I have therefore taken action to register it.”Mr Hague, who is a green belt in judo and trains regularly with his aide Sebastian Coe, is now believed to be searching for an alternative gym. He had been using the gym regularly, at Lord Archer’s invitation, since January 1998, and had paid for his own tuition and equipment, Mr Hague said. The commissioner replied that he should register the benefit and he did so.In the letter to Ms Filkin, Mr Hague said: “Having taken the advice of the registrar, I recognise that the use of the gymnasium could be interpreted as a benefit in kind. He used the gym for almost two years, but stopped when Lord Archer was forced to withdraw from the elections for London mayor. The millionaire peer was accused of asking a friend to lie for him over his whereabouts after he was accused of sleeping with a prostitute.Mr Hague wrote to Ms Filkin for advice after learning that a Labour MP, Fraser Kemp, planned to make a formal complaint. The Tory leader should have registered his use of the gym in a luxury apartment block on Albert Embankment, London, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards found.
Elizabeth Filkin’s ruling, upheld by the Committee on Standards and Privileges, will prove particularly embarrassing for Mr Hague because of its timing. WILLIAM HAGUE was rebuked by the Commons’ standards watchdog yesterday after taking undeclared judo lessons in Jeffrey Archer’s private gym.

The other bills cover the: urban regeneration (Anthony Steen, Con); banning hunting with dogs (Ken Livingstone, Lab); export of farm animals (Gwyn Prosser, Lab); food labelling (Stephen O’Brien, Con); lifting the bar to women in gentlemen’s clubs (Robert Walter, Con); building societies (Tony McWalter, Lab); welfare of broiler chickens (Ann Clwyd, Lab); newspaper and magazine recycling (Doug Naysmith, Lab); health and safety at work (Malcolm Savidge, Lab); organic food and farming targets (Paul Tyler, Lib Dem); fire prevention and safety (Peter Pike, Lab); changes to rules on the hours worked by the drivers of heavy goods vehicles and VAT exemption for community buses (Eleanor Laing, Con); property transactions (Bowen Wells, Con); care, disposal and slaughter of animals (Claire Curtis-Thomas, Lab).. Top six slots: Warm Homes Bill to conserve heat (David Amess, Con): curbs on euthanasia (Ann Winterton, Con); assessment of carers’ needs and payments to disabled children (Tom Pendry, Lab); tougher laws to stop the sale of alcohol by shop assistants to young people (Paul Truswell, Lab); allowing patients’ complaints against GPs to continue after the doctors retire (Geoffrey Johnson Smith, Con); and curbs on government powers (Iain Duncan Smith, Con). Paul Tyler, the Liberal Democrat cabinet office spokesman, said civil servants who failed should have their pay cut. “Few would argue with rewarding good performance but it will be interesting to see if this principle cuts both ways and bad performances result in pay cuts,” he said.Leading article,Review, page 3. “Over the next 20 years we want the service to have a much stronger sense of leadership, not just from the top but all the way down the line,” he said.Civil Service unions were involved in drawing up the reforms, and broadly welcomed them yesterday. John Sheldon, joint general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said the changes should benefit all staff.”The key test will be that this programme of reform involves all of the Civil Service whatever their grade, wherever they are located, whatever their gender or ethnic background,” he said. There will be new pay and appraisal systems, and new “talent spotting” programmes will lead to the promotion of bright young managers who may be outside the Civil Service fast stream.

Performance- related pay will be used increasingly to reward good work.One of a series of groups set up to plan the reforms has suggested that the National Audit Office should be brought in to oversee how departments are improving their performance. It was headed by Michael Bichard, the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education and Employment.The programme will last between three and five years. “Sir Humphrey was invented 20 years ago and I don’t think he would have recognised management as an important part of his responsibility,” Sir Richard said. Among the targets for the future, which have been set out on a New Labour-style pledge card, are plans to recruit more women and ethnic minority staff to senior positions.There will be a new flexibility which will make it easier for staff to move between departments and to move between the public and private sectors either permanently or on secondment.

Plans are being drawn up for changes to the Civil Service pension arrangements so that staff who do this are not disadvantaged.Stronger leadership will be promoted through a team of Civil Service “champions” responsible for different areas of reform, and some departments will bring in outside organisations to help them review how they plan their operations. They will be aided by pounds 100m in extra funds over the next two years, with departments bidding for their share and contributing a further portion of cash themselves. Between pounds 30mand pounds 35m will be set aside to pay for severance schemes and for extra expenditure on recruitment and marketing, according to one of a series of reports.
The changes, aimed at making the service more modern, were ordered by Tony Blair but the details have all been drawn up by senior civil servants. Older staff – who tend to perform less well in appraisals – may find themselves targeted to “create more space at the top”, while bright young managers may be head-hunted for promotion. The moves to make the public sector more flexible and more business-orientated will mean large numbers of early retirements.