Singapore and France can help us right balance between ministers and officials
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Version 0 of 1. The UK is now an outlier in terms of maintaining civil servants’ impartiality and continuity under different politicians – we must change to gain the robust culture we need It is generally a mistake to draw conclusions on the basis of a single case. However, Dominic Raab’s resignation raises important issues. In our governing system, the executive is a partnership between ministers, who are usually politicians, and civil servants, who are mostly permanent employees. At its best, this partnership can be terrific, with ministers who listen to advice but know their mind, and intelligent officials who provide objective and informed advice, are willing to challenge and persuade, and, when a decision is taken, can be relied upon to execute it faithfully. Ministers are totally accountable for nearly everything their department does. Diligent ministers work crazy hours and carry huge responsibilities, under intense media and parliamentary scrutiny, in addition (in most cases) to being a constituency MP. It is stimulating, demanding and occasionally very stressful. No one really prepares new ministers – they should have much better preparation before taking office, including on how to manage relationships successfully. The inevitable tensions and frustrations are exacerbated because ministers rely on officials to implement policies and run their department. However, they have extremely limited authority to put in place officials of their choice, despite having near-total accountability for what those officials do. In some cases, they only find out about staffing changes on the grapevine or from the media. This is said to be the price for our system of a permanent politically impartial civil service. In all such systems, there is a tension between maintaining impartiality and continuity, and ministers’ legitimate need for key officials to be effective and responsive. There is no perfect way to balance the two, but other governments with similar systems, such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada, manage it better than us. The UK is now an outlier, and a better balance needs to be struck. It is perfectly possible to preserve impartiality and, indeed, improve continuity while allowing ministers more say in appointments. I will address this dilemma in the accountability and governance review I am undertaking for the government. Without a material adjustment, there will be more cases like Raab’s when frustrations boil over. Impartiality is important, but it must not mean neutrality, still less passivity. Capable ministers relish challenge. No sensible minister wants to embark on a course without hearing all the evidence and arguments. Of course, this requires ministers – and senior officials – to show that they welcome it. On the walls of Singapore’s Civil Service College is a plaque saying: “We want all officers to … question the assumptions and past ways of doing things and suggest ways to improve and innovate.” That is a fantastic culture. It gives officials not just permission but an obligation to challenge. By contrast, the most recent civil service “people survey” showed that only 48% of civil servants – most of whom never see hair nor hide of a minister – feel “safe to challenge the way things are done”. How, then, is the obligation to “speak truth unto power” to flourish? We need a much more robust culture, with less groupthink, more rugged disagreement, and the confidence to both offer challenge and to accept it. That includes accepting candid feedback. Today there is no external accountability for the quality of advice, other than to ministers. There could be value in regular external audits, conducted by qualified outsiders, with published results. This would reward officials who get it right, and provide a stimulus to the rest. We also need to be more robust and less mealy mouthed about “politicisation”. Again, other systems deal with this better. In France, permanent civil servants often have overt political affiliations, and it causes few problems. In Australia, permanent civil servants in ministers’ private offices are released from the obligations of political impartiality, and can take part in party political activity. We don’t need to go that far, but the key, as always, is transparency and pragmatism. We need a new settlement. Uncontroversial reforms, long agreed, have remained unimplemented since the Fulton report, 55 years ago. Responsibilities, authority and accountability are unclear. Without a much closer alignment between accountability and authority, we will see tensions build and relationships fracture. Our system can be made to work but it needs change – difficult and sustained change. And it needs to start soon. Francis Maude, a former Conservative minister, is leading a government review into civil service governance |