There is not enough ambition for real civil service change. We need to take a much longer view, particularly when it comes to the relationship between ministers, permanent secretaries and accounting officers
For localists like me the greatest problem with Whitehall is that it does too much in relation to English regions. But as someone who has spent a career working with or belonging to the senior civil service, I am schizophrenic about civil service reform. John Gay’s famous satire of Walpole in The Beggar’s Opera, 'How happy could I be either, were t’other dear charmer away' sums up the quandary.
Our political system could be more effective, both in terms of: how its institutions work, for example how parliament checks and balances the executive; and the way our parties operate, for example their narrow selection of political candidates, and focus on the short term news cycle.
But on the other hand the civil service is its own worst enemy. Too much about the civil service still feels the same. There is not enough ambition for real change, and if the Civil Service Reform Plan were implemented in full it would not equate to transformation. The policy solution in the summer of 2014 to create a chief executive that is not a chief executive demonstrates both the headline willingness to change and the grudging unwillingness to really change!
Taking a long view, I believe there are three areas where the civil service needs greater change:
First, the senior civil service is too forgiving of the lack of transparency and the short-termism of our present political system. It should develop solutions and speak with greater confidence on this because there is a risk it will live up to the perception that it plays along with the game of politics and assists in the cover up of embarrassing news. I would like to see the civil service argue for more formality to its constitutional roles and responsibilities, whereas at present it guards the special relationship or 'safe space' where advice is considered. I think the role of permanent secretary should change as part of a new relationship.
Secondly, the senior civil service is still culturally dominated by the cult of the policy generalist, which remains the route by which most permanent secretaries have reached the top. A wider range of skills needs to be developed and retained. For civil service reform to be real, fundamental behavioural and culture change is needed from policy generalists.
Thirdly and finally, I would argue that it is time to speak about the interface between politicians and officials more openly and the soft skills needed by the civil service and ministers to work effectively with each other. We should encourage the main parties to celebrate the difference between politicians and officials where the present discourse from ministers too often defaults to a deficit model.
Interestingly we have varied constitutional settlements in different parts of public service regarding the appointment and role of senior officials. For example, local authority chief executives are appointed by politicians but expected by law to transparently provide advice and information to all parties and the public. Transversely, civil servants are appointed via an independent recommendation but thereafter covered by rules where even disclosures to Parliament as an accounting officer are solely on behalf of the government and cleared by ministers.
I have argued for some time that we should see a cleaner set of rules where officials’ advice is at times not privileged. To make this effective we should unbundle the present role of permanent secretary and accounting officer.
I propose the transparent political appointment of departmental heads where the secretary of state appoints the top official/professional subject to a confirmatory hearing and/or assessment by a civil service commissioner that they are 'above the bar', on a rolling fixed term basis so that the department’s chief executive enjoys confidence and is at the heart of their leadership of the department. But, very importantly in so doing we should decouple the role of permanent secretary and accounting officer.
Departments’ chief financial officers, as accounting officers instead of the permanent secretary, should independently score policy proposals and programmes and publish their advice on risk, cost, medium term sustainability and delivery performance. Greater transparency at inception and during delivery would drive better decisions being made. I believe that this approach would drive decision makers toward more medium term and sustainable financial decisions that are essential to the decade ahead of further fiscal consolidation. Such transparency would also drive benchmarking and cost comparison in line with other public services.
The key issue, as said over many years in different reports, is the need to create a stronger accountability culture. We should change the career link between developing policy advice/expertise as the de facto driver to future management seniority. The civil service must promote leadership and management skills to be intrinsically more valued. It has always struck me as perverse that whilst seeking to bring in external delivery expertise to the civil service, there are many gifted operational managers who sadly fail to be promoted to the higher levels of the senior civil service.
The list of people brought in from outside who then leave is a long one. As a colleague said to me 'no sooner the transplant was complete, then the antibodies attacked' and so an acknowledgement by our most senior officials is needed that culture change by the career senior civil service toward delivery expertise is vital for the future.
Finally, over the last couple of years civil service reform has become reduced to a one-sided debate about politicians’ frustrations that officials need to be better at delivering their wishes. Actually, working for politicians to deliver their policies is a challenge, and I would like to see a constructive debate where ministers reflect that by any standard this is a complex environment and they are not collectively the easiest people to help.
In this respect, for local government, health and central government over the years I have used a common set of five facets to describe the interface between politicians and their officials: legitimacy, accountability, transparency, horizons and process.
Legitimacy – it is important that there is a mutual respect of roles. Politicians have a democratic mandate and must consider public sentiment, while officials have an understanding of resource allocation, measuring service outcomes and managing staff.
Accountability – officials must understand that accountability to the public lies with politicians. But officials also have a duty to advise partners, stakeholders and the public.
Transparency – officials must respect that politicians do not have to take their advice, but politicians should know that while they can decide between options they cannot tell officials what to recommend or define their professional advice.
Horizons – public officials need to implement and evaluate the often short-term policies of the day, but also convince politicians of the importance of sustainability.
Process – the greatest tension of all, because politicians often view long-winded processes as unnecessary blockages to implementation. Officials need to ensure proper procedures are followed when spending public money, without using this principle as an excuse to stall innovation or change.
This far from perfect list brings us firmly to the territory of team building. A welcome feature of coalition government has been reduced ministerial turnover. If sustained, Whitehall – ministers and their officials together – could learn from corporate best practice in the private and public sectors: that real change is seldom made without the players involved working at it.
For the departmental boards instigated by Lord Browne to quicken reform, the next government should really work at recognising the difference between politicians and officials, and building effective teams that celebrate this.
Rob Whiteman is chief executive of CIPFA. This blog is an abbreviated version of a contribution to a collection of essays on How to run a country, published by the Reform think tank
