Protecting special advisers is good for government

The job of a government special adviser (SpAd) is both powerful and precarious, with an absence of job security balanced out by the privilege of working at the heart of government.

SpAds have been making headlines – and not in a good way – in recent months. The brief employment in No.10 of a ‘contractor’ with a record of controversial views came after allegations of ministers bullying special advisers, the sacking of former Treasury SpAd Sonia Khan (she was accused of leaking to the media) and Sajid Javid's resignation as chancellor after the PM removed his SpAds.

Government ministers, from the prime minister down, should be able to appoint people who provide them with political support. But these appointees require support themselves – including clarity over pay, employment rights and line management. The new HR policy lead for SpAds, to be based in the Cabinet Office, could provide much-needed focus on helping SpAds do their jobs. But unless ministers support the Cabinet Office, this new role won’t work.

No job security but plenty of job opportunities

Special advisers provide political support for ministers on ‘matters where the work of government and the work of the government party overlap’ – matters which are clearly inappropriate territory for the permanent civil service. But the flexibility in making these political appointees also brings with it the ability to fire them at will.

SpAds are appointed by ministers with the approval of the PM. They have some protections under employment law, but their job security mirrors that of the ministers they serve. They can lose their job when their minister loses theirs, or if the PM, whose ability to hire and fire is derived from the prerogative power of advising the Queen on appointments, decides they should go. Advisers who lose their jobs – often finding out from social media – usually get severance pay, but a sacked SpAd does not have an MP’s salary to fall back on.

On the flipside, SpAds work at the highest levels of government. They will be brought in as policy experts or to provide political and media support for a minister. Some will have better access and more power than many junior ministers. The role may be temporary, but the understanding of government policy they acquire and the contacts they build up can pay off massively in future career opportunities.

SpAd HR has been reformed, but more needs to be done

While SpAds have been a feature of UK government since 1964, regularising their employment is a fairly recent – and ongoing – development. The Cabinet Office’s advertised new role is the latest attempt to make improvements.

SpAd contracts, drawn up by the Cabinet Office, detail the employment protection they are entitled to – although there is little transparency about how pay is determined. For a long time, special advisers did not have parental leave rights. That has been corrected, but a SpAd can still lose his or her job while on parental leave (though they are paid for their remaining leave).

Management of SpAds, and grievances processes, are also far from straightforward. The Special Adviser Code sets out that responsibility for a SpAd’s conduct ‘rests with the Minister who made the appointment’, but also that any grievance must first be made in writing to the appointing minister, the permanent secretary of the department they work in and the prime minister’s chief adviser. It is not unusual for a complaint in any workplace to go through a line manager, but this is difficult if a SpAd is making a complaint about his or her minister – who also appointed them – or even the PM’s chief adviser.

As with the recent departure of Javid and his advisers, views about how well SpAds are doing their job can become politicised. This places the civil service, and the Cabinet Office in particular, in the sometimes awkward position of arbiter of formal grievances. Special advisers need protection and a whistle-blower opportunity that doesn’t rely on leaking to the media.

Improving the role of SpAds ultimately falls to politicians

Efforts to modernise the situation of SpAds pre-dates these latest controversies. Both the Cabinet Office and No.10 have focused on trying to improve SpAd support by bringing them together as a network to share experiences as well as co-ordinate how they work, providing them with an induction process, and sometimes offering professional development to help them do their job better. This, as much as No.10 co-ordinating policy, should be the purpose of Dominic Cummings’s Friday meetings of all special advisers.

Ultimately, however, it is politicians and not civil servants who are crucial to any reforms of how special advisers work. Without support from No.10, the Cabinet Office will struggle to make any changes stick. Politicians recruit, appoint, manage and dismiss SpAds, and No.10 determines how SpAds work across government. Having flexibility in hiring and firing is necessary for a job based on retaining the trust of the politicians they serve, but having clearer terms and conditions of employment is an issue of basic transparency and fairness.