Civil Service: Politicisation

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, clearly, I must begin my contribution to this timely debate on the politicisation of the Civil Service, so magisterially opened by my noble friend Lord Butler, who headed that service as Cabinet Secretary with great distinction, with a declaration of interest and also of experience, having been myself a civil servant for the 42 years prior to my arrival in your Lordships’ House in 2001.

Does this discredit my participation in this debate? I do not believe so. On the contrary, I suggest that it validates it. In those 42 years, I was never subjected to political pressure on the advice I offered to Ministers, nor was that advice put through a political filter before it reached Ministers. I loyally served Governments of both main parties. Sometimes my advice was accepted; sometimes it was rejected. That system did not work perfectly but it worked well.

In the mid-19th century, Britain, following what were called the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms, broke away from a system of public service appointments, including military ones, which was corrupt, patronage-dominated and heavily politicised. Following those reforms, we entered a system best described as a meritocracy, from which politicisation was banned, which largely survives to this day, although in recent years it has come under increasing criticism and its foundations have been seriously weakened, sometimes almost inadvertently, sometimes in the belief that politicisation would produce better results. In passing, I note that the Civil Service broke the glass ceiling for senior appointments for women before most other professions did so.

What form has that weakening taken? Partly it is in the loss of mutual trust between civil servants, who give advice and deliver programmes, and Ministers, who take decisions and account for them to Parliament. Now, when things go awry, there is a daily blame game in the press and in Parliament, with civil servants anonymously blaming Ministers and vice versa. That is a pernicious development, and one likely to result in worse overall outcomes.

Then, in addition, there has been an all too evident falling-off of skilled, evidence-based advice, which simply does not reach Ministers in a clear and trenchant form, either because it is diverted or watered down or because it is substituted by party-politically motivated advice.

I worked for some years in an international organisation, the EU Commission in Brussels, which was staffed by several nationalities, among whom those weaknesses that I have described were all too prevalent, and they did not produce good results. Indeed, the Northcote-Trevelyan public service ethos which we brought with us was widely admired, and in some ways copied, until our lamentable departure from the EU snuffed that out. Now we have what is often termed a “creeping spadocracy”, in which politicised advice is favoured over objective, evidence-based advice.

I am not for one moment suggesting that special political advisers do not have an important and essential role to play. They evidently do, in maintaining links, particularly with the governing party’s parliamentary support, in drafting obviously party-political speeches and in being available to test civil servants’ advice in terms of political viability. However, such political advisers should not be regarded as a substitute for public service advice. The two can and should interact and coexist.

I can think of no better way of concluding these arguments against the increasing politicisation of the Civil Service than with the lapidary words of the resolution passed in the late 18th century in the other place, which stated that the power of the Crown

“has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished”.