Government: Leadership Training

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth on this very interesting debate. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham is right about the importance of accountancy and the dangers of transience. I rise to speak because I was both in the senior Civil Service for 14 years—much of this at its heart in the Cabinet Office and No. 10 —and a government Minister for three years, at BEIS, DCMS and the Treasury. Today, I will emphasise the importance of education and experience as well as training, the need for apposite training and the importance of diversity of thought and cost-benefit analysis.

In my experience, what happens in early life and in your career before reaching senior positions is every bit as important as any training. Even William Pitt the Younger would have struggled as Prime Minister at such a young age without his elite education. Most good Ministers have had a number of government roles on the way up, learning from discussions on Bills, in debates, from crises and how to get departments to act effectively in the desired direction. They learn leadership on the job and from effective, and ineffective, Secretaries of State.

Most leading civil servants have strong academic credentials and many years of experience in different but related roles. Many serve Ministers extremely well. Many of us will have specific examples in mind. This was the Northcote-Trevelyan model, and it is a pity that it is being steadily undermined. Most of the best Ministers are bright and educated, and they bring wider experience—for example, in the services, the law, business and so on—and not just years as spads, good though some spads definitely are. Spads’ focus is usually on their Minister’s star, not on the longer term, and their value is limited accordingly.

How can training help? Here I draw on my 15 years of experience as an executive director of Tesco, at a time when we were a growing and global business. Many were from modest backgrounds, and all shared a laser-like focus on the end goals and an ability to lead, motivate people and get them to deliver—or go elsewhere. We had good training programmes, but they were sponsored and led by the key directors, not just by the training function. Every manager helped their staff to do better where they were weak or had potential, and training was designed to help with that. We gave our teams wide discretion. We were all taught not to spend time on doing things just because we liked doing them but to delegate wherever we could and to address training needs. We cut out needless layers of management so that everyone’s jobs were more challenging and satisfying. These are not skills that you can suddenly learn when you get to the top.

My observation of Civil Service training was that it is self-selecting and that those who needed it did not get it, although they might be attending other courses that they fancied, at public expense. Training should be directed at those who need it, not at those who want it. My only training in my ministerial capacity was in dementia, which was a rather good initiative of David Cameron’s, I have to say. I also learned some excellent Dispatch Box skills from my noble friends Lord Howe and Lady Noakes.

Another problem is the prevalence of fashion in politics, which has, in my lifetime, extended down into the Civil Service. Diversity is a good example. As a woman who started her career as often the only female fast-streamer or executive in the room, I welcome aspects of diversity and have tried to help others on the way up. However, diversity of thought seems to have gone out the window as a desirable characteristic. Unfortunately, this reflects the position in even our best universities, where holding certain political opinions seems to be almost a requirement for employment. The sooner the Civil Service and universities reverse this unwelcome trend, the better. Overall, a great deal of attention is given to diversity, without dealing with this area where it is lacking: diversity of thought.

Finally, I want to make a specific point. I am well known as an enthusiastic supporter of impact assessments. The principal reason for my enthusiasm is that they enable all of us to judge the cost benefit of the action that the Government propose to take. This is the most important area of decision-making in government. The academic side of the process is well developed, and all Ministers and senior civil servants, without exception, should be properly trained in its mysteries—another one for the list of my noble friend Lord Norton. A broad cost-benefit assessment, prepared while decisions are being taken, can help a Minister and a senior civil servant to identify the likely perverse effects of a policy—one that may even end a successful career—and reach a sound conclusion.

I do not have time to deal with all the ideas outlined in the helpful Library Note. Suffice it to say that some are more realistic than others. I look forward to a further discussion with my noble friend Lord Norton.