Gus O'Donnell tells Iraq inquiry spending cuts may lead to loss of one of two posts and criticises Blair's style of government
One of Britain's two deputy national security advisers could lose their job because of spending cuts, the head of the civil service indicated today.
Sir Gus O'Donnell said he could not guarantee that both posts would survive cost-cutting in the Cabinet Office.
"We need to look at our resources very carefully ... to live within our spending review which starts from April 2011," the cabinet secretary said in evidence to the Iraq inquiry.
"We will need to look very carefully at the composition of that team [National Security Secretariat], and there will be some reductions there."
Asked whether the national security adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, would retain his two deputies, O'Donnell replied: "He has to have at least one deputy. At least one."
O'Donnell also levelled criticisms at Tony Blair's style of government, blaming him for a lack of sufficient records to inform the present inquiry into the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.
He added that the ministerial code made clear that the "full" legal advice of the attorney general on such issues ? not just a summary ? should be made available to cabinet ministers.
He told the inquiry that Blair steered away from discussing major issues such as the Iraq war in cabinet because he did not trust colleagues not to leak details, and suggested that was a problem in terms of records.
"The nature of formality was diminished," he said. "If you reduce the formality, you do not have such good records. When you come to do an audit, as you are here, it is not as complete as any cabinet secretary would want it to be."
Asked about the failure to provide the then attorney general Lord Goldsmith's advice to the whole cabinet in the run up to the invasion, O'Donnell said: "The ministerial code makes it clear that, if there is a legal issue, the full text of the attorney general's opinion should be attached [to discussion papers]."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/28/deputy-security-adviser-iraq-inquiry
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