Major takes tough line on charter .sx by Julia Langdon and David Wastell .sx MR MAJOR has rejected all proposals from his Cabinet colleagues for inclusion in the planned Citizens' Charter .sx Their suggestions have so far failed to match his radical ideas for improving public services .sx All Whitehall departments were asked to submit their plans for inclusion in a White Paper .sx But the draft ideas originally submitted a fortnight ago have now been returned to the individual ministries with orders attached for a more thorough examination of the options .sx One source said the first drafts were " an instant mandarin response " , which did not meet Mr Major's requirements for a completely new approach .sx Apparently , there are no culprits whose submissions were found particularly wanting , but all departments failed to impress .sx The White Paper is still supposed to be published before the end of July , and ministers and civil servants have been asked to work flat out to produce alternative proposals .sx The problem with the original plans was that they did not produce any new thinking along the lines suggested by Mr Major .sx None of the material was " instantly usable " in the form in which it was put forward .sx The Prime Minister wants government departments to develop procedures which will give people more control over the public services with which they come in contact .sx " He wants them to be given some power , some control , some levers - so they are not constantly faced with a huge bureaucracy , " said one government source who knows Mr Major's mind on the subject .sx " He wants mechanisms which make a difference .sx " .sx The work is being co-ordinated by an official working group in the Cabinet Office .sx But the Prime Minister has also asked Mr Francis Maude , Financial Secretary to the Treasury , to deal with ministers involved in the project .sx The Treasury is playing a key role in the exercise , although it is not intended that there should be " new money " assigned to it .sx This was part of the problem in the response from the individual departments .sx A source said :sx " There was just a general tendency for everyone to say :sx " Everything is all right and we're doing jolly well and there's not much scope for improvement without spending more money .sx " " .sx There were also hints that the ministerial reaction had been inhibited by the innate distaste of the civil service for dramatic changes in practice and procedure .sx Mr Major has now let ministers know that he wants the issue considered more thoroughly , and that there should be " a bit more lateral thinking " if the Citizens' Charter is not to risk being a political flop .sx The kind of changes that are being considered are illustrated by the nature of the requests that have now been made to the Home Office and the Department of Education and Science .sx Mr Kenneth Baker , Home Secretary , has been asked to review departmental thinking on the police inspectorate , which was not included in the first submissions made by the Home Office .sx Whitehall sources said yesterday that Mr Major had intended the White Paper to extend to monitoring the performance not just of public services themselves , but of the quangos and other bodies set up to scrutinise them .sx Although the police inspectorate is technically independent , it is made up largely of senior policemen and other professionals .sx Mr Major does not regard them as being sufficiently detached .sx A similar criticism was made of the Department of Education and Science , which failed to include the schools inspectorate in its submissions .sx Mr Kenneth Clarke , Education Secretary , who is already drawing up plans for a review of the inspectorate , has been asked to include these within his department's proposals for the Citizens' Charter as well .sx Although there are plans to include any necessary legislation in the next Queen's Speech , it is not envisaged that there will be huge legislative changes .sx Most of what is planned could be achieved within existing powers , through the application of general principles across all Whitehall departments .sx Wavering Bush wooed by Yeltsin .sx by Xan Smiley in Washington .sx PRESIDENT Bush is likely to hold an " unofficial summit " with Mr Boris Yeltsin , the Russian Federation leader , in Washington next month before seeing President Gorbachev in London or Moscow according to sources close to the White House .sx Mr Gorbachev , increasingly desperate for foreign aid and approval , has been seeking observer status at the July meeting in London of the seven leading industrialised countries , the G-7 group , as well as a proper summit with Mr Bush in Moscow to sign a long-range missile treaty , but neither meeting has been agreed by the White House .sx Western doubts over the wisdom of signing " blank cheques " for aid to the Soviet Union and anger about Soviet cheating over last year's conventional arms accord continue to stymie the super - power meetings , which Mr Gorbachev needs more than Mr Bush .sx But a flurry of diplomatic and economic exchanges between Soviet and American politicians , generals and academics over the past week , together with signs that Mr Gorbachev has moved back towards the reformist centre , are sharply re-focusing American attention towards Moscow and provoking a heated debate over future policy .sx The most important emerging feature of the American-Soviet relationship is a tight conditionality - unthinkable a year ago - that would accompany any aid package , with the supply of food , money and technical help likely to be dependent on political reforms , including fresh elections , that might well lead to the final demise of the Soviet Communist party and of Mr Gorbachev himself .sx Mr Bush instinctively still wants to " help Gorby " , while Mr James Baker , Secretary of State , and Mr Brent Scowcroft , National Security Adviser , remain wary of Mr Yeltsin .sx But Mr Dick Cheney , Defence Secretary , and Mr Robert Gates , the incoming CIA director , bolstered by a lobby of academic advisers , argue that economic reform is feasible only when the Communist party establishment has been swept away .sx " The impulse to stick with Gorby is very strong , " said a senior State Department source recently .sx But a White House adviser told the The Sunday Telegraph :sx " There's a different Yeltsin these days .sx .. He's been transformed by the chairmanship of the Russian Federation .sx .. and has turned out to be a very skilful politician .sx " By June , American analysts believe , he should be the first freely-elected leader of Russia .sx A half-way view , which may carry the day , places greater faith in the current fragile Gorbachev-Yeltsin alliance hanging together , and argues for aid to be granted incrementally to the republics , the non-Communist city councils and enterprises , and to some departments still under Moscow's control , in agreement with Mr Gorbachev and the nine Soviet Republican leaders , once they have worked out a modus vivendi between themselves .sx Though the World Bank , the International Monetary Fund and some G-7 members are ready to step forward with loans for a stabilisation plan , the money is likely to fall far short of the $30 billion ( pounds17 billion ) spread over three years , recently suggested by the influential Harvard professor , Dr Jeffrey Sachs , let alone the $150 billion ( pounds86 billion ) over five years some Russians are demanding .sx " The amounts are totally unrealistic , " said a State Department official , adding :sx " Mr Bush's inclination is to be helpful , even if it means suspending his usual prudence .sx " .sx But sources in Congress are more sceptical .sx The main problem for policy-planners , said a House Foreign Affairs Committee expert , is that " nobody has much of a clue what's really happening in the Soviet Union right " .sx An academic said :sx " The whole thing is in the melting pot again .sx " .sx Officially , Mr Yeltsin will probably be a guest of the Senate , whose two party leaders have invited him to Washington .sx But whereas last year Mr Bush merely " dropped in " on Mr Yeltsin during a short meeting with Mr Scowcroft at the White House , this time , in his probably new position as President of the Russian Federation , he is expected to have full-blown meetings with the American President and Secretary of State .sx Ragamuffin rebels await their victory .sx by Paul Vellely , .sx on the Dekhamhare Front , in rebel-held Eritrea .sx ALL month the tanks had been trundling audaciously along the worn-out old road which winds its way north through the Ethiopian highlands .sx There were three or four of them most days , it seemed , chewing up the tarmac which was already soft from the midday sun .sx They were battered Soviet T-54s and T-55s , relics of the Brezhnev era when armies all over Africa were equipped with heavy weaponry to fight out the Cold War by proxy .sx When the Americans dropped their support for Ethiopia , the Russians stepped in and armed what became the biggest army in black Africa .sx But the tanks were no longer driven by soldiers of the Ethiopian army .sx They were part of a substantial arsenal captured by the forces of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front which for the past 30 years has been fighting for independence for the former Italian colony forcibly annexed by Ethiopia in 1962 .sx The ragamuffin appearance of the EPLF troops was deceptive .sx In their teens and early twenties and dressed in a mixture of army fatigues and civilian clothing , they looked , sprawled across the exterior of the Soviet armour , like a bunch of joyriders .sx But in recent years they have proved a formidable fighting force , driving the Ethiopian Second Army before them .sx On Friday , after a long siege , the provincial capital , Asmara fell to rebel troops .sx Even before the founder of Ethiopian socialism , Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam , fled last week to a large private ranch in Zimbabwe as his troops were pushed into defensive positions around the capital , Addis Ababa , the young fighters of the EPLF felt relaxed and confident .sx The tanks moved openly in broad daylight where until a few months ago they would have travelled only by night for fear of Ethiopian MiGs .sx They were open too about their preparations at the front line around Dekhamhare , the last obstacle before Asmara and its airport came within range of their artillery .sx New tank tracks were being built up to the front line with its networks of trenches hundreds of miles long .sx Under cover of darkness , a convoy of lorries carrying more than 3,000 fighters , men and women , moved laboriously up an improvised road along a rocky gulley from Eritrea's second port , Massawa , captured last year .sx A thousand more moved on foot .sx The assault came last Sunday .sx After two days of fierce fighting six government divisions of around 50,000 troops were scattered .sx The EPLF swept down on Dekhamhare and pushed forward to take the ridge on the other side of the town .sx Then it was all downhill to Asmara .sx For the Ethiopian regime in Addis , bringing in reinforcements was out of the question .sx Its three other armies were all pinned down elsewhere .sx The EPLF had moved to within 30 miles of Assab , keeping the government troops there fully occupied .sx At the same time , rebels of the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front , made up of liberation movements from the Tigray , Afar and Oromo ethnic groups , intensified their push towards Addis Ababa .sx Progress was swift , chief of staff of the Eritrean army , Sebhat Ephrem , said , because the government army was made up of conscripts .sx " Their most professional troops are pinned-down in Asmara .sx Addis Ababa is defended only by conscripts .sx Those we have captured are just raw recruits with only one month's training .sx .sx To the south , the Third Army defending the capital on its northern flank was encircled by troops of the Democratic Front at the towns of Dese and Kombolcha , key distribution centres for the international food aid operation to feed seven million Ethiopians said to be at risk of starvation .sx By Wednesday the news from the south was that the government's three divisions had been dispersed and 5,000 men captured or killed .sx To the west , the rebels took the town of Ambo and then , in an outflanking movement earlier this week , cut off the Ethiopians at Addis Alem , 35 miles from the capital capturing a large amount of heavy armour , killing 5,000 troops and taking 1,700 prisoners .sx By Friday , many Ethiopian units and hundreds of individual soldiers had fallen back to Addis Ababa , where residents reported an air of quiet apprehension with many troops milling around without apparent purpose .sx