2 Reforming Whitehall and the Civil
Service
A reform industry
8. Many attempts to reform Whitehall and the
Civil Service have ended in failure or have simply petered out.
We sought to consider what factors are essential in ensuring that
this pattern is not repeated.
9. The Northcote-Trevelyan report of 1854 established
the modern, permanent Civil Service. It took another nearly 160
years to enshrine in legislation its four core values of integrity,
honesty, objectivity, and impartiality.[11]
Between these two landmarks the Civil Service has been subject
to frequent reform initiatives of limited success under successive
governments (a selected chronology is at the Annex). The intention
behind these reforms has been to 'modernise' the Civil Service
in terms of greater efficiency, better service delivery and improved
capacity. The 1968 Fulton Committee, for example believed that:
The Home Civil Service today is still fundamentally
the product of the nineteenth-century philosophy of the Northcote-Trevelyan
Report. The tasks it faces are those of the second half of the
twentieth century ...
In our view the structure and practices of the Service
have not kept up with the changing tasks.[12]
10. More recently the Civil Service has undergone
smaller-scale reforms aimed at professionalising and increasing
the skills of staff. The Modernising Government initiative sought
to join up policy making and improve public services by placing
the user at the centre of delivery.[13]
Another long-term change initiative is the Professional Skills
for Government programme, which sets out the six core skills all
senior civil servants should have, and aims to "move away
from the concepts of "generalist" and "specialist",
and create a Civil Service where all staff are specialists of
one form or another".[14]
11. The chronology of Civil Service reform demonstrates
that although the way reform is undertaken has changed, with less
use of formal commissions or independent committees, there is
nothing new about the belief that Whitehall needs to change and
modernise and the use of reform initiatives to achieve this change.[15]
In fact the frequency of such initiatives led one of our witnesses,
Professor Christopher Hood, to describe it as "a reform
industry".[16]
12. Professor Andrew Kakabadse described the
need for reform by each incoming government as:
exactly the same in the private sector [where] the
need or urge for reform is really very prominent when there is
a change of chairman or chief executive.[17]
Another witness, Professor Martin Smith, suggested
it was because:
... the world is a difficult place to control. Government
therefore intend to do one thing, but often there is another outcome
and the Civil Service is blamed. The reforms keep continuing partly
because of that frustration.[18]
Dr Martin Lodge listed a third reason: reform as
a reaction to previous changes which had led to unintended consequences.[19]
A number of former ministers we spoke to privately presented a
further reason for continued reform: that Whitehall departments
were faced with situations, such as global terrorism and cyber
crime, which changed faster than institutional reform could keep
pace with.[20] A similar
point was made by the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in his
memoirs:
This Civil Service had and has some great strengths
.... it was simply, like so much else, out of date. Faced with
big challenges, it thought small thoughts.[21]
13. In contrast, former heads of the Civil Service
as well as the current one portrayed the various reforms as incremental
improvements. Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (Cabinet Secretary and
Head of the Civil Service, 19791987) explained how:
Yesterday's reform does one thing, then you find
some other need and you have to modify and go to that, and that
is a new form of Civil Service reform ... It is a process of constant
adaptation within the general principles of the Civil Service's
responsibility to Ministers, and Ministers' accountability to
Parliament.[22]
For one of his successors, Lord Wilson of Dinton
(19982002):
Each wave follows the previous wave and moves the
service on, and that is how these things are bound to work. Every
Government needs something a bit different from the previous Government
... It is bound to be a process of constant adaptation and development,
rather than a big once-and-for-all change that alters it.[23]
Lord Turnbull (20022005) told us that "very
few [reforms] get reversed; they get built on."[24]
14. The current Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell
cited increased diversity and professionalism as a good example
of this incremental improvement:
When I joined in 1979 there was a Sir Humphrey element
to [the Civil Service]. I looked up and I saw all male permanent
secretaries; there were no professionally qualified finance directors.
You ended up in HR if you could not do policy. People that did
operational work were third-class citizens; they were not even
second-class citizens. That has changed radically and I think
that we are changing that world where people who do operational
issues are really given equality of esteem. Those things have
changed.[25]
15. It is argued that in the last decade there
has been a measurable and objective improvement in the performance
of the Civil Service. In 2009, the Institute for Government described
the UK as "among the world's highest performing governments"
and cited evidence from the World Bank that in 2008 the UK
was "the 10th most effective government in the OECD",
compared to 14th in 2003".[26]
The Capability Review process, introduced by Sir Gus in 2006,
first benchmarked capability in Whitehall departments and then
measured progress. By the end of 2009, all major departments were
re-reviewed and it was reported that 95% of areas that were assessed
in the baseline reviews as needing urgent development had been
addressed.[27] In particular,
progress was reported in terms of leadership, most notably in
the capability and effectiveness of top leadership teams, and
in strategy, with departments improving how they used evidence
and analysis in policy making.[28]
Sir Gus argued that the reviews had "resulted in big improvements
in capability in departments".[29]
16. Despite this, we heard from the think-tank
Reform that former ministers still believe that large-scale reform
of the Civil Service is necessary.[30]
It is important to understand why this is so. There is also widespread
frustration about Civil Service inertia, even obstruction to new
policies, in some parts of Whitehall and a concern that the Civil
Service has lost specialist expertise, professionalism and respect.
Aims of Civil Service reform
17. One possible reason why it is believed that
the Civil Service needs further reform is that there is an over-expectation
of what the Civil Service can deliver. Today, the Government is
expecting the Civil Service to reform itself and to downsize at
the same time. This is a massive challenge. In the aftermath of
John Reid's description that part of the Home Office was not "fit
for purpose"[31],
Lord Wilson wrote:
The real question is whether reform of the Civil
Service alone will ever be enough, or whether we must take a more
fundamental look at what we can realistically expect from central
government.[32]
18. Matthew Taylor, former adviser to the then
Prime Minister Tony Blair and now head of the RSA, concurred:
The question should not simply be 'has the department
delivered what it was supposed to' but also 'was it ever reasonable
to expect the department to deliver what was asked of it'.[33]
Professor Matthew Flinders made a similar point:
One unfortunate element of the public service reform
agenda in recent years has been a tendency for ministers to encourage
members of the public to expect and demand the same levels of
service that they would expect from the private sector. This risks
raising public expectations to a level that the public sector
has never been expected or resourced to deliver.[34]
19. This divergence in perceptions about the
Civil Service goes to the heart of the problem. Too often Civil
Service reforms seem to have become an end in itself for Whitehall,
instead of a means of delivering a wider public service reform
agenda. As our witness Professor Martin Smith observed:
Without thinking very clearly about what the Civil
Service is, what it should do and what a good Civil Service would
look like, it is very difficult to work out how to reform it.[35]
20. Indeed, Tony Blair has acknowledged that
the Civil Service could not themselves be held responsible for
not knowing what vision the Government had in mind for them and
consequently not being as radical as the Government wished. He
wrote in his autobiography:
In 1998, I began with Sir Richard Wilson the new
Cabinet Secretary, the first stage of Civil Service reform. And
to be fair he got behind them thoroughly. But - and this is a
criticism of me, not of him or the Civil Service - they were like
many of the other reforms: talking the right language but shying
away from the really radical measures.[36]
21. The need for frequent Civil
Service reform programmes over the years can be attributed to
failure to consider what the Civil Service is for, what it should
do and what it can reasonably be expected to deliver. Government
needs to articulate a clear view of what it wants from the Civil
Service and how it intends to achieve it. This must be articulated
with greater clarity in departmental business plans. The Civil
Service should be more rigorous in demanding this clarity from
Government.
What do ministers want from the
Civil Service?
22. We spoke to a number of former ministers
about how Whitehall had operated and changed during their time
in office.[37] They mostly
praised the quality and professionalism of the officials working
in their departments, but told us that Civil Service reform was
rarely one of their priorities. Indeed, they often had little
or no knowledge of any reform programme in progress. They reported
that these reform programmes failed to have an impact on how their
department operated and found that the issues of most concern
to them regarding performance in Whitehall were not addressed
in their time in office.[38]
SPECIALISTS
23. In their evidence former ministers said they
had wanted more subject matter experts on the policy areas for
which they had had responsibility as ministers.[39]
They complained, for example, that in the Department for Education's
predecessors no one in charge of school policy had actually ever
run a school, and that in the Department for Transport there were
no officials who were sufficiently technically expert on developments
in transport issues such as high speed trains. They also said
they felt exposed when dealing with sectoral interests without
countervailing advice from their officials, for example in regulating
certain sectors of the economy or managing contractual relationships
with commercial suppliers. In this more complex world they wanted
more specialist support.[40]
For example, extensive contracting out has led to a loss of expertise
which is still required within departments to properly manage
and negotiate contracts and procurement.[41]
24. In contrast, Ian Watmore, Chief Operating
Officer of the Efficiency and Reform Group at the Cabinet Office,
insists that the Civil Service now had many more skills to call
upon and thought it was:
fantastic the way that we have brought some of the
really best people from the private sector, the third sector and
local government into the Civil Service and blended them with
the traditional Civil Service skills.[42]
Sir Gus O'Donnell also claimed that today we have
a more professionalised Civil Service with qualified finance directors
and an increase in the professional groups such as statisticians
and economists. He argued that "you do have a specialist
that can get to the top. That is a very, very good message about
the professionalisation of the Civil Service."[43]
25. We have previously also reported how the
Civil Service is developing IT specialists through the Technology
in Business Stream of the Civil Service Fast Stream Programme
(established in 2007-08) and bringing in IT specialists from the
SME sector.[44] We
welcome the steps taken by the Civil Service to develop and bring
in IT specialists, though such initiatives in themselves will
not address the more specific concerns about performance in this
field raised with us by former ministers. The Civil Service must
also build up specialist expertise in outsourcing contract management
and procurement.
GREATER RISK TAKING
26. A risk averse culture in Whitehall has been
viewed as a block on wider public sector reform, epitomised, for
example, by the well-known quote from the then Prime Minister,
Tony Blair, of the "scars on his back" from battling
the Civil Service on the issue of public sector reform after only
two years in office.[45]
The present Prime Minister, after a year in office, revealed some
frustration with Whitehall in his speech to the Conservative Party
Spring Conference, where he announced the Government's intention
to take on "bureaucrats in government departments"
who he described as "enemies of enterprise".[46]
This statement apparently caused the Cabinet Secretary some
concern, to the extent that he reportedly asked the Number 10
Permanent Secretary "to calm things down".[47]
27. A contrasting view of Civil Service capabilities
came from Lord Wilson, who argued that the Civil Service had shown
that it was able to manage large public sector change repeatedly.
The privatisation programme in the 1980s, for example, had been
"very successful and a pretty big change".[48]
Our private discussion with former and current ministers revealed
that while they believed it was the role of Ministers to offer
the political lead to Whitehall, they noted the constitutional
inability of the political head of the department to address poor
performance and believed that selection, training and promotion
arrangements could be enhanced to develop a more innovative and
entrepreneurial culture in Whitehall.[49]
28. The Minister, Francis Maude, described the
paradoxical situation where Government took huge risks at a macro
level, but at a micro level tended to be very risk averse and
hostile to innovation. He wanted a change from the current culture
where:
we waste a huge amount of time and effort in stopping
bad things happening and the result is we stop huge amounts of
potentially good things happening as well.[50]
We note that he offered no specific solutions to
this problem at the time that he said this. This suggests that
Ministers do not yet know how to challenge the bureaucratic inertia
in the system, which also explains why there is no clear plan
for change.
A MORE CROSS-CUTTING APPROACH
29. Former ministers also said that attempts
to improve the effectiveness of government have been hampered
by the tendency of the Civil Service to continue to work in departmental
silos, despite the benefits of joined-up working.[51]
The previous administration's 2009 report 'Wiring it Up' set out
the then Government's policy for dealing with these departmental
silos and removing barriers to cross-departmental working, in
particular by devising cross-cutting Public Sector Agreements
(PSAs) extending across two or more departments.[52]
Nonetheless the Institute for Government told us that:
mechanisms for co-ordinating policy and delivery
between departments are still dominated by siloed thinking, making
it difficult to manage cross-cutting policy issues.[53]
This silo effect has meant that the former ministers
found it difficult to express a general view of the Civil Service,
instead describing a variety of experiences across the Civil Service
during their ministerial career. One former minister described
the Civil Service as a "conglomerate" rather
than a single organisation.[54]
30. Cross-departmental working
remains a weakness for the Civil Service. We expect to consider
the role of the Head of the Home Civil Service in this respect
in the course of a future Inquiry.
LESS FREQUENT STAFF TURNOVER
31. Former Ministers also complained that a high
turnover of senior civil servants led to a lack of continuity
and the loss of 'corporate memory' from departments. This caused
particular difficulties where officials for major projects had
moved on during their lifespan, disrupting the accountability
chain if and when such projects failed.[55]
One former minister said that the term 'permanent Civil Service'
was a misnomer. Another observed that just as the turnover of
ministers made them more dependent on their officials, so the
turnover of senior staff made them dependent on their longer-established,
more junior officials. Such a trend shows no sign of abating:
there has been a significant changeover of permanent secretaries
in recent months, many of whom were drawn from other departments.[56]
Jill Rutter from the Institute of Government has observed that
By the first anniversary of the government, of 16
departments, only six will not have had a change of permanent
secretary - so ministers, all of whom have under a year's experience
in all those departments, will all have someone with less experience
at the top.[57]
32. We recommend that after
any change of its Secretary of State, the Permanent Secretary
of a Department should ideally remain in post for a minimum period
of 12 months to maintain corporate memory and an in-depth knowledge
of the workings of the Department. The Civil Service should also
plan for much greater continuity among its senior contract and
project managers.
33. The Civil Service inspires
much admiration and loyalty from ministers, most of whom take
full responsibility for the conduct of their departments rather
than blaming officials for departmental failings. However, despite
successive programmes of reform and some undoubted and successful
change and modernisations of the Civil Service, Ministers remain
dissatisfied with and disconnected from the outcomes. There is
a wealth of evidence in Whitehall that, despite the attempts of
Ministers and senior civil servants, departments lack expertise
and specialist knowledge and the confidence to make decisions
and implement them quickly. Departmental silos remain a constant
concern, along with a risk-averse culture and bureaucratic inertia.
The Civil Service 'establishment' remains complacent about this.
34. Ministers want, and the
public interest demands, a more innovative and entrepreneurial
Civil Service which fosters and retains expertise aligned to the
policy or major project lifetime and can work across departmental
boundaries to address cross-cutting issues. Numerous Civil Service
reform initiatives have so far has failed to deliver these outcomes
on a consistent basis. Our chief concern is that the latest efforts
to reform Whitehall will fail unless these concerns are comprehensively
addressed with a clear plan.
11 Constitutional Reform and
Governance Act 2010, section 7 Back
12
Report of the Committee on the Civil Service, 1966-68,
Cm 3638, June 1968, vol. 1, pp 9, 10 Back
13
Civil Service, Modernising government, Cm 4310, March 1999 Back
14
Public Administration Select Committee, Ninth Report of Session
2006-2007, Skills for Government, HC 93-I, para 39 Back
15
Q 2 [Professor Hood] Back
16
Ibid. Back
17
Q 36 Back
18
Q 2 [Professor Smith] Back
19
Q 2 [Dr Lodge] Back
20
Discussions with former ministers, April 2011 Back
21
Tony Blair, A Journey, (London, 2010), p. 206 Back
22
Q 142 [Lord Armstrong] Back
23
Q 143 [Lord Wilson] Back
24
Q 143 [Lord Turnbull] Back
25
Q 207 Back
26
Institute for Government, State of the Service (London:
2009), p 11 Back
27
Civil Service, Capability Reviews: An overview of progress
and next steps (London: 2009) Back
28
Ibid. Back
29
Q 287 Back
30
Ev 62 Back
31
Oral evidence taken before the Home Affairs Committee on 23 May
2006, HC (2005-2006) 775-III, Q 866 Back
32
"A new PM must rebuild civil servants' trust in politicians",
Daily Telegraph, 16 January 2007, p22 Back
33
A truly radical approach to Civil Service reform, Matthew Taylor's
Blog, 29 January 2009, matthewtaylorsblog.com Back
34
Ev w24 [Note: references to Ev wXX are references to written
evidence published in the volume of additional written evidence
published on the Committee's website] Back
35
Q 2 [Professor Smith] Back
36
Tony Blair, A Journey, (London, 2010), p. 206 Back
37
Ibid. Back
38
Ibid. Back
39
Ibid. Back
40
Ibid. Back
41
Public Administration Select Committee, Twelfth Report of Session
2010-12, Government and IT - "a recipe for rip-offs":
time for a new approach, HC 715-I, para 109 Back
42
Q 274 Back
43
Q 278 Back
44
Public Administration Select Committee, Twelfth Report of Session
2010-12, Government and IT - "A recipe for rip-offs":
Time for a new approach, HC 715-I, para 111 Back
45
"Blair risks row over public sector", BBC News, 7
July 1999, news.bbc.co.uk Back
46
"David Cameron: Building a Better Future", The Conservative
Party, 6 March 2011, conservatives.com Back
47
"Whitehall anger at Cameron's red tape attack", The
Daily Telegraph, 16 March 2011, p 8, "Cameron red tape
attack hacks off mandarins", Financial Times, 15 March
2011, p 7 Back
48
Q 151 [Lord Wilson] Back
49
Discussions with former ministers, April 2011 Back
50
Q 208 [Francis Maude] Back
51
Discussions held with former ministers, April 2011 Back
52
Cabinet Office, Wiring it up: Whitehall's Management of Cross-cutting
Policies and Services, January 2000 Back
53
Ev 59 Back
54
Discussions held with former ministers, April 2011 Back
55
Ibid. Back
56
"Impermanent Secretaries", Institute for Government
blog, 31 March 2011, instituteforgovernment.org.uk Back
57
Ibid. Back
|