Civil Service: Politicisation

Baroness D'Souza Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness D'Souza (CB)]

My Lords, the Civil Service has come in for a great deal of harsh criticism in recent years, but most especially following the Brexit referendum. A National Audit Office report in 2016 complained that there was still no functioning cross-government approach to business planning; no clear set objectives; no coherent set of performance measures; and serious concerns about the quality of management data. The underlying theme of that criticism is that the Civil Service is no longer acting as an impartial provider of expert advice. This in turn led to the proliferation of special advisers and outsourcing by arm’s-length management bodies.

Despite the reforms introduced by the CRaG Act 2010, criticisms have continued, exacerbated by the Brexit legislation and by events such as partygate and those during the Truss Administration. In more recent years, the Civil Service has come under attack for the failure of both departments and arm’s-length bodies to deliver. Why did destitute families have to wait six weeks for their universal credit payments to materialise? Why were there no cross-departmental cost-saving procurement measures in place? Why did the Grenfell tragedy happen?

Proponents of a more politicised Civil Service argue that these failures in public services would be remedied if clear accountability was achieved by establishing a class of officials appointed by the Government of the day and from whom impartiality was not expected. This might encourage recruitment of more motivated, proactive staff and allow civil servants to take a more public role. Ministers would assume clear accountability for failure, delays in service and expenditure. They could influence public appointments without adverse comment and appoint experts at will. The changeover that would happen at the end of each Administration, as happens in France, would ensure a fresh intake at regular intervals. This might provide, it is said, something more than a Civil Service once described by Sir Tony Blair as the enemy of enterprise.

The reality today is that, despite many legitimate concerns, while Ministers get on with ideology, the Civil Service on the whole gets on with the job of delivering partisan policies without losing the values of disinterested service for the public good. Problems arise due to the exact definition of accountability; for example, who is accountable for which part of a given policy? What are civil servants meant to do if Ministers prevaricate on urgent issues or ignore evidence, putting, for instance, public health at risk? Who will speak up for civil servants when their own Ministers call their integrity into account? The Civil Service as constituted in the UK is expert in making a complex administrative system work and shows remarkable commitment to the job of public service. Its continuity enables opportunities to build valuable institutional memory.

But, as we know, all is not perfect. The Civil Service is about processing policies; it is not an independent service but an impartial one. It is not about stating whether a policy or a Minister is wrong but about insisting that impartial processing requires good public administration evidence and the appraisal of options. Greater commitment to transparency of those processes would help to allay criticism.

Given the nature of the British constitution and the possibility of large parliamentary majorities, it is surely necessary to maintain an impartial Civil Service, to enshrine this more firmly in statute and to provide a champion to combat future attacks.