Downing Street Says » Gus O’ Donnell

Asked whether the Prime Minister shared the concerns of Gus O Donnell when he had said that civil servants were finding it difficult to deal with the US administration in the lead up to G20, the Prime Minister s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that you had to put Gus O Donnell s remarks in the proper context; he was talking at a public service conference and his remarks were taken out of context. He was explaining the benefits of the British system of having a permanent civil service and the benefits that brought when there was a change of administration.

We had very good relations with the Obama administration on the G20 and other issues, shown by the very substantive discussions we had with President Obama and his team last week. Asked if there were difficulties in dealing with the Obama administration specifically on the subject of G20, the PMS repeated that we had a very good, close working relationship with the US on G20 and lots of other issues. People had seen the extent to which they were engaged with the G20 agenda last week and in the public comments from administration officials in the past few days.

Asked whether Gus O Donnell stood by his remarks and why they had been removed from the Civil Service Network website, the PMS replied that the Cabinet Office were making clear as we were, that his remarks had been taken out of context. The PMS added that people should check with the Cabinet Office on the second point.

Asked if officials had at any time had problems getting hold of people in the US Treasury Department, the PMS repeated that we had a very good working relationship with the US administration, both in the Treasury Department and the White House and people would have seen evidence of that last week.

Put that it was more to do with the handover process and the fact that key appointments had yet to be confirmed, the PMS replied that the test of this came last week with how the US administration was approaching this meeting and other issues and what people had seen was an administration that was fully engaged in the G20 agenda. That was certainly the sense we had last week and people had seen that in the number of comments from administration officials in the past week. For example the US Treasury Secretary would be here later this week for the meeting of the G20 Finance Ministers. So there was a lot of preparation taking place for the G20 meeting and all countries were involved in that.

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» Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Gus O’ Donnell

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