In a very British way we all take for granted that ministers and, indeed, governments come and go. It’s just the way things happen. And yet, do we ever stop and think whether we could do things better than this? The Institute for Government’s latest report, The challenge of being a minister, finds that most ministers in the UK get only just over two years to prove themselves in a job before being moved on.
And this appears to be largely a uniquely UK phenomenon – the scourge of the reshuffle. We have, for example, had 35 ministers since 1949 supporting business whereas Germany has had only 15. This damages stability and inevitably reduces ministers’ capacity to build the expertise and experience necessary to fulfil effectively what are, by most standards, very demanding jobs.
Surely we could do things better than this? Voters deserve it as do those who work phenomenally hard to do the best they can as ministers. In our report we’ve come up with a number of recommendations to create a climate which will enable ministers to improve their performance .
These include: better preparation for people to take on ministerial roles given their enormous range and diversity; acceptance by the Opposition of the need to have a plan to prepare their shadow teams for office; a greater attempt to fill ministerial jobs based on the needs of the posts and the competencies and skills sets required; and performance appraisal and career development processes to get people in the right job and enable them to know when their performances are falling short. These are universally accepted throughout the private and public sectors but, curiously, not for ministers. In addition there needs to be a widening of the pool from which ministers are drawn to expand the skills and expertise base. This means appointing outsiders to politics as ministers via the House of Lords.
In most other spheres where appointments are made to senior roles none of this would seem remarkable and yet a myth has grown up that politicians are somehow different. Given the current low expectations, rightly or wrongly, which many voters currently have of their elected representatives, this seems even more bizarre. Is political accountability enhanced by the appointment of people who have had hardly any preparation for some of the biggest jobs around and who are only likely to last in them for less than two years?
It would be easy to be too simplistic about this. Being an effective minister is not, for example, the same as running a company well and, as the failure of many outsiders/GOAT’s shows, political skills remain vital. And yet there are certain necessary characteristics which cut across a number of roles including the ability to prioritise, make good decisions and learn quickly from experience.
Most newly appointed ministers will have had little or no experience of doing all this in senior levels at large organisations. This means that they are not going to be on top of their jobs straightaway. There is no shame in that. Rather than struggle, ministers should have access to appraisal, advice, guidance and development which will enable them to perform better. They deserve it, the public deserves it and maybe we would get better government as a result.
Zoe Gruhn is director of leadership development at the Institute for Government. Read the full report on its website
