Now or never for the Declaration on Government Reform 

A year ago today the government’s civil service reform plan, the Declaration on Government Reform, was launched. It contained a good level of ambition and correctly committed to fix some of the biggest problems with the way government works – including resolving blurred accountabilities between civil servants and ministers, reducing rapid staff turnover, increasing recruitment from outside the civil service, expanding and enhance training for civil servants and ministers and finding ways to “better reward [civil servants] who excel”.  

The Declaration was not perfect. But it was painstakingly constructed with input from ministers and permanent secretaries, endorsed by the prime minister and the cabinet secretary, championed by Michael Gove as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and overall was positively received for its emphasis on the core problems faced by the civil service. As we have previously noted, rather than inventing new priorities the government would be better served by staying the course and reinvigorating the reform effort as it enters its second year. But focus is drifting elsewhere and there is a high risk that the Declaration will become the latest in a succession of reform plans that identify the same big problems but do not resolve them. 

A year on and progress remains slow on the Declaration  

The Declaration contained an annex with 30 actions, initially scheduled to be delivered by the end of 2021. In April 2022 we found that only eight of 30 had been delivered, and progress towards the Declaration’s ambitions remains slow. In particular, crucial actions on accountability and increasing outside recruitment have not been met.  

In the Declaration the government promised reviews of civil service governance and of models of accountability for decision making. It has been reported that Lord Maude is being lined up to lead the latter, but there is still no detail on how and when these reviews will take place. ^[1] Meanwhile, despite the encouraging step of strengthening the rules around external advertisement of senior civil service roles, limited progress has been made on establishing appropriate entry routes for talented people outside government, or on developing a systematic scheme of secondments. 

Ministers’ focus has moved to headcount reductions and work from home – to the detriment of reform 

Jacob Rees-Mogg, since his appointment as the minister responsible for government reform, has shifted debate onto two topics – the size of the civil service and the amount of time civil servants spend in the office. The Institute has previously argued that while it is right for civil servants to spend more time working in-person it is short-sighted to ignore that the pandemic triggered a rapid economy-wide increase in hybrid working – and that to attract top talent government needs to take a flexible approach to working patterns. Meanwhile, plans to return to the civil service’s pre-Brexit headcount risk becoming a false economy. Ministers have given no clear justification for why the 2016 size of the civil service is the right benchmark, especially given the responsibilities of the government have grown significantly and permanently since the EU referendum. It is true that some of the roles created during Brexit and the pandemic are no longer necessary and cuts offer an opportunity to manage out poor performers. But a reduction of 91,000 staff cannot be achieved without losing frontline roles and other skills the government has said it wants to prioritise.  

Delivering the Declaration will help with the government’s core priorities 

The day after surviving a vote of no confidence in his leadership the prime minister told his Cabinet that they were to ‘get on with the massive agenda that we were elected to deliver on in 2019’. ^[2] Doing that while dealing with the spiralling cost of living and the war in Ukraine will require support from a highly capable civil service – and progress towards the ambitions in the Declaration would help. 

For example, one of the reasons generations of British industrial policy – of which ‘levelling up’ is the latest incarnation – have failed to solve regional economic inequality is ‘policy churn’. Old policies are scrapped and new ones announced with dispiriting regularity. Part of the reason for this policy churn has been the rapid turnover of civil servants responsible for industrial policy – part of the wider phenomenon of ‘staff churn’ that the Declaration identified as a problem that needed fixing. Focusing on actions to incentivise people with subject expertise to stay in post for longer would improve the government’s chances of delivering on its core economic agenda. 

The government should prioritise action on its civil service reform plan 

In an October 2021 lecture at Newcastle University, cabinet secretary Simon Case said that the proposals in the Declaration were key to avoiding a missed opportunity for civil service reform after Covid. ^[3] In December 2021 civil service chief operating officer Alex Chisholm said that delivering on the reform agenda was his number one priority in 2022. ^[4] And in February 2022, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and No.10 chief of staff Steve Barclay gave a progress report on the Declaration in which he noted that there ‘remains much to do’. ^[5] 

But the Declaration is falling by the wayside as the government turns its attention away from the contents of the reform plan and towards the size of the civil service and civil servants’ working patterns. Over the next 12 months Case, Chisholm and Barclay need match their words with action. Along with Rees-Mogg, they must renew their commitment to the Declaration. Failure to do so will mean it joins the long list of well-intentioned but undelivered civil service reform plans.

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1. https://www.civilserviceworld.com/news/article/francis-maude-lined-up-to-lead-review-of-civil-service-accountability 
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5USsUST5P0 
3. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/cabinet-secretary-lecture-wednesday-13-october-2021--2 
4. https://www.civilserviceworld.com/in-depth/article/2022-is-about-delivering-on-our-promises-alex-chisholm-on-his-priority-for-the-coming-year
5. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1058936/cdl-pacac-letter.pdf