Civil servants furious at "scapegoating" Ministers have been accused of fomenting "a crisis of confidence" in the civil service through "destructive" finger pointing, amid rising tensions between Westminster and Whitehall over the rail franchising fiasco. Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative MP who chairs the public administration select committee which scrutinises Whitehall, accused ministers of leaving mandarins "angry and demotivated" with public criticism of the civil service. His remarks added to recriminations over the decision by Patrick McLoughlin, transport secretary, to cancel the award of the West Coast mainline franchise to FirstGroup ahead of incumbent Virgin Rail because of flaws in the bidding process. The atmosphere inside the Department for Transport was described as poisonous, with officials in damage limitation mode, while rail executives talked of shock and incomprehension in the industry. "The decision has left the whole industry in chaos," said one senior manager. David Cameron is refusing to blame his former transport ministers - Justine Greening and Theresa Villiers - for failing to spot the mistakes before they left the department last month; Downing Street continues to insist it was simply a matter of a "huge screw up" by the civil servants concerned. But the scapegoating of Whitehall officials has fuelled resentment in the civil service, which was already facing heavy cuts and painful reforms. In a speech earlier this week, Francis Maude, cabinet office minister, criticised some civil servants for blocking government policies. Writing in the Financial Times, Mr Jenkin says such attacks are undermining the civil service. Even the prime minister, who is minister for the civil service, has called officials "the enemies of enterprise." "Now the recriminations threaten to turn a series of expensive and embarrassing mishaps into a crisis of governance," Mr Jenkin adds. The FT has established that Kate Mingay, the DfT's director of commercial and technical services and a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, is among three civil servants suspended in connection with the botched West Coast mainline tender. She was in charge of the bid team and is thought to be on an annual salary of £140,000. The DfT declined to comment on the suspensions or on the nature of the charges against the officials. "There is absolutely no evidence of them acting in anything other than good faith and no question of any evidence of corruption," a DfT spokesman said. Ms Mingay could not be reached for comment. As Whitehall remained in the line of fire, Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the civil service, sought to steady officials" nerves. Writing on his blog, he said: "Whilst we must acknowledge and accept responsibility for the errors that civil servants made in this process, it is by no means representative of the civil service as a whole." Rarely, however, has the fissure between Whitehall and Westminster looked as wide or as clear cut as in the past 24 hours. Before delivering his speech to the Institute for Government on Tuesday, Mr Maude resisted pressure to single out the policies that he claimed had been frustrated by civil service obstruction. There were "endless examples," he said, but to name them would be "invidious." Some in Whitehall feel that, in refusing to back his assertion with hard evidence, he has unwittingly tarred the whole of the civil service with allegations of obstructionism. But Mr Maude is clear that ministers, with their tiny personal staffs, cannot be expected to track every single decision to ensure that it is implemented. Speaking a few hours before the government's U-turn over the rail franchise process was announced, he told the FT that, for the most part, policies were "carefully carried out. When that doesn't happen that's very grave indeed," he added. The Treasury is already deeply worried by Whitehall's capacity to deliver the Universal Credit, a programme to roll six existing benefits in to one, which relies on a massive IT programme. Other concerns centre on plans to introduce a single tier pension and the impact on the ground of the NHS reforms.