Have Civil Servants been lying to Parliament?

The interview with Margaret Hodge on the Today programme this morning was a bit of a damp squid, but this linked report more than compensates with the following quote:

"To argue that we were wrong to try and hold the civil servants accountable to parliament, especially when the evidence of the permanent secretary for tax was at best inconsistent and at worst may have been misleading is, I believe, wrong. And if we don't hold civil servants in non-ministerial departments to account, who does?"

More on this seems likely to follow after the appearance of the Chair of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee at the thinktank Policy Exchange today.

Is it too much to now entertain some slight hope that our MPs will begin to penetrate the stinking mess that UK public service has become?