Guest blog: What makes permanent secretaries fearless?

The Antipodes provide two models. In New Zealand the State Services Commission (SSC) provides recommendations to cabinet for the appointment of departmental secretaries. Its chair will have held discussions, often with the relevant minsters; it would not recommend a person with whom the minsters felt they could not work. However the final recommendation is the decision of the SSC; thus far only once has the selected candidate been rejected. The departmental secretaries are responsible for their performance to the head of the SSC. However they are all on contract, of varying lengths. There is some protection there from ministerial whim, although it is worth remembering that it is a small system of government. In Australia the Public Service Act allows prime ministers to appoint secretaries of departments for periods up to five years on such terms and conditions as they choose. They may also, in writing, terminate the appointments of secretaries at any time. In cases of both appointments and termination, prime ministers can act only after a ‘report’ from the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Notice it is a report, not a recommendation that is required. Whether prime minsters follow the advice is simply unknown as no one but the two people involved know what went into those reports. When a new government is sworn in, many ministers will know nothing about their new secretaries. Connections between Oppositions and the public service are limited. When a new secretary has to be appointed during the tenure of the government, ministers will be consulted about vacancies. Their views may be influential but the prime ministers are still the only voice that finally matters. Does it make a difference? Perhaps less than would first seem likely. When the Australian Labor government was elected in 2007, it chose to keep all departmental secretaries. Even though there were stories of hit lists doing the rounds, the Prime Minister decided to give departmental secretaries the opportunity to prove their capacity to work with the new government. Gradually over the next years, as contracts expired, some secretaries retired, others were shuffled around, others let go. There was no great issue of apparent politicisation, although few now hold the same positions that they had in 2007. In Britain, since the election of the Coalition a similar pattern of rotation and reassignment seems to have taken place. When governments decide that secretaries should go and new people are needed, there is not much difference in practice between five year contracts and nominal tenure. Does it affect the advice that they give? Are secretaries more likely to be frank and fearless when not on contract? That would be notoriously hard to prove one way or other. That is not least because it is not possible to legislate for spine. When Australian departmental secretaries were called permanent secretaries there were still a number who were scared of upsetting ministers and others who were fearless. Under contracts the distinction remains. Contracts have not necessarily tamed the outspoken who will still, in the local vernacular, tell the ministers what they need to know. Indeed it may even have the opposite effect. Where ministers are sometimes involved in the choice of secretaries, they can also become protective, keen to defend their choices. When in 2001 the Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet declared that several secretaries were not performing, setting off a hunt for the lemons among the mandarins, the ministers closed ranks behind their secretaries and no lemons were ever identified. So on the key issues – will the civil service become politicised and subservient if contracts and ministerial input are introduced – the answer is far from clear. Many of the oft-repeated fears are not born out in practice. It is not contracts or tenure that by themselves shape the relationship between ministers and secretaries. Less than impressive secretaries remain so under both systems. Secretaries whose appointments are endorsed by ministers are still valued precisely because they speak their mind.