Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
SIR CHRISTOPHER
FOSTER KT, SIR
NICHOLAS MONCK
KCB AND MR
PETER OWEN
CB
19 MARCH 2008
Q40 Mr Prentice: Sir Christopher
told us about 10 minutes ago that it would help if ministers served
a kind of apprenticeship. I think that is what you said. The most
famous minister in recent years who did not serve any apprenticeship
at all was Tony Blair, who did not have any job in government,
minister or anything. My question is this. Would it have made
a difference to the better governance of Britain if Tony Blair
had had ministerial experience? I am looking at you, Sir Christopher?
Sir Christopher Foster: I will
turn it the other way round and say that all prime ministers I
admire have had experience. I think it is very hard, actually,
to move into Number 10 without any previous ministerial experience,
however talented you are.
Q41 Mr Prentice: He did, and he was
Prime Minister for 10 years. He was going to hang on in there
for 10 years, and he did.
Sir Christopher Foster: Yes. I
think I have made my point. I do not think the fact that he had
no experience helped him to be a good prime minister, whatever
quality of prime minister you think he was.
Q42 Mr Prentice: Another quotation
from Richard Wilson, the former Cabinet Secretary. He said that
Labour "mounted a coup against the processes of government".[9]
I would invite your comment on that. This is a former Cabinet
Secretary.
Mr Owen: I think Richard got some
of that right. I was unsettled and made to feel uneasy by the
extent to which the political advisers who were brought in actually
sidelined the processes of government and formed a network of
links which enabled them effectively to take over the process
without involving officials in departments who had experience
in the areas they were dealing with.
Q43 Mr Prentice: But why was it never
the case that the senior mandarinate, people like yourselves,
did not speak out?
Mr Owen: Speak out to whom?
Q44 Mr Prentice: Let me test this
one on you. Robin Butler, again a former cabinet secretary. You
do not get much more senior than these people, you do not by definition.
He laments his failure to stand up to the politicians.[10]
So a coup against the processes of government, failure to stand
up to the politicians. Do not people like yourselves bear some
responsibility, if you are telling us about how to make government
better, that perhaps you did not stand up and be counted when
it really mattered?
Mr Owen: We had a question before
about why I did not have a knighthood! It may have had something
to do with it—who knows? The fact of the matter is that
you do stand up. If you are brought up in the tradition of "speaking
truth unto power", you do stand up and you say what you have
got to say. What you do not do, if you are a civil servant with
that kind of background, is go and talk to a reporter about it.
There is an interesting question about honesty if you are talking
to ministers, discretion if you are talking to the wider public,
because you do not want to undermine the processes of government.
I was uneasy, I felt what seemed to have happened was undesirable.
There are a whole range of things that have contributed to this.
There was the Yes Minister television series which, I think,
some ministers took as a training manual, a real description of
how the Government actually worked. Gerald Kaufman wrote a book
at about the time that New Labour arrived that I do not think
was terribly helpful either, and it gave the impression that the
purpose of the Civil Service was to subvert initiatives on the
part of politicians who knew what they wanted.[11]
I think there was a good deal of mistrust, and I saw evidence
of this. At that time I was in the education department—I
was Director General for Schools—and there was very much
a tendency for the incoming special advisers to take the view
that civil servants in the education department—and there
was a strand of truth in this—were old China hands: they
knew too much about what was going on and, therefore, their advice
could be disregarded. The fact of the matter is that a fresh perspective
can help, but it does not follow that people who know a lot about
a topic are therefore unable to advise on it.
Q45 Mr Prentice: Yes. I understand what
you say about loyalty, but is there no way in which the disquiet
felt by the very senior civil servants can find its way out of
the system? We now know that Andrew Turnbull, former Head of the
Home Civil Service, tells us Gordon Brown, the present Prime Minister,
ran the Treasury with "Stalinist ruthlessness" and treated
cabinet colleagues "more or less with complete contempt".[12]
This is not one quotation from one cabinet secretary; I could
weary the committee by going on for a long time, quoting what
people have said after they have left office, and there must be
a way where, as I say, the disquiet that people feel can be fed
into the system in some way, perhaps the select committees.
Mr Owen: I think there is an ethical
issue involved in this. One of the things that you sign up to
when you become a civil servant, certainly in my time, is that
the elected government has the right to govern and, quite opposite
to the Yes Minister line, should not be subverted by civil
servants whose job it is to support the governance of the country,
not to act on political grounds or other grounds against the government.
The danger is that eventually you are going to get to a situation
where you have got government in a hole in the corner manner because
ministers become afraid of leaks. As I said, there is an ethical
issue there. I always regarded it as being my duty not to go to
the press.
Q46 Mr Prentice: I understand that.
I was actually inviting you to comment on one of your recommendations
for the Senior Civil Service. You talk about processes, that decisions
have got to be made after due consideration, after involving cabinet
ministers and, Sir Nick, when you came before us before, you made
reference to the similarities between cabinet government and private
companies and perhaps how the Cabinet should adopt processes and
procedures that are regarded as very straightforward—good
governance things that private companies do without batting an
eyelid—that they involve everyone, that they have a full
discussion, that papers are circulated. The fact is that did not
happen in key issues like going to war. We know that and you know
that. Perhaps you would like to comment, Sir Nick.
Sir Nicholas Monck: I do think
if they did not have them, and in the case of Iraq where we are
going by the Butler Report[13]—that
is the source of the statement that good papers were prepared
and not circulated—my comment would be I do think that is
a mistake.
Q47 Mr Prentice: Sir Gus O'Donnell and
people like Sir Gus O'Donnell, should be insisting, if we are
going to have a cabinet government that means anything, that all
the things that you were calling for a couple of years ago in
your article in The Political Quarterly[14]
should happen, and Gus O'Donnell should be doing that now: insisting.
Yes?
Sir Nicholas Monck: Well, for
all I know, he probably is.
Q48 Mr Prentice: No perhaps, in five
years' time.
Sir Nicholas Monck: An updated
form of what I said then is Governing Well, and what we
have tried to put in there is things which will make a difference
and are consistent with those things. They are not the same as
in the private sector, and I never thought they would be. For
instance, in relation to the Chairman's comment on the resolution,
the resolution, if it would just become an adversarial thing without
affecting either the conduct or the performance of the Government
or the kind of thing that comes out of select committees, I think
would be very regrettable and would help to explain the low reputation
which has been mentioned, but I think it probably would not happen.
I am sure there would be a bit of it, but I think there would
be other effects well.
Q49 Mr Burrowes: Of the 50 recommendations,
two of them refer to participatory democracy. Whilst I take on
board the comments about strengthening Parliament, in terms of
trying to inject some life blood into the system we need to look
at the grassroots and what is happening in terms of lack of public
participation, and perhaps more attention should be given to not
only asking the Government to commission independent guidance
about consultation but taking it a lot further in preparing people
to genuinely participate, rather than, for example, with Post
Office closures, having this sham type of consultation which gives
everyone a bad name?
Sir Christopher Foster: This is
a very difficult point. I am certainly not against participatory
democracy. But we think it certainly should not replace representative
democracy. We believe that it is very hard to run a country on
the basis of polls and focus groups, if only because of the great
difficulties of ensuring that people who vote or take decisions
have the material, have the understanding of the issues that you,
the select committee, should have if you have had good White Papers
and Green Papers. Indeed, we notice that China is supposed to
be going for participatory democracy without in any sense sacrificing
the ability of the top people to control the whole. On the other
hand, we do believe that, instead of consultation—which
you yourself said was often a sham—what we really want is
a very much more rigorous process of consultation which, indeed,
could well—it is expensive—involve citizens' juries
in certain circumstances, focus groups in others. It must be conducted
in a neutral, impartial way. There are terrible problems, which
we have come across. Some have been resolved, but not enough yet
I think. It remains possible to use these techniques to get an
outcome to which you are pre-disposed from the beginning. It is
quite easy to gerrymander these sorts of processes to get the
answer you want by asking some questions rather than others. So,
while we very much endorse it, since we believe strongly in better
consultation, we do believe that this must be auxiliary to ministerial
government and parliamentary accountability.
Q50 Mr Burrowes: So what needs to
be effected is parliamentary and representative democracy rather
than public participation in more radical ways, such as referenda
and petitioning. Obviously, this issue has gone on for many years,
as you have acknowledged yourself, in terms of better government
and whether we are looking at it from the wrong end of the telescope.
We should be going down to the grassroots and asking them to get
more involved in more radical ways.
Sir Christopher Foster: There
are various different issues here. One is about how much devolution
there is to local government. That is a rather separate issue
which we could talk about. In so far as central government is
policy making, we believe there are strong arguments for prior
consultation. In fact, that is vital. When you have a White Paper
explaining a bill, that White Paper should actually say what consultation
took place, what the outcome was and to what extent the Bill,
or whatever policy proposal it is, has been altered in order to
meet the objections. We believe that is inherent in good policy
making. We also think that some of these rather more sophisticated
attempts at consultation, such as using witnesses and a jury,
are excellent ideas but they have got to be used in a way which
protects their impartiality and their rigor. On that basis we
think they are tremendously important adjuncts to good government;
but on their own not so. Is that a fair statement?
Q51 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Can I ask
about one or two other areas we have not touched on: special advisers.
We have seen a massive increase in special advisers. They have
been in some cases very high profile—the Moore case was
very bad news. Do you think there has to be a review of the way
special advisers operate?
Mr Owen: Yes, there are too many
of them. This is part of the problem. They are a tremendously
varied bunch. I have had to do with a lot of different special
advisers in my time. I worked with Jack Straw when he was a lad,
for example. They play now a very important part. We keep talking
about ministerial overload, but it is genuinely the case, and
if cabinet ministers are going to contribute in the way we envisage
towards a wide range of policies, they are not going to be able
to do it in their spare time. They need their special advisers
to provide them with an analysis of issues in areas that either
involve political considerations that their civil servants could
not advise on, or deal with areas of policy that their civil servants
are not particularly expert in. So there is a very distinct role
for special advisers in that kind of area. My worry is that a
number of the special advisers seem to be operating as a sort
of substitute and parallel Civil Service, and you can see the
process developing and extending to the point where you actually
get an undeclared system of political appointments—rather
like the one you have got in America but where the Government
is adapted to deal with that sort of situation—slowly soaking
in. I think our conclusion has been that the appointment of special
advisers is an important and essential part of the machinery of
government, but it should not be allowed to slide into that sort
of situation. There ought to be some limitation on the numbers
of appointees, simply to make sure that their role is to contribute
in areas where they are able to make a contribution and not to
be substituted for the permanent staff.
Q52 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Can I move
on to the cabinet secretaries? Your careers are long and varied
but you have seen a lot of cabinet secretaries come and go over
the years. Do you see the role of the Cabinet Secretary having
changed, which obviously it has, and, if so, what for the better
and, conversely, what for the worse? I do not pick any names out
particularly, I just generalise.
Mr Owen: This is a very, very
complicated question. It is hard to be sure what exactly has happened.
At one stage certainly—I referred to professional scepticism
before—a cabinet secretary's role was to ensure that issues
were fully and properly considered. They were not seen as being
quite the servants of the Prime Minister; on the other hand they
had to work with the Prime Minister. So there has always been
an interesting and balanced relationship. I have been reading
the press on this, like everybody else recently. I am not aware
that that situation has fundamentally changed. I do not think
Gus's position is different from Robin Butler's in his time. I
think he has the same sort of role. He has got a good relationship
with the Prime Minister, and that is important. What I am slightly
nervous about is that you will see, if you look at the Cabinet
Office organisation chart these days, that the heads of the cabinet
secretariats now all have a little asterisk alongside them that
says that they are prime ministerial advisers. There is a worry
that if they directly serve the Prime Minister and know very clearly
what the views of the Prime Minister are, their ability to apply
professional scepticism to issues being considered by cabinet
committees which they service will be swayed—so there is
a question there. Chris was talking before about presidential
government: people talk about creating a prime ministerial department.
I do not think it has happened yet, but something interesting
is happening there.
Q53 Mr Liddell-Grainger: That is
exactly the reason I am asking the question. Having only known
very few cabinet secretaries, the difference between Richard Wilson
to Gus O'Donnell, I find a chasm, because they are two totally
different—
Mr Owen: Their personalities are
radically different.
Q54 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Totally
different, and the way they operate is totally different. I am
wondering if Gus O'Donnell is now the future—I do not know
how you put it more politely—more worldly wise and has been
around the block a few times. Whereas Richard, I think, had been
within the Civil Service all his career, Gus has come in and out
and has had a more varied career. Do you think there should be
a much more varied career path for senior civil servants? Perhaps
they should spend a year, two years, before coming out, in IBM
or something like that?
Mr Owen: Yes, but it is practically
very difficult to do this. We have been aware of this for a long
time, but actually getting somebody out for a year or so into
IBM in a position where he is really doing the job rather than
just hanging around is a problem both for the Civil Service and
for IBM. I would not describe Richard Wilson as "unworldly",
if that is what you are suggesting!
Q55 Mr Liddell-Grainger: I am trying
to be as polite I can, but I hope you understand me. The problem
I have got is that nowadays there is no such thing as a safe job.
Everybody moves jobs the whole time. Surely, the Civil Service
Training College is now privatised, it is extremely good, we have
been there quite a lot, it is a very different beast than it used
to be because they have got to bring a level of professionalism
into the system. Surely there must be an argument to say that,
if the public sector can shift, you illustrious gentlemen have
joined many other boards since you have finished your careers,
so—
Mr Owen: I have had one full-time
job, and that is it.
Q56 Mr Liddell-Grainger: I am sorry,
I thought you had something else, but certainly the others have.
You have moved in seamlessly to be able to do that. You can do
it for as long as you want or otherwise. Surely we should be giving
a better grounding or a wider grounding to senior civil servants.
Mr Owen: You can do quite a lot
within the Civil Service. What I did was to spend a couple of
years getting my knees brown as a regional director in the North
East, actually running a large office with a lot of staff, developing
skills within the Civil Service. There is quite a lot you can
do. That was part of a trend, to an extent post-Fulton, for saying
that civil servants did have too narrow a background: you became
a policy man—a policy monk—and you really needed to
know a bit more about what was going on. So there are different
ways of doing this. But just to make the point again, it is practically
very difficult to pluck somebody out of the Civil Service and
pop them into a job in the private sector of equivalent weight
and responsibility, and vice versa, because being a civil servant,
although the myth of the talented amateur has been spread around,
is actually quite a specialised job. You need to know a lot about
the way the processes of government work in order to be able to
do it effectively.
Sir Christopher Foster: I have
had quite a number of executive posts in the private sector as
well as in the public, and non-executive for that matter. Slotting
in is always difficult. All companies are different, and there
is the point that Peter made about the importance of somebody
coming from the public sector getting the sort of job which does
develop him. I was very lucky in this respect, but there is a
counter point, I think, to make. One of the problems in the modern
Civil Service is that there is too much mobility. People are moved
around a great deal from one department to another, or to another
job, to stimulate competition. There are two disadvantages to
that. One is that you do need expertise and knowledge. You do
need people coming in from outside, but you also need a hard core
of people who know the issues inside out and backwards. If you
have too much mobility, as arguably has been the case in some
departments, they do lose the confidence upon which ministers
ought to be able to rely. I think the other point, in a sense,
is that in my experience—I appointed people in the public
and private sector—the people you know, if they are good
enough, are the people you should promote. You give them the job
first. You should have a career path, a career development, which
enables people to move and develop in such a way that they go
up a career path, which means they go where they will give greatest
value. Bringing in people from outside is something you should
do when you are absolutely sure they are better or you cannot
find the right person from inside. Ministers will lose if you
have too many civil servants who are from outside. Again, I have
to say, in my experience, there is always a greater risk of failure
from people that you have not actually worked with. Some of those
that you bring in from the outside do not actually work out quite
as expected. So, against the very great importance of bringing
in people from outside and of pushing civil servants so they have
outside experience, you also need to try and develop some kind
of cadre of people who know what they are doing and have the opportunity
to develop their own careers responsibly.
Q57 Mr Liddell-Grainger: Can I take
one example in government which I think has not been a happy experience,
the IT projects throughout the United Kingdom. They have all been,
one way and another, a disaster. I would argue gently that perhaps
one of the problems has been that it has been left to civil servants
who are not trained in that discipline who have appointed companies—I
am not saying we would know, we would not—who have not understood
what they are doing, and I think the history of this is an endemic
failure of government not doing enough to allow people to come
in who would probably know what they were doing. I think having
one at Number 10 has changed things dramatically, but it is still
a sorry situation which is on-going. Is that an analogy you would
recommend?
Mr Owen: It is not universally
the case.
Q58 Mr Liddell-Grainger: I am not
saying it is, I am just taking one part of government.
Mr Owen: Part of the problem is
that the Government came to this without much background and to
an extent I think people expect too much of IT; they think that
it is going to be easy and it is not. The one large project that
I got involved with was a massive reconstruction of the local
government finance system that we had. It worked, it was okay,
but in order to get that right what I had to do was detach a fairly
senior bloke for a whole year to work with the IT people so that
they could understand what the operation of the local government
finance system was like and he could understand what the limitations
of the technology were. It took that long to get it right, and
we then moved over and it functioned okay. In a sense, coming
to it cold, I would have thought it was perfectly easy. We have
got a system here, it works. We have got clerks, we have got the
girls punching cards and it is all right. It is going to be straightforward,
we will just put it across. It is not like that. I think it is
the failure with IT projects—and, let me say, this happens
in the private sector as well—of the IT people to understand
what the policy is that they are supposed to be implementing and
the policy people to understand what the technology is capable
of doing that has been the problem. I think we ought to be a lot
less ambitious in making assumptions about what IT is capable
of delivering. It can do some miraculous things, but actually
it cannot do some, what seem to be, relatively simple things.
Q59 Mr Liddell-Grainger: One last
question to do with permanent secretaries. We deal with ministers,
ministers we see all the time, we talk to them, and quite a lot
of the time we find ministers wanting, partly because, rather
like civil servants, they change very rapidly. Senior civil servants,
mainly permanent secretaries, will come before select committees.
They are extremely good and I do not believe we have ever had
a bad one, and I am trying to think back over the short time I
have been in Parliament, and I say that with respect. Do you think
there is a case that permanent secretaries should come, not on
a regular basis, not like liaison, but in front of select committees
of the departments that are covered by that organisation, to not
do anything against the ministers, but to broaden what they are
trying to achieve, because you have so many ministers of departments
it is almost impossible to keep up with who is doing what, and
they change the whole time. Is there a gentle argument for trying
to get a broader picture from the civil servant of the department?
I am talking about the permanent secretary, I am sorry.
Sir Nicholas Monck: I think that
select committees did sometimes do that, talk to permanent secretaries.
9 "Shape Up, Sir Humphrey", BBC Radio
4, March 2007, news.bbc.co.uk Back
10
Ibid. Back
11
Gerald Kaufman, How to Be a Minister, (Faber and Faber, 1997) Back
12
"UK chancellor accused of `Stalinist' style", The
Financial Times, 20 March 2007, p 2 Back
13
Rt Hon The Lord Butler of Brockwell, Review of Intelligence
on Weapons of Mass Destruction, HC (2003-04) 898 Back
14
Political Quarterly, April-June 2005 Back
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