Edmund Compton
Encyclopedia
Sir Edmund Gerald Compton CB
KCB GCB KBE (30 July 1906 – 11 March 1994) was a civil servant and the first Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.
trade and a mother from a clerical
background. He was schooled at Rugby
where he had won a scholarship and developed a love of music
.
At Oxford University Compton became acquainted with the renowned historian and educationalist H. A. L. Fisher
, who was the Warden of New College
. Compton was among the undergraduates (of whom Richard Crossman
was one) invited by Fisher to socialise with the likes of Gilbert Murray
, Hilaire Belloc
, General Smuts and David Lloyd George
. It was during this time that Compton determined to enter public service.
, during which he visited Nigeria
. In 1931 he was transferred to the Treasury
where he developed a reputation as a very capable civil servant. At the beginning of the Second World War, Compton was seconded to the Ministry of Aircraft Production where he served as the Private Secretary
to the Minister, Lord Beaverbrook. Returning to the Treasury in 1942, Compton became known as an effective wartime operator. In peacetime, Compton continued his ascent through the Treasury, being appointed in turn Third Secretary in 1949 and Comptroller and Auditor General
in 1958. In these roles he demonstrated characteristics of dependability and versatility. He was described by the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, John Boyd-Carpenter as being "enormously knowledgeable on public finance".
, Labour
pledged to establish an office to handle complaints against government departments.
In 1967, the Prime Minister Harold Wilson
appointed Compton to be first Parliamentary Commissioner (or 'Ombudsman
'). Wilson trusted Compton to navigate the Office through its formative years. He previously worked with Compton when he had been Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and described him as "one of the shrewdest, cleverest, and nicest, men in Whitehall". Compton, he said, taught him "a very great deal about how government operates in Britain".
The challenge Compton faced was to establish the Office in the face of considerable public scepticism about its efficacy. The media described the Office as pointless and ludicrously emasculated and Compton as a swordless crusader. Compton busied himself recruiting staff during 1966 and 1967 and formulated the structure and operating procedures of the Office. He drew upon his previous experience, using the Exchequer and Audit Department of the Treasury as a model. Staff were borrowed from other departments and legal advice procured from the Treasury Solicitor's Department
. Compton sought civil servants with enquiring minds and the ability to size up cases and people rather than the ability to organise or to plan. Compton also pioneered an investigation procedure that was to remain unchanged for thirty years and was unique among Ombudsman schemes. The procedure involved a ten part jurisdiction test of complaints, a two-stage investigation process and a final reporting stage.
Compton took a low-key approach to his work, making limited efforts to publicise the Office. As a result, the number of cases handled by the Office was low from the outset and diminished further. The practice of publishing anonymised reports on an annual basis often long after the events described attracted criticism that this garnered too little publicity for the Office.
complained that they had been denied compensation by the Foreign Office
in its administration of a scheme to compensate victims of Nazi persecution. Their complaint was referred to the Office by Airey Neave
MP, who had himself escaped from Colditz
during the war. The Foreign Office had concluded that the complainants were not entitled to compensation having been imprisoned outside the camp proper. It considered the treatment of the complainants to have been comparable to a breach of the Geneva Convention rather than the systematic brutality of a 'normal' concentration camp. Compton concluded that there were defects in the administrative procedure by which the Foreign Office had decided to reject the claims. He found that the reputation of the complainants had suffered as a result and that this constituted injustice. Compton thought that the result of his investigation would serve to vindicate their claims and affirm their sincerity. In the House of Commons debate that followed the report in February 1968 the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs George Brown
defended the position of the Foreign Office while announcing his intention to pay compensation to the complainants. Brown asserted that there had been no bungling or blundering by the Foreign Office and that the issue was merely one of judgment. Members expressed little support for the begrudging way in which Brown had agreed to pay compensation. The Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration endorsed the findings of the report and rejected the contentions of the Foreign Office.
Having adversely reported against the Foreign Office and secured a remedy for the complainants, Compton had enhanced the reputation of the Office and demonstrated that it would be able to address wrongs done by less weightier departments. Compton had also proven incorrect critics of the Office who had doubted its ability to confront departmental injustice.
between 1972 and 1981 where he was distinctly even-handed between the public and imaginative programme producers.
Compton died in 1994 and was described by Tam Dalyell
MP as a very considerable public servant of the British state.
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
KCB GCB KBE (30 July 1906 – 11 March 1994) was a civil servant and the first Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.
Early life
Compton was born to a father involved in South AmericanSouth America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
trade and a mother from a clerical
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
background. He was schooled at Rugby
Rugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...
where he had won a scholarship and developed a love of music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
.
At Oxford University Compton became acquainted with the renowned historian and educationalist H. A. L. Fisher
Herbert Fisher
Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher OM, FRS, PC was an English historian, educator, and Liberal politician. He served as President of the Board of Education in David Lloyd George's 1916 to 1922 coalition government....
, who was the Warden of New College
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...
. Compton was among the undergraduates (of whom Richard Crossman
Richard Crossman
Richard Howard Stafford Crossman OBE was a British author and Labour Party politician who was a Cabinet Minister under Harold Wilson, and was the editor of the New Statesman. A prominent socialist intellectual, he became one of the Labour Party's leading Zionists and anti-communists...
was one) invited by Fisher to socialise with the likes of Gilbert Murray
Gilbert Murray
George Gilbert Aimé Murray, OM was an Australian born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece, perhaps the leading authority in the first half of the twentieth century...
, Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...
, General Smuts and David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
. It was during this time that Compton determined to enter public service.
Civil service
Compton entered the civil service in 1929 and was transferred to the Colonial ServiceColonial Service
The Colonial Service was the British government service which administered Britain's colonies and protectorates, under the authority of the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Colonial Office in London....
, during which he visited Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
. In 1931 he was transferred to the Treasury
HM Treasury
HM Treasury, in full Her Majesty's Treasury, informally The Treasury, is the United Kingdom government department responsible for developing and executing the British government's public finance policy and economic policy...
where he developed a reputation as a very capable civil servant. At the beginning of the Second World War, Compton was seconded to the Ministry of Aircraft Production where he served as the Private Secretary
Private Secretary
In the United Kingdom government, a Private Secretary is a civil servant in a Department or Ministry, responsible to the Secretary of State or Minister...
to the Minister, Lord Beaverbrook. Returning to the Treasury in 1942, Compton became known as an effective wartime operator. In peacetime, Compton continued his ascent through the Treasury, being appointed in turn Third Secretary in 1949 and Comptroller and Auditor General
Comptroller and Auditor General
Comptroller and auditor-general is the abbreviated title of a government official in a number of jurisdictions, including the UK, the Republic of Ireland, India, and China....
in 1958. In these roles he demonstrated characteristics of dependability and versatility. He was described by the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, John Boyd-Carpenter as being "enormously knowledgeable on public finance".
Ombudsman
At the 1964 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1964
The United Kingdom general election of 1964 was held on 15 October 1964, more than five years after the preceding election, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party had retaken power...
, Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
pledged to establish an office to handle complaints against government departments.
In 1967, the Prime Minister Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
appointed Compton to be first Parliamentary Commissioner (or 'Ombudsman
Ombudsman
An ombudsman is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing not only but mostly the broad scope of constituent interests...
'). Wilson trusted Compton to navigate the Office through its formative years. He previously worked with Compton when he had been Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and described him as "one of the shrewdest, cleverest, and nicest, men in Whitehall". Compton, he said, taught him "a very great deal about how government operates in Britain".
The challenge Compton faced was to establish the Office in the face of considerable public scepticism about its efficacy. The media described the Office as pointless and ludicrously emasculated and Compton as a swordless crusader. Compton busied himself recruiting staff during 1966 and 1967 and formulated the structure and operating procedures of the Office. He drew upon his previous experience, using the Exchequer and Audit Department of the Treasury as a model. Staff were borrowed from other departments and legal advice procured from the Treasury Solicitor's Department
Treasury Solicitor's Department
The Treasury Solicitor's Department is the largest in-house legal organisation in the United Kingdom's Government Legal Service.The Department is headed by the Treasury Solicitor. This office goes back several centuries...
. Compton sought civil servants with enquiring minds and the ability to size up cases and people rather than the ability to organise or to plan. Compton also pioneered an investigation procedure that was to remain unchanged for thirty years and was unique among Ombudsman schemes. The procedure involved a ten part jurisdiction test of complaints, a two-stage investigation process and a final reporting stage.
Compton took a low-key approach to his work, making limited efforts to publicise the Office. As a result, the number of cases handled by the Office was low from the outset and diminished further. The practice of publishing anonymised reports on an annual basis often long after the events described attracted criticism that this garnered too little publicity for the Office.
Sachsenhausen
Compton investigated the first major case to be referred to the Office. Former prisoners of war of Sachsenhausen concentration campSachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
complained that they had been denied compensation by the Foreign Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...
in its administration of a scheme to compensate victims of Nazi persecution. Their complaint was referred to the Office by Airey Neave
Airey Neave
Airey Middleton Sheffield Neave DSO, OBE, MC was a British soldier, barrister and politician.During World War II, Neave was one of the few servicemen to escape from the German prisoner-of-war camp Oflag IV-C at Colditz Castle...
MP, who had himself escaped from Colditz
Colditz Castle
Colditz Castle is a Renaissance castle in the town of Colditz near Leipzig, Dresden, and Chemnitz in the state of Saxony in Germany. Used as a workhouse for the indigent and a mental institution for over 100 years, it gained international fame as a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II for...
during the war. The Foreign Office had concluded that the complainants were not entitled to compensation having been imprisoned outside the camp proper. It considered the treatment of the complainants to have been comparable to a breach of the Geneva Convention rather than the systematic brutality of a 'normal' concentration camp. Compton concluded that there were defects in the administrative procedure by which the Foreign Office had decided to reject the claims. He found that the reputation of the complainants had suffered as a result and that this constituted injustice. Compton thought that the result of his investigation would serve to vindicate their claims and affirm their sincerity. In the House of Commons debate that followed the report in February 1968 the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs George Brown
George Brown, Baron George-Brown
George Alfred Brown, Baron George-Brown, PC was a British Labour politician, who served as the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1960 to 1970, and served in a number of positions in the Cabinet, most notably as Foreign Secretary, in the Labour Government of the 1960s...
defended the position of the Foreign Office while announcing his intention to pay compensation to the complainants. Brown asserted that there had been no bungling or blundering by the Foreign Office and that the issue was merely one of judgment. Members expressed little support for the begrudging way in which Brown had agreed to pay compensation. The Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration endorsed the findings of the report and rejected the contentions of the Foreign Office.
Having adversely reported against the Foreign Office and secured a remedy for the complainants, Compton had enhanced the reputation of the Office and demonstrated that it would be able to address wrongs done by less weightier departments. Compton had also proven incorrect critics of the Office who had doubted its ability to confront departmental injustice.
Boundaries and the BBC
Following his tenure as Ombudsman, Compton served as the Chairman of the Boundary Commission between 1971 and 1978. He was then Chairman of the Programmes Complaints Commission at the British Broadcasting CorporationBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
between 1972 and 1981 where he was distinctly even-handed between the public and imaginative programme producers.
Compton died in 1994 and was described by Tam Dalyell
Tam Dalyell
Sir Thomas Dalyell Loch, 11th Baronet , known as Tam Dalyell, is a British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons from 1962 to 2005, first for West Lothian and then for Linlithgow.-Early life:...
MP as a very considerable public servant of the British state.