Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Tuesday 27th October 2026
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10:01
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
The government approach actually possible? Is mission, government or a mission? Well. I'll kick off and I'm sure we'll have thoughts. I suppose if you want a binary answer to that question, I would say yes, but government is difficult. Joining up government is difficult. Aligning government to missions is difficult. So I'd say there it is possible, but you need both the sort of the conditions to be right. And you need a combination of strong and clear political leadership and objective and priority setting. The structures that create the incentives to align the government machine, the civil service, but everything else as well, to whatever mission and mission approach you choose and the capability in the civil service and the rest of the machine to do it.
10:01
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
So, okay, so let's just pause there. So we have a party coming into government in July 2024, which has had 14 years to prepare for government. You have a thumping. Parliamentary majority, which effectively means the executive could do certainly in those early stages, whatever it wanted to. It had a carte blanche. The Prime Minister had a chief of staff who was well versed in the form of Sue, now Baroness Grey, in how the civil service worked. A new cabinet secretary, handpicked by the Prime Minister. So if you were looking at the sort of entrails, if you'd sort of, you know, slaughtered the dove or something to work out whether the entrails were favourable or not to delivering something like this, all of the signs are pointing good to fair.
Elected on the prospectus of changing how this country is governed. So what in your assessment went wrong?
Elected on the prospectus of changing how this country is governed. So what in your assessment went wrong?
10:02
10:02
10:03
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10:03
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
This is a controversial view from the government that that we might have moved on a little bit. No, but sorry to be flippant, because your question is a really important one and absolutely kind of correct. What what what happened both before and after the election of the government in 2024 that led to, you know, I think we would certainly say the mission is not succeeding in the way that they were intended to succeed. I mean, I'll in an attempt not to go on too long, and Hannah will have lots of views on this as well.
You know, there were a set of. Issues, problems, developments before the government came in in 2024. And I think, yes, it was a government that had 14 years to prepare, but it was also a you know, the previous parliament was a choppy parliament. The government had probably only really focused on preparing in the last two years or so before the election, possibly 18 months, even , even less. There's a set of questions around the sort of the amount of time that they had to prepare. There are a set of decisions over questions, over whether they had really boiled down the missions to the kind of objectives that they wanted to achieve, whether they'd aligned to the political and presentational aspects of the missions with a clear theory of change as to what they were going to apply to the machine.
There's then the, you know, the time and the political energy that the Prime Minister gave to the missions after coming into government. There's a question as to whether the civil service was fit for that, and I would argue that. And we can get into this in more detail, but that, as you heard from Darren Jones, there are questions about a civil service that had become too passive about how it would engage in government and so on. So anyway, I'm sure we'll dig into all of these things, but there were a set of set of conditions and decisions that were made that meant that missions did not get a grip on the system in a way that I think they could have done.
You know, there were a set of. Issues, problems, developments before the government came in in 2024. And I think, yes, it was a government that had 14 years to prepare, but it was also a you know, the previous parliament was a choppy parliament. The government had probably only really focused on preparing in the last two years or so before the election, possibly 18 months, even , even less. There's a set of questions around the sort of the amount of time that they had to prepare. There are a set of decisions over questions, over whether they had really boiled down the missions to the kind of objectives that they wanted to achieve, whether they'd aligned to the political and presentational aspects of the missions with a clear theory of change as to what they were going to apply to the machine.
There's then the, you know, the time and the political energy that the Prime Minister gave to the missions after coming into government. There's a question as to whether the civil service was fit for that, and I would argue that. And we can get into this in more detail, but that, as you heard from Darren Jones, there are questions about a civil service that had become too passive about how it would engage in government and so on. So anyway, I'm sure we'll dig into all of these things, but there were a set of set of conditions and decisions that were made that meant that missions did not get a grip on the system in a way that I think they could have done.
10:04
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Okay. Let's just put let's just pause and let me ask. I mean, everybody got terribly excited. And, you know, people were going round citing what the missions were in the same way that we all used to go around talking about the long term economic plan and so on and so forth. Permission, government. We might as well just have joined up government for mission boards. We might as well just have talked about cabinet subcommittees. In essence. Yeah. So to what extent were they? You know, the governmental version of a meringue, often beautifully crafted, but one tap of the spoon and it just crumbled to dust.
There's there's nothing substantial holding it all up. It's just air and froth.
There's there's nothing substantial holding it all up. It's just air and froth.
10:05
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10:05
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
I think what you're getting at, which I think we would agree, is a lot of the, the problem that sits underneath how missions worked is that you could say that you did have five missions and you had this plan for change and you had the milestones that sat underneath them. But what we thought the government hadn't really thought about and didn't get a grip on was how missions were meant to change the way that government worked, that underpinning bit of actually getting departments to join up with each other, getting departments to kind of break open those silos with the rest of civil society and with wider government.
Now, in theory, something like The plan for change, which was published in December, should have been one of the tools that was used to get to that point. So not only setting out kind of some of the milestones that support those missions, but using that to galvanise the whole of the system. I think in practice, those milestones that were set out in the plan for change under each mission didn't they were confused. It was a set of inputs and outputs and some outcomes, and they didn't consistently galvanise the system as a whole and instead often were quite, quite.
Now, in theory, something like The plan for change, which was published in December, should have been one of the tools that was used to get to that point. So not only setting out kind of some of the milestones that support those missions, but using that to galvanise the whole of the system. I think in practice, those milestones that were set out in the plan for change under each mission didn't they were confused. It was a set of inputs and outputs and some outcomes, and they didn't consistently galvanise the system as a whole and instead often were quite, quite.
10:06
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
System galvanise able. I mean, the crusty old cynics sitting in the ivory towers of Whitehall will probably go, do you know what? We've seen all this before. A new government comes in, they're wet behind the ears, but they're like an Irish red setter puppy running around the place, you know, very energetic and enthusiastic, barely house trained. We'll knock it out of them within six months, and then everything will go back to the status quo. So we just really have to sort of smile sweetly at meetings and go, yes, Minister, knowing full well that in six months time something will have happened and everybody will have forgotten the issue.
10:07
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
I think this is I come in, but I think I think the system is galvanised. I think there's a lot of work to do to improve the capability of the civil service. But I don't think we're in some fundamental you know, nothing can be done. Let's blow the thing up position. But I do think in order to galvanise the system, the kind of learned behaviour from both the political and the administrative side of, you know, endless rapid cycle of ministers, choppy governments, let's kind of, you know, put our pith helmets on and wait this one out because we're not sure if it's going to get purchased or not, has created an unhealthy culture in some parts of the system of let's sit it out and wait it out.
10:08
10:08
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
Well, I mean, I would say that the bits of the government machine are, you know, sort of effective on their own terms. But, you know, of course, if a minister comes in to the Treasury and says, and I'll use the Darren Jones example from last week and says, I want to do X, Y, and Z, the the machine, you know, responds in the moment. But once Darren Jones is gone, the water's closed. You know, the institutional culture of the Treasury is very strong. It's not entirely irrational. If you're in the Treasury and you think you can get a different political direction in 6 or 9 months time, not to take sort of irrevocable decisions that that go beyond that.
So I don't think it's as simple as saying, oh, you know, this department or that department or that bit of a department. But I do think I think the ten years since 2016 of political instability has created a set of incentives and responses in the civil service, where. The perception is that the right answer is to lean back rather than to lean in. And one of the things we argue is that the civil service now, and I am hopeful and optimistic that the current Cabinet Secretary gets this and, and, and is and is trying to address it.
But whether the Civil service absolutely under political direction and with ministers taking the policy decisions and setting direction, must do more to lean in to understanding and then executing what the government wants.
So I don't think it's as simple as saying, oh, you know, this department or that department or that bit of a department. But I do think I think the ten years since 2016 of political instability has created a set of incentives and responses in the civil service, where. The perception is that the right answer is to lean back rather than to lean in. And one of the things we argue is that the civil service now, and I am hopeful and optimistic that the current Cabinet Secretary gets this and, and, and is and is trying to address it.
But whether the Civil service absolutely under political direction and with ministers taking the policy decisions and setting direction, must do more to lean in to understanding and then executing what the government wants.
10:10
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
You final, quickest question to me, then I'll turn to Mr. Lamont. Do you have any sympathy with the thesis that I advanced last week with Darren Jones and have in in in other meetings as well, that the lack of depth of experience of managing stuff and delivering change in different environments other than government by a hell of a lot of ministers , actually means that they have no hinterland of experience of how to drive, monitor and deliver systemic and strategic change. And therefore there's a presumption that we have a civil service, which is Rolls-Royce. You give a one day instruction, you expect it to be done in six months time.
When you remind yourself to ask yourself the question, you're slightly amazed that nothing has happened since the day you had the initial meeting.
When you remind yourself to ask yourself the question, you're slightly amazed that nothing has happened since the day you had the initial meeting.
10:11
10:11
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Thank you. That's a very good answer. That's all. That's all I need on that. I've got the imprimatur of the IFG on my thesis, I will. I could die a happy man. My next question, and maybe Hannah, I might ask you this is we're all familiar with the phrase, my enemy's enemy is my friend. It's not in the Treasury's interest, you know, irrespective of who Chancellor Exchequer is , to have joined up mission led government because Treasury prospers and remains top of the tree by playing spending departments off against each other. Oh, you want 2%? But you know, education's asking for this or health's asking for that and they just want secretaries of state to argue amongst themselves, leaving the Treasury, sitting there sort of stroking a cat and Blofeld like sort of smiling sweetly or sinisterly.
That's the problem as well, isn't it? The mindset of the Treasury. The Treasury needs to be top dog and does anything to make sure that it is a mission. Government undermines that.
That's the problem as well, isn't it? The mindset of the Treasury. The Treasury needs to be top dog and does anything to make sure that it is a mission. Government undermines that.
10:12
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10:12
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
It's one of the reasons why mission that government didn't work, right. Because because lots of the money was allocated along departmental lines. You didn't get that follow up. I mean, I would say that the Treasury who are we talking about in the Treasury there? It should be in the interest of civil servants and Treasury to serve ministers and to find a way to do that. I think I'm sure we'll come on to that relationship and the ability of ministers to drive that system. I don't think it is the only way that you can run a system, and there are other ways to do it.
10:12
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
But according to Darwin, last week, it seemed to just run into the sand by saying, right, we've got a new way of doing this. Well, I'm sorry, Minister, you can't do it that way because there's somebody in each department who is accountable to Parliament for what they spend. And therefore we have to allocate to a department, not to an overarching mission. Oh, well, if that's what the system says, well, we can't do it then. Rather than saying, how do we change the system? Yeah.
10:13
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
So I think in that moment, you you have a few options. You can look at changing the system and as you say that that is something that Alex might have thoughts on this, but you could either say, well, we need to shift that system and change the accounting officer model. I think there was more that we could have done, or that the government could have done within the existing system to try and drive some of that joined up thinking around the spending review. So perhaps you say, of course we're going to keep this accounting officer model, but we're going to run a joint accountability system within government where we hold permanent secretaries to account to the Prime Minister, for example, or another board.
I don't think we saw the bounds of the existing system tested to the limit that it could have been. Yeah.
I don't think we saw the bounds of the existing system tested to the limit that it could have been. Yeah.
10:13
Peter Lamb
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Peter Lamb
It's not particular questions around finance. I mean, just start with the accountability point. I mean, you say there's more the government could do within the system. I'm sure that is the case. When you think about things like Covid, you know, there was a whole of government approach to that and people found a way to make it work. And similarly, in wartime scenarios, the impression that you get from the former DCL is that it was left to ministers to sit down and work out how that was going to happen. Wouldn't a functional civil service be one in which they came to you with the answers as to how to make things happen, rather than reasons why they couldn't happen?
10:14
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
I think that, again, the risk of being too black and white, yes, I, I was surprised reading Darren Jones's evidence last week. Not that there was a bit of sort of resistance and a bit of kind of grit in the system that, you know, when you when you're pushing against the conventional ways of doing things, but the sense that a sense of sort of collective passivity, if you like, and this is the way that it's that it's been done, you know, we know that there are problems and challenges with the accounting officer model. We know that if you come in and you say, we've got five missions and we want to achieve these collectively, as the chair said a moment ago, you know, for all that, you can make a case that there's a novelty about missions.
Joining up government is not a new thing. Certainly, I would argue I would argue from the perspective that there's a there is a strong case for looking at the way the accounting officer model works, not to undermine the accountability for the spend of money to Parliament, or to undermine the ability of the Treasury to kind of keep control of public spending. But if you're serious about a set of collective, cross-departmental actions that you want to take, then the main lever that you have to achieve those inside government is allocating the money. And to take this sort of and this is not any individual, but sort of collectively passive approach that says, we're not going to look at the fundamentals of how we allocate that money seem to me to be a missed opportunity.
And it's worth saying in this context, there is no you know, again, Mr. Jones said this last week. But, you know, we don't have a codified constitution that can change. The Constitution, can change and evolve. The conventions around the accounting officer, go back a very long way, go back to the 19th century, to Gladstone and to Parliament and the public accounts committees. Correct desire to keep track of money. But in the end, they just set out in managing public money the Treasury document that governs these things. And if you want to change the way that's done, and if you want to change the way money is allocated, and if you want to reorganize the accounting system, it's absolutely within the power of a determined government to do that.
Joining up government is not a new thing. Certainly, I would argue I would argue from the perspective that there's a there is a strong case for looking at the way the accounting officer model works, not to undermine the accountability for the spend of money to Parliament, or to undermine the ability of the Treasury to kind of keep control of public spending. But if you're serious about a set of collective, cross-departmental actions that you want to take, then the main lever that you have to achieve those inside government is allocating the money. And to take this sort of and this is not any individual, but sort of collectively passive approach that says, we're not going to look at the fundamentals of how we allocate that money seem to me to be a missed opportunity.
And it's worth saying in this context, there is no you know, again, Mr. Jones said this last week. But, you know, we don't have a codified constitution that can change. The Constitution, can change and evolve. The conventions around the accounting officer, go back a very long way, go back to the 19th century, to Gladstone and to Parliament and the public accounts committees. Correct desire to keep track of money. But in the end, they just set out in managing public money the Treasury document that governs these things. And if you want to change the way that's done, and if you want to change the way money is allocated, and if you want to reorganize the accounting system, it's absolutely within the power of a determined government to do that.
10:16
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
They wouldn't know that. But I mean, that partly comes back to the chair's point about experience. And but it also comes to a point if and I don't know, the conversations that Darren Jones was having with the then cabinet Secretary or anything else. But if it's the case that elected ministers were advocating for a particular approach and they were getting a computer says no answer from the civil service, then that's a real problem. And the civil service should be leaning in to providing the solution, the structural solutions to those questions, because that should be the civil services expertise.
10:17
Peter Lamb
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Peter Lamb
I mean, it certainly came across a quantum situation where if you're not actively observing people, then they're not doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing. But then I suppose no one has ever been fired for failing in a constitution in a conventional way. But you can absolutely lose your job for succeeding in an unconventional way. A lot of these systems, the the broader question around the finance is I recently met with with Treasury to talk about a sort of a whole of government change the way financial decisions are approached, which civil servants. That was an idea which ministers love as an idea which absolutely no one can find a way to implement.
And the reason for that was, was very much a departmental approach that people argue for spending for their department and within their department. And while you can make a lot of these things work within departments, no one can think of a way of making it work across departments to consider these broader issues. Are there any ideas as to how that might be done?
And the reason for that was, was very much a departmental approach that people argue for spending for their department and within their department. And while you can make a lot of these things work within departments, no one can think of a way of making it work across departments to consider these broader issues. Are there any ideas as to how that might be done?
10:18
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
I've often so, I mean, various things have been tried over the. You know, lots of times we've obviously, you know, we've had joint ministers, we've had joint units between departments. Those have always felt to me like sometimes effective but pretty limited sticking plasters on top of the whole of the system. One of the things, and I think, you know, to be frank, we've not done the work on it, but one of the things that you could think about is how do you have how do you align the accounting office model and the way that you allocate budgets to the priorities of the government, as stated in a much more fundamental way?
Do you have sort of super accounting officers, if you like , that, have the authority to fire money between departments in a different way and they have ultimate responsibility? I do think one of the failings of mission government in the Starmer administration was this enormous missed opportunity. Of the 2025 spending review, the way it felt at the time was you've done a very classic conventional departmental spending review with a little bit of missions sprinkled on the top. The Treasury did not start from that. And this comes down to the political, ultimately leadership of the Treasury to say, we are going to run this spending review in a very different way, where we are actually looking in a zero based way about the money that goes to missions and is allocated, you know, jointly to departments or, or with the authority to move across and between departments.
And that spending review would be very interesting to see what this government does with the next spending review. But that spending review for me was the sort of the moment the missions died. If you like.
Do you have sort of super accounting officers, if you like , that, have the authority to fire money between departments in a different way and they have ultimate responsibility? I do think one of the failings of mission government in the Starmer administration was this enormous missed opportunity. Of the 2025 spending review, the way it felt at the time was you've done a very classic conventional departmental spending review with a little bit of missions sprinkled on the top. The Treasury did not start from that. And this comes down to the political, ultimately leadership of the Treasury to say, we are going to run this spending review in a very different way, where we are actually looking in a zero based way about the money that goes to missions and is allocated, you know, jointly to departments or, or with the authority to move across and between departments.
And that spending review would be very interesting to see what this government does with the next spending review. But that spending review for me was the sort of the moment the missions died. If you like.
10:22
10:22
John Lamont
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John Lamont
Yes. Good morning. I just want to continue the theme from what Darren Jones said last week about he he was presented sometimes with the argument from civil servants that it wasn't a constitutional thing that he was asking to do. And similarly, when I was a minister, I certainly was told at least once it's against the law. What you're suggesting, Minister, you're both civil servants or formerly civil servants. Forgive me.
Is that something you've ever experienced in terms of a way to stop ministers or political masters achieving your nodding? Hannah.
Is that something you've ever experienced in terms of a way to stop ministers or political masters achieving your nodding? Hannah.
10:23
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
I think it's worth looking at. What is the intent underneath that? I'm sure. I'm sure you have a few bad actors in any system. I would say the majority of the time what I experienced and what I saw was not a here's a malign way to go about thwarting the intent of a minister, as Alex has sort of alluded to, a default back to the status quo, a bit of passivity, a bit of will protect the system. I was in the Cabinet Office from 2020 to 2025, which was a reasonably turbulent time to be in the Economic Affairs Secretariat.
And I think there was and we saw it across, I think, lots of the civil service at the time, a sense of wanting to protect some of the institutions and some of that, some of that status quo and understanding kind of what the limits of what the limits of what you might advise to ministers might be, I suppose what I'm what am I trying to say? That it's not that I think the case of using it actively to thwart feels rare. And from the work that we've done feels rare, I think the passivity problem, this leaning back, the saying, well, I'll wait until I get told exactly what I need to do is, is more of an issue.
And I think there was and we saw it across, I think, lots of the civil service at the time, a sense of wanting to protect some of the institutions and some of that, some of that status quo and understanding kind of what the limits of what the limits of what you might advise to ministers might be, I suppose what I'm what am I trying to say? That it's not that I think the case of using it actively to thwart feels rare. And from the work that we've done feels rare, I think the passivity problem, this leaning back, the saying, well, I'll wait until I get told exactly what I need to do is, is more of an issue.
10:25
John Lamont
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John Lamont
You suggest. It's an instinctive reaction. So it's not like the permanent secretary or the head of the private office, or some team leader or some directorate leaders saying, okay, we're team, we'll have to try and stop this, and this is what we're going to do. It's just you all instinctively decide to move ahead in the same direction.
10:26
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10:26
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Well, no, I was about to come on to this point that it's almost a lack of training in some senses, in that I would describe it as more of a culture. And we certainly hear ministers sometimes talk to us about something that feels a bit closer to a departmental view. This is how things are done in the department. I think what I would say is to not underestimate the impact that Brexit, Covid, the kind of structural workforce changes had on the majority of the civil service between 2016 to now. And that is a big kind of boom in numbers of civil servants.
At the same time that you've hollowed out lots of kind of formal learning and development, we saw big changes, kind of super boosting of, of careers, big bits of grade inflation. We've spoken about kind of jobs being advertised, half people being promoted earlier. It's it's brought some really positive things. So the ability to respond to crises quite quickly to navigate different structures. But it's also, I think, resulted in a hollowing out of this ability to think deeply and creatively about how you meet what a minister is after. I think that's where some of this starts to come in.
At the same time that you've hollowed out lots of kind of formal learning and development, we saw big changes, kind of super boosting of, of careers, big bits of grade inflation. We've spoken about kind of jobs being advertised, half people being promoted earlier. It's it's brought some really positive things. So the ability to respond to crises quite quickly to navigate different structures. But it's also, I think, resulted in a hollowing out of this ability to think deeply and creatively about how you meet what a minister is after. I think that's where some of this starts to come in.
10:28
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
And just really briefly, at its best, this, you know, it can be a constructive tension between the ambitious, energetic, time conscious minister who is agitating to go further, faster, and the civil servant who's, you know, incentives are to be a bit more cautious. So I think back to the work I did on constitutional policy and lots of legislation during the coalition government on constitutional policy, or on some of the animal health and animal welfare issues that I worked on. Yes, I would tend to be the official in the room saying, I think it's going to take us two months to do this.
And the minister saying that's not acceptable. It needs to be you know, I want to introduce this Parliament in in three weeks and not entirely universally, but almost universally. My experience was that that this was, you know, pre 20 18, 19 was a constructive and positive dialogue where actually we broadly ended up in the right place, which we were, you know, we were two notches above where the civil service was comfortable, but we weren't doing things that were reckless or, or set up to, to fail. One of the difficult things of the last few years, although, you know, it's easy to say now observing from the outside is that kind of relationship of trust.
And we've done quite a lot of work on the trust. Relationship between ministers and civil servants has broken down into two tribes where they're kind of lobbing rocks at each other. And that's what feels like an unconstructive sort of, you're blocking me and I'm trying to push. And it this, this meeting, it hasn't been happening as much.
And the minister saying that's not acceptable. It needs to be you know, I want to introduce this Parliament in in three weeks and not entirely universally, but almost universally. My experience was that that this was, you know, pre 20 18, 19 was a constructive and positive dialogue where actually we broadly ended up in the right place, which we were, you know, we were two notches above where the civil service was comfortable, but we weren't doing things that were reckless or, or set up to, to fail. One of the difficult things of the last few years, although, you know, it's easy to say now observing from the outside is that kind of relationship of trust.
And we've done quite a lot of work on the trust. Relationship between ministers and civil servants has broken down into two tribes where they're kind of lobbing rocks at each other. And that's what feels like an unconstructive sort of, you're blocking me and I'm trying to push. And it this, this meeting, it hasn't been happening as much.
10:31
John Lamont
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John Lamont
I hadn't really intended to go down this line of discussion, but thinking about the opinion polls just now or not just now, maybe a year ago, some of them suggested there might be some quite radical change in terms of the outcome of the next election. Thankfully, the polls have moved on a little bit from there. But how do you think the civil service would have reacted to that type of dramatic overhaul in terms of who's who's in government compared to a brand new party for, for example, entering government with all sorts of radical ideas? Given what you've described and what we've heard from Darren, how would the civil servants, civil servants, react to that type of scenario?
Would they go back into their instincts and try and stop some of the radical change that's been proposed?
Would they go back into their instincts and try and stop some of the radical change that's been proposed?
10:32
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
You would expect and rightly expect civil servants to serve the government of the day. I think the and and that that is a reasonable expectation that we should hold. I suppose the question that it comes back to me kind of regardless of whether it is a very radical government in the way that you describe or one that isn't, is do you have a civil service that has the the capability and the culture of really trying to think themselves into the way that ministers are trying to approach problems, regardless of kind of what that what that reform programme looks like.
And I would argue that at the moment we don't have that because we've hollowed out that capability and that culture, and it's not what we are consistently rewarding within the civil service.
And I would argue that at the moment we don't have that because we've hollowed out that capability and that culture, and it's not what we are consistently rewarding within the civil service.
10:34
10:34
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
In some ways, I think to clear in that I think once the milestones were published and it took five months for those milestones to be published, I think those were the things that lots of government kind of geared around. And because those in many cases were very kind of solely departmentally focused, you didn't get that big galvanizing of the system that the chair was referring to. Thank you.
10:35
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10:37
Charlotte Cane
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Charlotte Cane
Returning briefly to the financial discussions, there is a concept you may have come across beyond budgeting , and that has peers debating how money should should be used. Do you think that might be an interesting concept to try with heads of department effectively working together to deliver the missions?
10:38
10:38
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
Yes, I think I mean, I think the I suppose it comes back to what I was talking about with Mr. Lamb, the. I think there are a lot of techniques and, you know, organizing principles or interventions that the civil service and the governments can do to take better decisions and to, to kick the tires on, on, on, on decisions and to kind of, you know, gather the best possible knowledge and insight from across the system. And government isn't always very good at that. As the chair said, you know, when I joined, when I first started in the civil service, it was all about jug, which was joined up government.
And that has kind of evolved. And, you know, some of the some of the aspirations there are, you know, have just gone on throughout the last 25 years. I guess my sort of caution around interventions like that is not that there's anything wrong with them, and that the civil service should always be striving to do the best. But do they really tackle the underlying incentives that are the obstacles to some of the things that you're trying to achieve? If you're really trying to drive change or, you know, on a complicated, wicked problem that touches on lots of different government departments, and where I always come back to is permanent secretaries, finance directors and departments are not are not stupid people, and they're not normally ineffective people.
They are responding to the incentives that they're set. And the Treasury, too, is responding to the incentives under which it's operating. So unless a government, politicians and officials have the ambition to really tackle and get to grips with some of these fundamental things, will, will continue talking about the same sorts of, you know, sort of mid tier interventions that might help but not be transformative.
And that has kind of evolved. And, you know, some of the some of the aspirations there are, you know, have just gone on throughout the last 25 years. I guess my sort of caution around interventions like that is not that there's anything wrong with them, and that the civil service should always be striving to do the best. But do they really tackle the underlying incentives that are the obstacles to some of the things that you're trying to achieve? If you're really trying to drive change or, you know, on a complicated, wicked problem that touches on lots of different government departments, and where I always come back to is permanent secretaries, finance directors and departments are not are not stupid people, and they're not normally ineffective people.
They are responding to the incentives that they're set. And the Treasury, too, is responding to the incentives under which it's operating. So unless a government, politicians and officials have the ambition to really tackle and get to grips with some of these fundamental things, will, will continue talking about the same sorts of, you know, sort of mid tier interventions that might help but not be transformative.
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10:43
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
The long term thing? I mean, some of it, though, this is a cop out from the sort of structural point of view is a government with a clear agenda. Ministers who are know how to execute that agenda and are in their jobs for long enough to keep the pressure up. So that's the the sort of insofar as there's a silver bullet in the current system and set up the, you know, it's consistency of ministerial application and the ability to hold the civil service to account. I think there's a really interesting question about whether there are structural or institutional changes that you can make or legislative changes that you can make to sort of incentivize the long term, incentivize long term policy.
And I think in recent years, we've seen both the pros and the cons of that. So, for example, the Theresa May government legislating for net zero target was a, you know, a powerful example of a long term intervention that subject to the short of the legislation being changed, you know, incentivized and created the requirement to take decisions based on the long term. But equally, and you will all know this better than I do . As politicians, you need to constantly sort of relegitimize the, the politics of, of those long term goals. So I'm slightly personally, I'm slightly cautious while, you know, from a sort of tidy minded bureaucrats point of view, it's quite nice to say, let's have these long term institutions that are setting objectives that the government then sort of has to work to, unless through each sort of cycle, the that long term objective is really legitimized through the political system and through this place.
In the end, it will fray and create, you know, unhappiness and resentment, and the policy won't stick. So I guess it's another way. Sorry, I'm waffling a bit now, but the the sort of elixir of aligning long term administrative application with , with, with politics and political skill feels like the only real kind of fundamental solution to, to, to achieving things over the long term.
And I think in recent years, we've seen both the pros and the cons of that. So, for example, the Theresa May government legislating for net zero target was a, you know, a powerful example of a long term intervention that subject to the short of the legislation being changed, you know, incentivized and created the requirement to take decisions based on the long term. But equally, and you will all know this better than I do . As politicians, you need to constantly sort of relegitimize the, the politics of, of those long term goals. So I'm slightly personally, I'm slightly cautious while, you know, from a sort of tidy minded bureaucrats point of view, it's quite nice to say, let's have these long term institutions that are setting objectives that the government then sort of has to work to, unless through each sort of cycle, the that long term objective is really legitimized through the political system and through this place.
In the end, it will fray and create, you know, unhappiness and resentment, and the policy won't stick. So I guess it's another way. Sorry, I'm waffling a bit now, but the the sort of elixir of aligning long term administrative application with , with, with politics and political skill feels like the only real kind of fundamental solution to, to, to achieving things over the long term.
10:48
Charlotte Cane
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Charlotte Cane
So the Prime Minister has control pending outside issues, has control over how long a minister stays in post so the Prime Minister can solve the short the rapid turnaround of ministers relatively easily. But is there a place for some sort of training for ministers or for all politicians? Because who knows who's going to be a minister next? To make sure that that they have those skills? Because the politicians who come in have a whole range of skills, but we don't all necessarily have the skills to lead teams to get things done. So should there be training in place?
10:49
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
Yes. Another firm? Yes. And it goes to my rapid agreement to the chair's point about the skills and support for ministers. I mean, we we do our bit at the Ifg. We've got a part of the organisation called the Ifg Academy, which is always available to any minister, politician, select committee that wants to talk to us or for us to convene useful and interesting people to talk to them. I saw that Darren Jones talked about the kind of lack of support for ministers, special advisers, as well as civil servants, and there are different interventions that you'd need.
But I think it's yeah, it's a fundamental it's one of our fundamental objectives at the Ifg is to kind of be available and present to help support ministers. I also think there's a.
But I think it's yeah, it's a fundamental it's one of our fundamental objectives at the Ifg is to kind of be available and present to help support ministers. I also think there's a.
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10:51
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
Well and and, and wannabe ministers, if you like the pipeline and and shadow spokespeople and and so on. So we see that as a core part of our mission to do that. But also, I think and it goes slightly against, I think what Mr.. Was saying is that the Civil Service needs to. Both in its kind of active day to day work with ministers and structurally, whether it's through a branch of the National School for government or whatever to be able to support ministers. I do think there's something this is my reflection on the work that we do with ministers from outside the civil service versus when I worked inside.
There's something a bit odd if you're a serving civil servant telling a minister how to do their job, there's kind of a sort of it feels a bit uncomfortable because you're there to serve. Sometimes it is easier for outside organisations, whether it's us or anybody else, to kind of just have that conversation because there's a bit less institutional pressure on it.
There's something a bit odd if you're a serving civil servant telling a minister how to do their job, there's kind of a sort of it feels a bit uncomfortable because you're there to serve. Sometimes it is easier for outside organisations, whether it's us or anybody else, to kind of just have that conversation because there's a bit less institutional pressure on it.
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Charlotte Cane
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Charlotte Cane
I guess the problem is if it's not, if it's not sort of built into the system as an expectation, then who's going to encourage you to do it? If it's not someone you're working with closely who perhaps tactfully says, Minister, have you considered so? Should should there just be some sort of program that is in place that people do?
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Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
And I think, you know, there is no monopoly of wisdom, whether it's the civil service ministers think tanks around how to succeed in government. So some of that is kind of sharing the basics. And how do you work with your private office? How do you get the most out of your diary or, you know, things that some people will be instinctively or because of experience excellent at and some people might find more challenging. But there's also a kind of convening, you know, how do we kind of wrestle our way through shared difficult problems? I think one of the reflections I would have on the work that we did before the 2024 election was , did we sort of elevate that work beyond the kind of nuts and bolts of how to how to do government and how to do the civil service, to not not say to an opposition party, you should have this set of policies, but to say, if you don't have this set of, you know, if you don't have a really clear set of objectives, then it will not work.
And you can't always develop those kind of on the fly in government. You need to know what you're about beforehand. So kind of creating the conditions to have those conversations as well as the sort of how do you work with your permanent secretary? How do you do with your private office to have conversation?
And you can't always develop those kind of on the fly in government. You need to know what you're about beforehand. So kind of creating the conditions to have those conversations as well as the sort of how do you work with your permanent secretary? How do you do with your private office to have conversation?
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
I also hope that I think she is. I think the future Civil Service programme is starting to to grapple with some of these things that. And I suppose I would I would put that in a broad bucket of like, are you giving your civil servants agency over their work? And I think that comes with a flip side of accountability. But I think there has been a real a real lack of agency that has felt by individual civil servants and that that manifests itself in kind of structural things. Can you move up a pay band? Can you get promotion within your team?
Are you rewarded for kind of building expertise? But also, can you to the point that Alex was making about trust, can you have a direct conversation with the minister? Do you feel empowered to do some of that? I think that's really been hollowed out out of a lot of the civil service, and I think that speaks a bit to this impartiality point. Can you navigate that politics better?
Are you rewarded for kind of building expertise? But also, can you to the point that Alex was making about trust, can you have a direct conversation with the minister? Do you feel empowered to do some of that? I think that's really been hollowed out out of a lot of the civil service, and I think that speaks a bit to this impartiality point. Can you navigate that politics better?
10:58
Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
And can I briefly sorry, I had one point on impartiality because it's a mild obsession, which is impartiality is not I mean, there's nothing inherently good about impartiality. It's not there for its own sake. It's not impartiality is not this sort of wonderful, shiny thing. We must protect at all costs. The whole point of the importance of impartiality in the civil service is the civil service is permanent. That's where it came from. It came from the. If you want to go back into the deep history, the Northcote-trevelyan settlement and the fact that that, you know, concluded that a permanent civil service was the best way to an expert civil service in a capable civil service.
And if you want a permanent civil service, that permanent civil service needs to be able to serve governments of different political flavors. And so, to your point, chair, about the kind of indifference to outcome, I think it's much healthier to think about the civil service as being permanent and therefore needing to relegitimize itself for each generation of politicians and be extremely. I'm trying to think the opposite of indifferent, but extremely focused on achieving the outcomes of that government, because that is the best way to ensure its legitimacy and impartiality can sort of metastasize into this thing that that that turns into passivity or turns into a kind of reluctance or resistance to do something.
And I think it's really important to kind of reconceive of impartiality is about about enthusiastic delivery for government based on the model of a permanent
And if you want a permanent civil service, that permanent civil service needs to be able to serve governments of different political flavors. And so, to your point, chair, about the kind of indifference to outcome, I think it's much healthier to think about the civil service as being permanent and therefore needing to relegitimize itself for each generation of politicians and be extremely. I'm trying to think the opposite of indifferent, but extremely focused on achieving the outcomes of that government, because that is the best way to ensure its legitimacy and impartiality can sort of metastasize into this thing that that that turns into passivity or turns into a kind of reluctance or resistance to do something.
And I think it's really important to kind of reconceive of impartiality is about about enthusiastic delivery for government based on the model of a permanent
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Non-partisanship duties to the government of the day. Yeah. But I think I think it's I think I think I think there's something really interesting and sorry you come in, but the it comes back to the sort of cycle of. governments over the last decade or so, where I think there was a sense that before.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
And particularly in the Johnson administration, to kind of call that out, there was a there was a sense of kind of playing fast and loose with the the constitutional conventions and the rules and the norms and the rule of law at points. And the civil service felt very, very. uncomfortable at that and saw the signal that was being sent out from the Johnson and Cummings. activity was something that the civil service was very uncomfortable. I think both.
ministers and civil servants. overcorrected for that after.
ministers and civil servants. overcorrected for that after.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Where there was this sense of, well, okay, you know, let's restore the status quo previously. And it led to, as we saw from Darren Jones last week, a nervousness about kind of authoritatively and strongly challenging some of the advice that he was getting and arguably an over caution in the civil service about, about sort of how. unchangeable some of the constitutional conventions or other rules are. And so those things have come together. And I think we're kind of now overdue a correction not to suddenly start discarding constitutional conventions or other things that have served as well, but to kind of test .
11:05
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And challenge within the system about whether this stuff really works or not. I mean, not to go too far down this road, but it touches on other work that he's been doing. And John's point before about parties that might want to come up and sort of turn everything on its head. Is there a higher duty of civil service .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Of the day? I keep talking to you. So high duty. Civil service must be impartial or must be permanent, right. And must, must find a way to serve the government of the day. I suppose that exists within the kind of either constitutional or the limits that this that this place sets upon that. And that we exist in kind of a wider democracy is not where the executive does not have kind of full power over everything. You would put that in your in your kind of broader system of democracy. But I, I suppose. I worry that this argument takes us.
into a space that is the becomes quite an easy way to bash civil servants, I think, and the sense of what I would try and get at a little bit more, perhaps, is this idea of that we were talking about kind of studied neutrality because of fear of appearing impartial. For me, this becomes another way to kind of to find a way to throw civil servants under the bus on some things. And I think that's part of the problem that we had, as Alex was talking about part of that kind of studied neutrality, this.
into a space that is the becomes quite an easy way to bash civil servants, I think, and the sense of what I would try and get at a little bit more, perhaps, is this idea of that we were talking about kind of studied neutrality because of fear of appearing impartial. For me, this becomes another way to kind of to find a way to throw civil servants under the bus on some things. And I think that's part of the problem that we had, as Alex was talking about part of that kind of studied neutrality, this.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Was over the past ten years because of being scared of being told, well, you're against us. Yeah, but I think there's a difference between not being able to set up a dashboard in Excel and the cabinet secretary being ordered to instruct the Army to storm Parliament. And the concern, which I think I and other members of the committee have developed increasingly, is that there are insufficient. safeguards for that latter scenario, even .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
The cabinet secretary is just wouldn't accept the premise of the question. Yeah, yeah. I think the the way the debate often manifests itself is does the civil service have a sort of stewardship obligation? And I think over and above the government of the day. And I think. beyond the rule, you know, the law, it's quite difficult to define what that stewardship function is. You know, when you when you want a civil service that is under the control and authority of ministers and the elected government of the day, where does the stewardship function kick in? Does it lead to what Darren Jones was describing, which is a sort of ossification of constitutional conventions, when actually it's within it's perfectly legitimate for an elected government to say, we want to evolve and change those those.
conventions where I think and we've written a lot about this, where I think there should be a. clearer sort of exposition of this sort of stuff is on what the. responsibilities of civil servants are. So I think I think we could be much clearer about what the, you know, the. underpinning tenets of what a permanent, impartial civil service look like. And we could entrench those more in the law than we do around, you know, building on the Constitutional Reform Governance Act in 2010. And, and, and we could expand that out. But at the same time, I think we can and should be much.
clearer on what the. responsibility of civil servants is to maintain the capability of the machine. So I think where the accountability of civil servants becomes quite fluid, is who is. responsible for the performance of that machine, and when, when should the Cabinet Secretary be being held to account or be holding permanent secretaries to account for a machine that is not performing well? And we've never really I've tried to do it in reports I've written for the RFU. We've never really defined the sphere of what the civil service. capability is, and I think to do that would help the minister who who is frustrated that the dashboards aren't kind of coming good, but would also then kind of leave a clearer space, if you like, for that debate in Parliament, ultimately about what the safeguards .
conventions where I think and we've written a lot about this, where I think there should be a. clearer sort of exposition of this sort of stuff is on what the. responsibilities of civil servants are. So I think I think we could be much clearer about what the, you know, the. underpinning tenets of what a permanent, impartial civil service look like. And we could entrench those more in the law than we do around, you know, building on the Constitutional Reform Governance Act in 2010. And, and, and we could expand that out. But at the same time, I think we can and should be much.
clearer on what the. responsibility of civil servants is to maintain the capability of the machine. So I think where the accountability of civil servants becomes quite fluid, is who is. responsible for the performance of that machine, and when, when should the Cabinet Secretary be being held to account or be holding permanent secretaries to account for a machine that is not performing well? And we've never really I've tried to do it in reports I've written for the RFU. We've never really defined the sphere of what the civil service. capability is, and I think to do that would help the minister who who is frustrated that the dashboards aren't kind of coming good, but would also then kind of leave a clearer space, if you like, for that debate in Parliament, ultimately about what the safeguards .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
As well outside of the cabinet manual, which of course is within the control of prime ministers themselves. What do you think? The cabinet manual should be updated? And there's work, as I understand it, going on to to do that. But I mean, the parts of the Constitution aren't the law. It's mostly written down, which is why the geeks would say it's uncodified rather than unwritten. But but the Constitution does evolve and, and change. And I would say the critical thing is that you're having the right debate and discussion around that evolution and change, and you're not doing it kind of in a blow the place up willy nilly sort of way.
But I do think there is, yeah, there is value in being clear about what the. underpinning aspects of Constitution are. But I would worry that you then you get into this kind of ossified. unchanging situation that we've seen, you know, you see some of the problems with a .
But I do think there is, yeah, there is value in being clear about what the. underpinning aspects of Constitution are. But I would worry that you then you get into this kind of ossified. unchanging situation that we've seen, you know, you see some of the problems with a .
11:17
Peter Lamb
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Peter Lamb
Constitution that's impossible to change in the in the US. And so we need a means of evolving that. I think that's probably what the conversation. I would say that, you know, I think the fact that the Constitution, the Constitution is the law. And that was exemplified by the fact that when we had the Supreme Court essentially overturn the decision of the Prime Minister to prorogue, Parliament indicated that the constitutional principles that sit above anything that's written down and that's accepted by the legal system. Turning back to the question of the day, fascinating. Is that what's interesting?
Thank you. You know, as it's been touched on various questions so far, one of the main challenges for government in trying to institute mission led government is about the. structure of that government. Do you think that the government managed to establish an institutional framework for delivery of those missions? I think we're leading towards no, really, but. And .
Thank you. You know, as it's been touched on various questions so far, one of the main challenges for government in trying to institute mission led government is about the. structure of that government. Do you think that the government managed to establish an institutional framework for delivery of those missions? I think we're leading towards no, really, but. And .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Institutions in the failure to deliver on those missions. I mean, I think it's it's at the core of the failure to deliver missions is this lack of institutional framework. I think there's lots of different ways you can think about it. But I suppose to answer the first part of your question, I think they got. They're all somewhere. approximating closer to their in the end. So, so sort of the, the structures that existed around missions got better as time went on, but took far too long. So. So what am I saying about that? I'm saying that I mean, you had mission boards for me.
Those were always quite unclear what the purpose and the value of those were. They could have been a handful of things. Either they were big blue sky thinking to crowd in lots of different ideas because you're testing out different ways to do missions. I'm not convinced they were open enough to do that, and actually had a different type of board that served that type of purpose much better. So it doesn't look like it was there or their accountability.
Those were always quite unclear what the purpose and the value of those were. They could have been a handful of things. Either they were big blue sky thinking to crowd in lots of different ideas because you're testing out different ways to do missions. I'm not convinced they were open enough to do that, and actually had a different type of board that served that type of purpose much better. So it doesn't look like it was there or their accountability.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Which is, you know, I, as the Secretary of State for Energy Security net zero, going to everyone else around the table, I'm going to make sure we're all delivering on my bit of the mission. You don't really have the authority across government to be able to do that as the Secretary of State, and you sort of would have needed a better broker, ideally the Prime Minister or perhaps PDL kind of in that space. So I don't think they were necessarily working as accountability mechanisms. And if they were trying to do that, they were overlapping with your mission delivery unit, or they were doing policy decisions, in which case you've got something that's quite confused with the cabinet committee system that existed alongside that.
So I think there was there was a real lack of clarity about what was a mission board for and what was it doing. I think you then. So that kind of galvanising structure didn't wasn't clear. You didn't have a single place at the centre, I think, where trade offs between missions were being discussed. You didn't have a spending review, as we've discussed, that actually kind of changed the institutional framework about how money was allocated to different people. And then I would say that things got . better and kind of. September to November 2025. So at the point where you then had Mr.
Jones appointed as Chief Secretary to Prime Minister, the mission delivery unit got. re-established from Cabinet Office, kind of into this number ten Cabinet Office. But but and that kind of started to bed things in. You had a single figure at the centre who might have been able to kind of hold a bit of that accountability and do some of those trade offs just was never given the time to kind of bed in the other bits, I would say, on kind of institutional.
So I think there was there was a real lack of clarity about what was a mission board for and what was it doing. I think you then. So that kind of galvanising structure didn't wasn't clear. You didn't have a single place at the centre, I think, where trade offs between missions were being discussed. You didn't have a spending review, as we've discussed, that actually kind of changed the institutional framework about how money was allocated to different people. And then I would say that things got . better and kind of. September to November 2025. So at the point where you then had Mr.
Jones appointed as Chief Secretary to Prime Minister, the mission delivery unit got. re-established from Cabinet Office, kind of into this number ten Cabinet Office. But but and that kind of started to bed things in. You had a single figure at the centre who might have been able to kind of hold a bit of that accountability and do some of those trade offs just was never given the time to kind of bed in the other bits, I would say, on kind of institutional.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Of how you were going to change the state and the civil service specifically, and plans that sat underneath that. So I think we saw. increasing numbers of productive and agile state AI enabled state places for growth will put civil servants out in the country more. secondments all sort of badged as, oh, this is missions. This is a how of missions. I don't think that was a that was a clear set of .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Necessary for delivery on those missions. So I think, again, I would split it in those two things. I think. clarity over we talked about spending. So kind of some of those spending changes, clarity over how. departments were being held to account. So is that through mission boards is that through stock takes is that through a delivery unit? How is that working? And, and a central way to do those trade offs between missions? I don't think we had any of those in place. And then a clear plan for how do you change the culture and capability within the civil service to enable this type of much more open working?
I think we saw some good things in bits of the Tesla and Grow program that's at the Cabinet Office. That started to move to a .
I think we saw some good things in bits of the Tesla and Grow program that's at the Cabinet Office. That started to move to a .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Bit more of that way of working in some places, but it's really very small at the moment. One micro thing, sorry to jump in, but but a really important thing is that I think the government made a very bad mistake in putting secretaries of state in charge of their own mission boards. And you needed, you know, so I'm, I'm sort of with Michael Gove on this model, which is where you need a powerful authority to minister in the centre. That would have been Darren Jones after he was appointed to chair those boards to hold departmental secretaries of state to account.
And I think I think the sort of the effectiveness of the boards was undermined right from the very start, when it .
And I think I think the sort of the effectiveness of the boards was undermined right from the very start, when it .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
They wanted to use them for, and they weren't taken seriously as a result, and that you had the wrong governance structure because you had the secretaries of state chairing those mission boards, and that sat in a wider institutional architecture where you didn't have the drive from the centre and the clarity about what was happening. And sorry to add one more, but we talked about the plan for change earlier, kind of having those.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Central government to coordinate across departmental activity at present? So, I mean, the glib line I've used before and we'll use again is the UK is a highly centralised country with a pretty rubbish centre. So the. As Hannah said, the appointment of Darren Jones was a good sign. I am trying to be optimistic about what the Burnham government now is doing around the office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Whatever you badge it, the.
centre needs to be smaller and not accruing all these different extra.
centre needs to be smaller and not accruing all these different extra.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Not in intervening in everything under the sun, but in setting direction and setting and setting. priorities and giving a very clear signal to the whole system about what it expects. And I think one of the challenges it runs through quite a lot of the the conversation we've had around missions is there wasn't that kind of crystal clear clarity and. prioritisation around a set of a set of objectives. And we have there are questions you can obviously raise about the kind of political leadership and vision of any, any government. But we've evolved this. The system where you've got a small number ten that bends itself sort of around the Prime Minister's style and and will, you've got a bloated and overlarge Cabinet Office that either duplicates or is kind of.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
The whole of how central government works is long overdue. Yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't lose the things that were that were brilliant. You know, the best people in the civil service are often found in the centre. The, you know, the nature of the number ten private office, for example, is, is good and effective. So I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't just scrap the whole thing. But one of the reasons I came around actually, you know, with some reluctance, because Cabinet Office was a big part of my career and I was Jeremy Heywood principal private secretary.
And that was, you know, a kind of formative thing of me. But I did come around to the kind of, you know, the Cabinet Office point of view, because it's become dysfunctional. And I think it needs that symbolic cultural change to say, no, actually, this is a this is a whole new thing that we're working with now, which is, again, let's see, it's early days with the new office of Prime Minister and Cabinet, but I do think they need to move faster than they currently are .
And that was, you know, a kind of formative thing of me. But I did come around to the kind of, you know, the Cabinet Office point of view, because it's become dysfunctional. And I think it needs that symbolic cultural change to say, no, actually, this is a this is a whole new thing that we're working with now, which is, again, let's see, it's early days with the new office of Prime Minister and Cabinet, but I do think they need to move faster than they currently are .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
And I think it's interesting how how much the Cabinet Office lost its authority, I think, during that time, and I'm talking about the. Secretariat in particular. I think, as Alex said, you've got you're either duplicating what number ten is doing or you start to be sidelined by them. And this isn't a commentary at all on the quality of people in the Cabinet Office. It's kind of more about the institutional structures and the incentives that people were under. And so as you had different prime ministers in number ten, during that time, the system ran very hot, and you got number ten running the Cabinet Office very hot, and you got the Cabinet Office running departments very hot.
And that was often standing up processes. What are the trackers that we can get on this on that part of that of course, inevitable during Covid, but there was a real, real move to that being the default way of working. The Cabinet Office will pull in information from departments. We'll email you out on a Friday afternoon. We'll want it back by Friday. And then actually, it's not quite clear what happens with that because of the the amount of. I don't necessarily want to say short termism, but kind of responding to immediate pressures from number ten, you're lacking that kind of long term, long term vision.
But what you're also getting is departments that no longer trust the centre is doing something that is in favour of the whole of government. And I think this also speaks to this point about needing to needing to reset that culture in the Cabinet Office and how departments engage with the Cabinet Office as well. And I think it is indicative of what we see in other bits of the civil service as well, which has been driven a bit from the centre, which is.
And that was often standing up processes. What are the trackers that we can get on this on that part of that of course, inevitable during Covid, but there was a real, real move to that being the default way of working. The Cabinet Office will pull in information from departments. We'll email you out on a Friday afternoon. We'll want it back by Friday. And then actually, it's not quite clear what happens with that because of the the amount of. I don't necessarily want to say short termism, but kind of responding to immediate pressures from number ten, you're lacking that kind of long term, long term vision.
But what you're also getting is departments that no longer trust the centre is doing something that is in favour of the whole of government. And I think this also speaks to this point about needing to needing to reset that culture in the Cabinet Office and how departments engage with the Cabinet Office as well. And I think it is indicative of what we see in other bits of the civil service as well, which has been driven a bit from the centre, which is.
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Peter Lamb
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Peter Lamb
Yeah. And more capability and incentives to do that. One more question for me. And it's not directly aligned to the questions so far, but just do we think that the missions might have been more successful if they'd been developed in government with civil servants and therefore had wide institutional buy in compared to being delivered outside with not not an insignificant .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
View to electioneering? I'm not I'm not convinced that would be the case. I might have different views. I suppose my view on it is that you had the government had five months with the civil service. So they came in with these kind of five headlines. They had those five months to put out the plan for change, and that was with the support of the civil service. And what I didn't see during that time, if you look at the plan for change of the document, is something that has a clear theory of change that aligns .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
With the idea of missions. And so I don't think the evidence points in that direction for me. And I'd say the more the more fundamental question is, were the missions a communications tool or were they a tool to an organizing tool for government? And they became both, which meant, you know, perhaps crudely, they were sort of neither. And so I think if you had, you know, if you had Mariana Mazzucato here, the kind of person who. Promulgated the concept of mission, she would say the government, whether in opposition or once they were in never really properly kind of embedded that original concept of missions, which was as a way of tackling the kind of the wicked.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Problems that we kind of increasingly see in in a complex modern society. And so she would say, and I'll probably get the terminology wrong for her to present her views, but there's a concept of a grand challenge, like the really big thing that you want to do. And actually the missions are the means by which you do that. And so in that sense, the, the political vision and direction is set at the, you know, at the grand challenge level, the kind of societal level and the missions are the set of kind of more complex interventions that you make beneath that.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
You know, maybe I'm talking myself around to saying, yes, actually, you should have treated the missions more as a kind of bureaucratic. organizing process in, in government, whether they were kind of I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with coming up with that model in opposition and then refining it with the civil service in the first few months. Once you're in government, which is sort of what happened in theory. But I think it's more the fact that the decisions that were then .
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Sam Carling
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Sam Carling
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I found this a very interesting discussion. As someone that was in the room when the missions were launched. Seeing that have also come full circle is certainly a unique experience. I'd like to ask a bit about the funding side of things, and it may well be that your answers are quite similar to some of the questions Peter's just asked. But how well do you think the missions were .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Not not particularly. Right. Not not not very. It's probably the simple answer. And I know that Mr. Jones gave evidence last week about how kind of mission boards were asked to, to produce kind of shared, shared bids into the spending review, for example. I suppose it was very hard to see any evidence from the outside or from from lots of people that we spoke to at the time that this was anything .
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Sam Carling
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Sam Carling
Anything other than a fairly standard spending review. Sure. And I suppose there was a lot of talk around the sort of missions being horizontal accountable there, being horizontal accountability for missions across government, which is what used to work in very vertical ways. How would you have expected or. wanted in order to make missions succeed? The those current sort of vertical accountability. mechanisms to change, to take account of .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
I would I don't I don't necessarily have a good answer for that, but I would expect some slightly more creative bit of governance to sit around that. So whether that was, do you use your mission board to try and generate a bit of that horizontal accountability? Do you do that through spending? Do you do it through something like a mission delivery unit stocktake? I think some of the problem around that was that it became quite focused on .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Questions across the mission. There's a sort of goes to what Hannah was saying earlier about what you can do within the current system and what you need to change the system to achieve. So within the current system, you go back to the early Blair government, for example, the social exclusion unit actually had some quite big, big budgets attached to it and big numbers attached to it that could be used to tackle these kind of. cross-cutting problems. So, you know, I would have, you know, you would need to look at the different missions, the different priorities, come up with the right funding and responsibility arrangements for each, given that they were quite different things in some respects, and some of them were more cross-cutting than others.
But, you know, could you have. created a unit in the centre to, you know, much like the social exclusion and related stuff in the early noughties, really look at the safer streets and related aspects of that kind of that. mission and become a sort of relentless. champion with money. attached for addressing those those issues and with the authority from the Prime Minister to make life difficult for secretaries of state. If they weren't if they weren't playing ball. And so there absolutely were a set of things that you could have done in the early days of the government that sort of operate within the grain, if you like.
And some of those were done. I do think the net zero designates structure. Maybe perhaps because the governance was more naturally contained within Disney's got more purchase on the system. But also, I think, again, not wanting to be too sort of personal about it, but Ed Miliband had done more thinking about the structure of government based on his experience and how he wanted to use that system to, you know, structure. He wanted to create and then apply inside government to to get that mission going. But then you come back and I won't repeat it to the set of more fundamental, you know, quote unquote constitutional questions around .
But, you know, could you have. created a unit in the centre to, you know, much like the social exclusion and related stuff in the early noughties, really look at the safer streets and related aspects of that kind of that. mission and become a sort of relentless. champion with money. attached for addressing those those issues and with the authority from the Prime Minister to make life difficult for secretaries of state. If they weren't if they weren't playing ball. And so there absolutely were a set of things that you could have done in the early days of the government that sort of operate within the grain, if you like.
And some of those were done. I do think the net zero designates structure. Maybe perhaps because the governance was more naturally contained within Disney's got more purchase on the system. But also, I think, again, not wanting to be too sort of personal about it, but Ed Miliband had done more thinking about the structure of government based on his experience and how he wanted to use that system to, you know, structure. He wanted to create and then apply inside government to to get that mission going. But then you come back and I won't repeat it to the set of more fundamental, you know, quote unquote constitutional questions around .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Could it have been done without that? I think work could have been done without it. If you. wanted to really send well to both have the money to allocate to priorities as per the mission demanded, and to send a really strong signal to the whole of the system that we really mean this. And if you want to, if you want the budget, you've got to get with the program. Some kind of mission budget would be what .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
The. missions as they were intended by by government, I think. The civil service is half a million people, and the wider public sector obviously is a whole load more millions. So it's quite it's quite difficult to say. Does it have the skill set or not? Yes. No. I think I think the civil service absolutely. You know, had the sort of.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
And this is one of the things we bang on about all the time, the. In the in the policy profession, as it's called. So amongst the kind of policy civil servants, people move around too much, there's too much churn that has consequences for the expertise of civil servants, which has consequences for the quality and authority of the policy advice that they give, which also has consequences for their networks and relationships, and how they're able to then execute policy decisions within the whole kind of delivery structure and system that they operate in. So. That's a kind of that is a capability.
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Absolutely a set of capability thing. Could I add one point to that, which is that in theory, for mission driven government, you don't you set your mission. You might set your milestone to track how your. Whether you are approaching it, but you don't necessarily know as government exactly how you're going to go about achieving it. And so what you need is the. creativity of the civil service, of the wider public sector, of wider civil society. And that. creativity is something that I think, because of this churn, but also because of a civil service that is ultimately done.
Crisis response since. 2016 doesn't exist. If you have spent your. career responding to what the state needs in any given moment, you lose the muscle memory of. understanding how to figure out what what the state wants, what ministers want, and and to think quite creatively about that. And if you have a series of civil servants who have moved up through the ranks during Brexit and Covid, through that kind of environment, they're also not then passing that on necessarily in the same way to, to junior civil servants moving up.
So I .
Crisis response since. 2016 doesn't exist. If you have spent your. career responding to what the state needs in any given moment, you lose the muscle memory of. understanding how to figure out what what the state wants, what ministers want, and and to think quite creatively about that. And if you have a series of civil servants who have moved up through the ranks during Brexit and Covid, through that kind of environment, they're also not then passing that on necessarily in the same way to, to junior civil servants moving up.
So I .
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Richard Baker
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Richard Baker
Quite a pervasive problem there on creativity as well. How do you change that, that. circumstance and, and that and that learning from those experiences of civil servants, how do you hopefully will not have we respond to crises all the time. Hopefully politics moves on. But in any event, how would you actually create a civil service, particularly a leadership level, which is more forward looking forward planning and able to prepare for the .
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Demands that new newly elected governments will make on it? I think I would split it into two buckets. The first of those buckets, I would talk about what are the. structures that prevent civil servants from developing that type of expertise and that type of knowledge and experience. So part of that is what are you rewarding them for? And at the moment, we reward our policy civil servants for moving jobs. It's the only way you can get a pay rise or avoid a real terms pay cut.
And that does
And that does
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
To develop. We also don't get rid of poor performers. I think that creates quite, quite a big drag on the civil service and kind of the culture around kind of what you are expected to do, and rewards a bit of that passivity if you can't get rid of your poor . There's a few bits around kind of, can you reward civil servants for doing well in their jobs? So performance related pay, for.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
You know, that was introduced for the senior civil service under the last government, sorry, under the Starmer government, but at such a small scale that it's very hard to know whether that will actually have much impact. There's some kind of structural stuff that you could do that obviously includes the National School for Government and Public Service and kind of increasing formal in person in a place learning and development for civil servants. And then there's a separate question around culture. And I think there's a real problem with when I say we, because I think I think a part of it as well.
But when we talk about the civil service and the relationship with ministers, I think we often we often go into either it's the blob and it's not working. That can be a malicious version. It can be a benign version. It is the blob. Or we say, oh, well, you need more respect in this individual relationship. And neither of those things actually get under the skin of why that relationship isn't working and why civil servants are a little bit still in this kind of defensive crouch when they talk to ministers are are sometimes scared, are sometimes passive.
We need to .
But when we talk about the civil service and the relationship with ministers, I think we often we often go into either it's the blob and it's not working. That can be a malicious version. It can be a benign version. It is the blob. Or we say, oh, well, you need more respect in this individual relationship. And neither of those things actually get under the skin of why that relationship isn't working and why civil servants are a little bit still in this kind of defensive crouch when they talk to ministers are are sometimes scared, are sometimes passive.
We need to .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Find a way to get a better language to talk about how you improve that relationship. Just on the sort of clearly addressing both of those requires leadership. And I mean one thing. Let's see where the reviews of the civil service goes and how Antonio Romeo's leadership of the civil service develops. But I like the fact she's talking about curiosity. I like the fact she seems to be encouraging civil servants to use our language to lean in rather than to lean out. And I quite like the fact that she published her objectives. And those will kind of send a send a signal to the system that I'm doing this and I want others to do that.
That is not everything. And there are lots of kind of, you know, once you get into the belly of departments, there's .
That is not everything. And there are lots of kind of, you know, once you get into the belly of departments, there's .
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Richard Baker
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Richard Baker
Equation, obviously in that relationship, which is crucial to government, is civil service culture and how civil servants interact with ministers. But the other side of that, obviously, are the elected ministers and appointed ministers. Darren Jones told us last week he felt that he was frustrated by his civil. servants in achieving what he wanted to do in a number of areas, and that contributed to the fact that the missions weren't delivered either. How do you think ministers could be better prepared and upskilled to to handle those. relationships so they can feel more confident they're going to be able to get their policy objectives .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Part of it is . the ministers might not stay in their jobs very long either. So that's what I mean. The ministers part of his ministers. So ministers having the the kind of skills and the ability to engage with the civil service, you know, the longer you're a minister, the normally the more confident you get. And if you look at those ministers who've achieved the most in the system, they've tended to be the ones who've who've hung around, not necessarily at secretary of state level. You know, the classic example being Nick Gibb. So there's something about having the time to develop those skills.
And I think that's really important. There's obviously also the kind of, you know, nuts and bolts, like treat people with respect, but not over deference, you know, on both sides. And I think there's something, again, we've been thinking about this a lot about ministers. Something about ministers being confident in themselves and in their own. And I don't want this to sound patronising at all. But, you know, the best ministers are the ones that go in and, you know, do want to swing things, you know, swing the stick about a little bit and impose their authority on the.
And I think that's really important. There's obviously also the kind of, you know, nuts and bolts, like treat people with respect, but not over deference, you know, on both sides. And I think there's something, again, we've been thinking about this a lot about ministers. Something about ministers being confident in themselves and in their own. And I don't want this to sound patronising at all. But, you know, the best ministers are the ones that go in and, you know, do want to swing things, you know, swing the stick about a little bit and impose their authority on the.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Be the unquestioned leader of leader of the department. Yes. Use the civil servants. They're going to. And it's a cliche to say that civil servants respond to clear leadership, but they they generally really do. But again, and the sense I got listening to the. It sounds odd, given what we've been through over the last decade or so, but I got the sense reading Darren Jones's evidence last week that he was almost too respectful of the civil service. Not not on a kind of individual, on an individual relationship level. Absolutely. You know, everyone should be fully respectful of everybody else working in difficult jobs in government.
But yeah, civil servants need challenge and need testing and .
But yeah, civil servants need challenge and need testing and .
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Markus Campbell-Savours
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Markus Campbell-Savours
Resonates with me. Thank you. Thank you . Marcus Gamble. Final question. Yeah, just I mean, staying on Darren's evidence last week, the he suggested that despite being given the authority by the Prime Minister that that was questioned when he attempted to use it. So I just wondered, did the mission suffer as a result of lack of more direct input from the Prime Minister? And do you detect an issue where authority, perhaps due to the.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Do you comment? So I think there's two things I think I think, yes, missions did suffer from a lack of direct prime ministerial input. I think we know in kind of lots of things that have shifted the dial on how government works, knowing that the Prime Minister is kind of involved and engaged and cares about something, does galvanise the system to work, I suppose, on your question about, you know, was that the thing that is missing for that is. clarity and having kind of been inside the system. sometimes a lot of people in the system say that they are speaking with the voice of the Prime minister.
And if you are working in that system and you're trying to , you're trying to pick out what is signal and what is noise in that, you need clarity over who is doing that at any given point in time. It sounds to me like there was a real lack of clarity, and there would have been a way to kind of. institutionalize that to, to make it clear that this was how missions were going to work. And it speaks a bit to the kind of the broader .
And if you are working in that system and you're trying to , you're trying to pick out what is signal and what is noise in that, you need clarity over who is doing that at any given point in time. It sounds to me like there was a real lack of clarity, and there would have been a way to kind of. institutionalize that to, to make it clear that this was how missions were going to work. And it speaks a bit to the kind of the broader .
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The piece to know that I have given you that task. There's a set of kind of fairly dull but quite effective things that you can do. One of them is publishing letters, right? And then you send those around the department. I know it doesn't sound particularly radical, but it's about have you set out that kind of institutional framework? Prime Minister writes to the minister. You kind of set that out, and then you make sure that the permanent secretaries and the rest of the civil service kind of .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
So, did it fail or or did it just not happen? There was talk of letters at the time. I'm not sure. I don't think any were ever published, and I'm not sure they ever really saw the light of day. I mean, certainly it was something that it's not a silver bullet, as Hannah said, but it's something that Theresa May, for example, did with her secretaries of state. I mean, I think one of the things I'd add, and it goes to the point about, you know, the whether they're the chief secretary of the Prime Minister or the Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster, whoever speaks with the authority of the Prime Minister, the system the system does.
respond to that. And. Most most parts of the system, most of the time, if they get a, you know, an authoritative message from the, you know, the the political leadership of the Cabinet Office, even if that's not the Prime Minister will respond to it.
respond to that. And. Most most parts of the system, most of the time, if they get a, you know, an authoritative message from the, you know, the the political leadership of the Cabinet Office, even if that's not the Prime Minister will respond to it.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Including the Treasury with the Chancellor, are very, very focused on and responsive to their Secretary of State or the Chancellor or whoever. And so you can imagine a. situation where the Treasury, for example, are getting these messages from Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, and they're sort of trying to reconcile those with what the Chancellor is telling them. And in that situation, the Chancellor wins just because of the sort of institutional setup of it. And if you don't have a set of secretaries of state who are fully, you know, transmitting that message from the Prime Minister as well, the system gets kind of confused.
So you've got you've got the message coming from number ten or the Cabinet Office into a.
So you've got you've got the message coming from number ten or the Cabinet Office into a.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Working against each other? Question. I. I don't know is the honest answer on that. I think it was quite hard to see. I, I would broadly diagnose the problems with the missions less as one of sort of active resistance and more of. We've got other stuff to be getting on with. And actually, how much do these things really matter than a kind of we don't want, you know, we don't want to achieve them. And that points to the things that Hannah was saying earlier about which was the the kind of sharper edged objectives within the missions.
So, for example, the elective care target or. Some of the metrics around the opportunity mission and children being school ready, was it 80% of kids being school, whatever the target was, we heard were getting purchase on the system because they were specific and because secretaries of state were signed up to them. But in a way, that was such a partial exposition of mission government that it was distorting the system in another way. So we're kind of gearing everything towards this, but that's .
So, for example, the elective care target or. Some of the metrics around the opportunity mission and children being school ready, was it 80% of kids being school, whatever the target was, we heard were getting purchase on the system because they were specific and because secretaries of state were signed up to them. But in a way, that was such a partial exposition of mission government that it was distorting the system in another way. So we're kind of gearing everything towards this, but that's .
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Is going to lance all of these boils. We are living in sunny uplands. Let's see. As I said earlier, I'm you know, I choose to be. optimistic about these things. It won't solve all the. problems if it. brings clarity to the role of the centre, if it means that the work that is done in the centre is only that which can be done in the centre and, and is sort of smaller but more.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
And has more authority. If it means that the institutional. architecture is able to support the Prime. Minister as the executive leader of government in a way that number ten and the Cabinet Office have never really been set up to do for all sorts of historical and other reasons, then it will give governments a better shot at it. But .
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Simon Hoare
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Simon Hoare
It's not the only thing that that needs to be done clearly. Thank you. I see nobody trying to catch my eye. So on behalf of the committee, Mr. Thomas, Miss Keenan, thank you so much for giving us further food for thought. I never quite know after these sessions whether we're supposed to skip out full of hope and jollity, or sort of slink out looking for a very stiff drink.
But I shall leave that to individual committee members to work out .
But I shall leave that to individual committee members to work out .
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