, History Workshop Journal, 47, (1999), pp. 121–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 On ‘unintended consequences’ in UK economic policy, see e.g. A. Hasel, ‘The governance of the employment–welfare relationship in Britain and Germany’, in B. Ebbinghaus and P. Manow, eds., Comparing welfare capitalism: social policy and political economy in Europe, Japan and the USA (London, 2001), pp. 146–69.

57 For very similar paradoxes in the market-orientated government systems of the 1980s and 1990s, see most recently Rhodes, R. A. W., ‘Understanding governance: ten years on’, Organization Studies, 28, 8 (2007), pp. 1243–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.