How Labour should recruit more expert outsiders

While the new government was right to identify the civil service's struggles to provide ministers with advice from subject experts, it has made mistakes in its attempt to address this problem. Ministers bringing in favoured candidates with party political backgrounds via the ‘exceptions’ process – which allows the traditional recruitment process to be sidestepped and a preferred candidate appointed immediately – was the wrong thing to do.

However, the principle of bringing more outside expertise into the civil service is the right one and, according to The Times, “the Cabinet Office is thought to be considering a wider review of the process” for external recruitment.  ¹⁰ https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/labour-donor-abandons-civil-service-role-after-cronyism-claims-jzdd9lzsj

The Civil Service Commission has already launched a review into the post-election appointments by exception, but this should not prevent the Cabinet Office leading a more wide-ranging exercise. This should examine the ethical arrangements around external recruitment. But while this would give the government an opportunity to reform a process that, in recent weeks, has given rise to propriety concerns, it would be a mistake to solely focus on propriety. The review would also be a good opportunity to address the civil service’s failure to recruit and retain sufficient outside expertise.

There should be increased ethical safeguards for appointments by exception

The starting point for the review needs to be how to ensure the appointments system is protected by the right safeguards. Recent controversies revealed that the Civil Service Commission does not ask for all the information necessary to make good decisions when approving exceptions for senior officials. For example, the Commission appeared not to know that Ian Corfield was a Labour donor – who had given money to the chancellor herself – when approving his appointment.

We have already argued that there needs to be more transparency over the business case made by a department for exceptional appointments. In addition, departments should be required to determine and declare applicants’ formal political activity – for example, any history of employment by, or donations to, a political party or explicitly party-aligned organisations. Having a political background should not be a bar against an exception being approved, but knowing about it would help the Commission come to a more informed judgement about whether an exceptional appointment is appropriate.

There should be a clearer route to bring in expert policy advisers

The exceptions process is not designed as a lever for ministers to make personal appointments, and the government needs to maintain the delineation between civil servants appointed on merit in the usual way and civil servants recruited at the behest of a minister.  

To some extent this category already exists in the form of ‘policy advisers’ (PADs), experts who are handpicked by ministers to provide policy advice on a topic. Unlike special advisers they observe the normal civil service rules and do not undertake party political activity. But a PAD is an ill-defined role, and occupants are often left with an ambiguous remit. It has been suggested that, after the election, Labour decided to limit the number of political appointees, a category which includes PADs.  ¹¹ https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/outlasting-liz-truss/   

Instead the government should regularise the PAD role and expand the number of people who occupy it. Depending on the breadth of their brief, ministers should be able to appoint a limited number of PADs, perhaps as part of a ‘ministerial policy unit’. These PADs should be appointed on fixed-term contracts and sit outside normal civil service management structures, but be required to maintain political impartiality while in those jobs. They should not duplicate the work of officials in their department, but provide support on ministerial priorities, particularly in areas where the civil service might have less existing expertise.

This model is similar to the extended ministerial offices (EMOs) used by some cabinet ministers during the coalition, following proposals from Francis Maude. While some civil servants welcomed EMOs – former permanent secretary Clare Moriarty said they “allowed us to access a different group of people who can come in and ask questions – who see the world in a different way”  ¹² https://www.civilservant.org.uk/csr_detail-note16.html  – there were also concerns that they insulated ministers and their private office from the wider department and so undermined private office’s ‘bridge’ function between department and minister. One way that could be addressed is by having PADs sit in a separate unit, rather than within the private office, although linked closely both to the private office and relevant civil service teams. This should help achieve what Moriarty described as working best – “an enriched strategy unit, rather than a turbo-charged private office”.  

Formalising PAD roles would establish a legitimate way for ministers to recruit the experts they want, without using exceptional appointments in a way that poses problems for civil service impartiality. It makes sense to have PADs separate to SpAds, both as a way of attracting talented people who might not want to take on an expressly political role, and to ensure they focus on policy rather than getting dragged into party politics.  

Any review should also address wider civil service recruitment  

There are also broader problems with the civil service’s ability to recruit outside expertise that should be rectified.

There are too few senior specialist roles suitable for experts at ‘knowing and doing’ but who do not want to manage a substantial number of people. There is a long history of secondment programmes which have failed to stick. Recruitment processes prioritise talking confidently about past experiences over demonstrating hard skills and are difficult for external candidates to navigate. Pay is uncompetitive.

What should be done? The government should continue rolling out the senior specialist roles – senior roles without substantial management responsibility perfect for certain types of technical experts – announced before the election. It should establish secondment pipelines – owned by departments – with other public sector organisations, overseas governments and the private sector. It should scrap ‘success profile’-based interviews and empower line managers by giving them more flexibility in the way they recruit. And it should re-evaluate the civil service’s pay offer, with serious consideration given to shifting the balance between pay and pensions towards more take-home pay.

If ministers feel the civil service does not have the skills to deliver their vision, it is important they are able to recruit the expertise they need. But civil service impartiality must be protected against a spoils system. The government should use a review to set out how it will safeguard propriety going forward, establish a clear separation between PADs and normal civil service roles to create a clearer route for ministers to exercise appropriate influence over the system, and commit to fixing the other problems which prevent the government identifying and employing the best people to deliver its aims.