Civil Service Reform: Where next?

Keynote Speech - Jon Trickett 

The Civil Service is something that should be celebrated for its “professionalism, independence and expertise. But it is going through a period of “change and churn”, facing challenges as never before: cuts, a “24/7 society” driven by technological change, and a less hierarchical society. The UK is reaching a turning point and the Civil Service needs to be able to change itself.

There are two pillars to British government: the political and the administrative. It has been suggested that this is a symbiotic relationship. In biology, symbiosis occurs between two entirely different species – whether this is the case with politicians and civil service is contested, but there can be “an enormous gulf of understanding and culture between the two”.

Change is inevitable, and we should be able to come to a consensus over how we’ll deal with it. Recent FDA document [the FDA’s alternative white paper?] signals a clear willingness on their part to discuss change.

But the government has proceeded like the “proverbial rogue elephant”, with not HR plan for personnel cuts. There’s got rid of necessary skills and then had to rehire them back in, at great cost. Their reform has been “piecemeal, ad hoc, and self-contradictory”, full of “disparate, random, ill-thought out initiative”, producing a “brain drain across Whitehall”. This is “no way to run a corner shop, let alone a great country”.

What’s needed is a careful, systematic approach. It’s too early for specific proposals now.

Neutrality. Despite occurrences like the recent article on Thatcher [by Sir Bob and Sir Jeremy] the Civil Service has a good tradition of neutrality. All governments have been opening up the Civil Service to the wider community, especially the private sector, but this poses some challenges. It can lead to the appearance of conflicts of interest. This has been discussed in a recent PAC report on secondments. Hundreds of outside contractors has passes for Whitehall departments. This needs careful scrutiny and perhaps a tighter codes of conduct.

Related to this is the “revolving door problem” – individuals moving back and forth between government and the private sector and possibly misusing the access this gives. We have an advisory committee on business appointments to oversee this sort of thing but it’s a bit toothless. In France, it’s illegal for ex-civil servants to go into industry where their knowledge might offer an unfair advantage.

Coalition government. The civil service at the moment is dealing closely with two of the main parties. We need to start thinking about pre-election contact between all parties and the Civil Service. The IFG has done a report on this and we should listen to their recommendations. I’d be happy to have a talk with the government about this.

Diversity. Upper echelons of the civil service “acutely distorted” compared to the rest of the population. Some groups “effectively excluded” from the SCS. This feeds into wider dissatisfaction with government. Only 1.1% of successful fast streamers from a routine or manual labour background and only 5 people in the top civil service went to a comprehensive school, and the situation might be deteriorating further. We need to keep in mind the meritocratic principles of Northcote-Trevelyan and deal with this.

Skills mix. On-going debate about generalists and specialists in the civil service. “Nimble-minded, flexible generalists” are a good thing, but 4/5ths of civil servants are from an arts background and we need to ask if this is the right ratio. There’s more focus on policy-making than implementation and the civil service is “woefully under skilled” in areas like HR, IT, procurement and project management.

Accountability. Ministers are usually seen as the ones to be held to account, and this is usually the right thing. We need to avoid a blame culture that could lead to risk averseness. But nor can errors by officials stay obfuscated. High personnel churn has made accountability tricky, as has the division of the role of Head of the Civil Service. Accountability has been muddied. We need to move away from an old-fashioned hierarchy towards a flatter structure with more horizontal communication.

No. 10 and Private Offices. Cameron, Brown and Blair have all run No. 10 differently. We need a debate on the role of SpAds. There’s a growing desire for a European cabinet-style system.

“Departmentalitis is the enemy of good governance” – silos need to be broken down.          

Neutrality among civil servants is good but they need more political awareness – disengagement is bad.

We need “care in our judgement and boldness of action”, with forensic analysis of problems and consensus-based change.

First Response - Carolyn Downs

I want to compare and contrast local government with central government.

Good politicians create good officials, and vice versa.

Local authorities are accountable to the local council in public, often in writing. The same relationship between civil servants and ministers is often carried out in private. Local government authorities have three statutory officers as opposed to the one accounting officer in central departments. All of this means local government officials are better protected than national ones.

As chief executive, relationship with leaders of parties on council is key. Local government is based on dual leadership, with chief executive and council leader working closely together. In the civil service the relationship between permanent secretaries and ministers is much less close.

Appointment of officials in local government is done by all parties working together.

As chief executive I felt very close to my local authority – lived there, worked there, schooled my children there. This helped me develop a focus on delivery and reminded me that I was primarily responsible to the public. After them I felt accountable firstly to the council and then to my staff.

As chief executive I would regularly receive letters from the public – this doesn’t happen in the civil service. This blurs accountability. Similarly, you work much more closely with politicians in local government – a civil servant feels distant from Parliament and doesn’t feel that accountable to it.

When I worked at the Legal Services Commission there was a stronger connection to the public than in central government since I was often dealing with MPs. I was also in front of select committees more often then than when I was at the MoJ.

Intellectual capability and rigour in the civil service is “outstanding”, while local government is more focused on getting things done. LSC was somewhere in between.

The protection of independent advice is “absolutely fundamental”.

People “obsess” about the civil service, but they often just mean Whitehall and don’t consider wider issues of public sector reform.

Councils and MPs need to work together more closely.

Cross-party appointments of officials work well.

Politicians and managers need to be trained together to foster sense of dual leadership.

Second Response - Bernard Jenkin

We need to focus on leadership more than anything else. The Mid Staffs Francis review was all about processes, regulations, structures, but not about leadership. It’s the “absent ghost at the feast”. The civil service needs to be able to manage change and change itself.

Jon Trickett’s discussed skills gaps and experience deficiencies – we’ve known about these problems for a long time. Why have they not been fixed?

There’s been a lot airing of dirty Whitehall laundry recently. What does this say about relations between politicians and the civil service?

There’s a strong sense that individual officials unclear on what they’re responsible for and to whom they’re accountable. When was the last time someone was fired or resigned over a failed procurement project?

We’ve had failures in dealing with crises, we’ve had HR failures.

People with short and shorter experience in running a department are getting the top jobs. Out of 16 departments, only one permanent secretary has been there since 2010. Four departments have had three since 2010.

A Cabinet Secretary looked over the West Coast Rail bid but it was junior officials who got it in the neck – but this is sub judice so I won’t talk about it further.

Has this system demonstrated the capacity to change itself? Can the change be done in the ordinary course of governing the country? I don’t think so.

What’s the civil service for? What do we expect of it? These questioned haven’t been asked since the Fulton inquiry, but so much has changed since then. I’ve just seen some evidence (currently unpublished) from someone who worked in defence procurement in the 1980s, and it’s striking how the people who came in then changed things, and how it all changed back after they were gone.

The civil service has provided us with a durable and resilient system of government. We should also think about what we don’t need to change. I’m a conservative: I only want to change things if it helps everything stay the same. We can treat the civil service with “reverence” but we also need debate. There were eight reports on the civil service between Northcote-Trevelyan and Fulton and we need something like that again now.