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Guest blog: Services at risk of failure without Whitehall overhaul

The open letter from Institute for Government (IFG) on civil service reform echoes the views of PASC (the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee) that public services are at risk of failure without the overhaul of Whitehall.

This was our conclusion in our report, ‘Change in government: an agenda for leadership’. We warned that unless the government can rapidly develop and implement a comprehensive plan for cross‐departmental reform in Whitehall, the government's wider ambitions for public service reform, the Big Society, localism and decentralisation will fail. The open letter is right to note that, "in the view of many politicians of all parties, the Civil Service simply doesn’t work well enough. Deeply rooted weaknesses can no longer be safely ignored given the scale of the challenge over the coming years." We need a more innovative and entrepreneurial civil service which works across departmental boundaries and has the ability to engage with voluntary and private sector organisations to contract and commission public services. Unless this can be achieved, the government’s flagship policies will be left high and dry. The prime minister promised in July 2010, when speaking to civil servants, to ’turn government on its head; taking power away from Whitehall and putting it into the hands of people and communities.’ I wholeheartedly agree with the IFG’s view that, "Change has only been sustained when there is firm and clear ministerial backing, otherwise the forces of inertia and prevarication prevail." We found that the centre of government provides neither the necessary strategic leadership nor a governance framework to enable departments to manage their change programmes. Unless Ministers stress that structural reform is a priority, many civil servants will just keep their heads down until the latest speeches to Civil Service Live have faded away and then carry on as before. It is not clear that ministers have understood this. Ministers repeatedly told us that they want change in the Civil Service to happen, but some ministers do not sufficient personal interest in civil service reform since it is so vital to achieving their Government’s programme. This reflects the experience of previous governments. One former Labour minister told us that she had been running her department for two years, before her officials pointed out to her that there was a process of civil service reform to which her department was committed. Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, told PASC that the last thing the government needs is a new plan or blueprint and that he prefers “doing stuff”. However, he must take a lead on the process of civil service reform and must have the authority from the Cabinet to take the lead, or the Government’s reform programme will fail. His view appears to have altered over recent months. Sir Bob Kerslake, the new Head of the Civil Service is formulating a Civil Service Reform Plan which will be published shortly. This will be all important and Sir Bob’s performance and effectiveness is likely to be measured against this plan. The IFG’s open letter also touches on the interesting issue of the relationship between civil service and Parliament. The Government needs to assess whether the old Haldane model of ministerial responsibility and accountability is really appropriate in this age of radical transfer of functions out of Whitehall. In any case, the Civil Service is vastly larger than in those days, and there is a widespread recognition that the old notion of ministerial responsibility expired some decades hence. The question is: what exactly is operating in its place and how should this be formalised? I was pleased to see the recommendation that the next spending review should be different from the Comprehensive Spending Review of 2010 - which was based largely on the traditional series of bilateral negotiations between Treasury and departments – and carried out in a more strategic and cross-departmental way. This is a view shared by PASC in our most recent report, ‘Strategic thinking in Government: without National Strategy, can viable Government strategy emerge?’ The IFG’s open letter is an important contribution to the debate about the development of the Civil Service – which remains one of the most important stabilising institutions of our largely unwritten constitution. Few things are as important.
Topic
Brexit

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