An audience with the wise woman of Whitehall

You may not have heard of Janet Paraskeva, but she is one of the most important people in Whitehall and also one of the most highly regarded. She is private both by temperament and by design, enjoying the freedom this gives her to get on with her job as First Civil Service Commissioner: head of the independent body that reports directly to the Queen to ensure open and fair recruitment to the Civil Service and investigate appeals from officials.

This week, however, her term of office was extended to the end of 2010 and, with a Constitution Bill in preparation that will have huge implications for Whitehall, she has decided to make a rare foray into the limelight and grant her first major interview to The Spectator. On 3 July, in a statement to the Commons, the Prime Minister quipped that ‘to reinforce the neutrality of the Civil Service, the core principles governing it will no longer be set at the discretion of the executive but will be legislated by Parliament — and so this government has finally responded to the central recommendation of the Northcote–Trevelyan report on the Civil Service made over 150 years ago in 1854’.