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British anxieties about the public service Samuel Brittan: Paper given on 25/04/03 The Old Whitehall Culture The UK is certainly not the only country to have suffered an undercurrent of anxiety over the performance of politicians, their advisers and the relations between them. But they have come into sharper focus here because we had for a long time a set of principles on the respective roles of the participants involved, which enjoyed cross-party consensus. The peculiarity of the system in Britain, and to some extent in Commonwealth countries which have inherited British institutions, is a particularly sharp division between the civil servants, who have been called permanent politicians, who look after government departments as a life-time career and the political birds of passage who come and go with election results and prime ministerial whims. The origins of this sharp division go back a long time -- to the efforts made in Victorian England to remove the last vestiges of favouritism and corruption which coloured political life in the 18th century. The basic reforms were laid down in the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1854. These established the principle of an independent civil service appointed by merit -- in practice competitive examinations. This was to a large degree a self-regulating institution. Indeed one interwar head of the Civil Service, Warren Fisher, spoke of the four Crown Services: the army, the navy, the air force and the civil service. Ministers were there to take decisions and the civil servants to advise and to implement that. The relative importance of implementation and advice were never very clear; but it is pretty obvious from individual biographies that the path to advancement was not via the ability to run a tax office or to deal with unemployment claims, but brilliance in writing papers for ministers, helping them to keep out of trouble in parliament and elsewhere and in giving instructions to the genuine technocrats and administrators such as the parliamentary draftsmen. The system was modified in World War II through the entry of academics, businessmen and others. Nobody would have called the late Isaiah Berlin a typical member of the higher civil service! But despite the election in 1945 of a Labour government committed to a more extensive role for the public sector, most of these war-time recruits went back to their former occupations and the traditional system was re-established. Earlier Discontents The first rumblings of discontent first preceded and then accompanied the election of the first Wilson Labour government in 1964. Wilson did not talk about a Third Way, but the "white hot heat of the technological revolution". He was looking for types of change other than the traditional socialist one of extending public ownership. The great cry of many of those who, directly or indirectly, gained his ear was that the civil service was technologically out of date. It had too few computers, had too few specialists and did not know how to use the ones that it had. It was then that we had the first influx of special advisers, who were then known popularly as "irregulars". Unfortunately some of these otherwise desirable innovations were used as a way of avoiding awkward political decisions. It did not take a brilliant economic mind to see that the incoming government had the choice between devaluation and relying on deflation alone. (I served briefly in the short-lived Department of Economic Affairs, which was meant to provide a third way between these alternatives; but most of its economist members were vehement devaluationists and were told to keep their thoughts to themselves). In the end devaluation was forced on Wilson by events in 1967. The 1970s were a period of marking time. The Heath government of 1970-74 did not rely so much on irregular advisers, but continued to have some. Its main innovation was the Central Policy Review Staff, under Lord Rothschild, which was meant to give the prime minister and the cabinet non-departmental views, especially on longer term issues. It was composed of a mixture of political and civil service appointees; but their bias was would-be technocratic and interventionist, rather than partisan. It was abolished by Margaret Thatcher -- largely it was thought out of pique when she blamed it for leaking a report. If it happened it was an aberration. For it hardly ever got into the job of news management. The various Number Ten policy staffs which succeeded it under both main political parties have been more short-term and more concerned with immediate trouble-shooting. The Labour governments of Wilson and Callaghan from 1974-79 were far too preoccupied with immediate threats to meddle with the civil service. There was the world oil crisis, the aftermath of the coal miners' strike and the excesses of rampant trade unionism -- this was a time when top civil servants told their more trusted press contacts that the country was becoming "ungovernable". Although Margaret Thatcher distrusted the senior civil service, she was not very interested in systematic reform when she came to office in 1979. Senior Ministers had their special advisers, limited I believe to two each; but her main involvement lay in the appointment of permanent secretaries and other senior figures. Indeed her war cry "Advisers advise and ministers decide" could have come straight out of Northcote-Trevelyan. Recent Anxieties The next phase of public anxiety occurred in the post-Thatcher years of the Conservative government (1990-97). The evaporation of the Thatcherite crusading zeal should have eased tensions but it did not. The main focus of anxiety in the mid 1990s related to "sleaze", a shabby word to describe a shabby phenomenon. It mostly related to conduct which was not obviously illegal, but did not seem quite right, and where there was a suspicion of private gain. The scandals were mostly low level and did not affect the most senior politicians or civil servants. A typical example was the charge that MPs received payment for asking questions in parliament. It was these sleaze issues which led to the appointment of the Committee for Standards in Public Life, whose chairman is happily with us today and which has also been encouraged to consider broader and more interesting questions. Having made so much of the sleaze issue in the run-up to the 1997 election, Tony Blair declared that his government would have to be "whiter than white." The sleaze issue has not been banished, but is now mostly subsumed under "cronyism". Most of the allegations under the present regime have related not so much to personal gain but to the treatment of businesses which have made donations to the Labour Party. This has been a diversion from issues which are intrinsically much more important. It will never be possible to determine definitively instead of debating whether the choice of companies to be supported in bids for overseas contracts is influenced by political donations. The more important and neglected issue is whether ministers should be canvassing for arms orders and dubious capital projects abroad at aLL. Am I a lonely idealist or am I corrupt in supposing that an ethical foreign policy is more important than a little bit of sleaze? The two most recent causes of anxiety have been the role of special advisers and public service delivery. Anxiety over special advisers, wo have doubled in number under the Blair Government to reach nearly 80 has emanated to a large extent from the civil service itself, but has been happily fanned by the media and could become a major political issue if the Conservative party came to life again. Complaints have centred round two cases: Tony Blair's chief of staff and his principal adviser on media and communications [Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell]who have been -- as an exception to the normal rules -- been empowered to give instructions to permanent civil servants. This seems to me making a mountain out of a molehill. A prime minister is surely entitled to have a chief of staff and a head of media relations with whom he has a political and personal rapport. And it is difficult to see how people in such senior positions can operate without staff whom they can instruct. If one of the individuals concerned has behaved in an unnecessarily abrasive way it is an ad hominem matter which hardly seems to raise great constitutional issues. While all the attention has been focused on these two appointments, very few people have noticed how a similar situation has been handled smoothly and effectively inside the Treasury. When Gordon Brown became chancellor he appointed a personal economic adviser with whom he felt at home [Ed Balls]. The fact that the latter was an economist in his own right, and not just a pamphleteer or spin doctor, made a great deal of difference. In due course the person in question achieved the august title of Chief Economic Adviser to the Treasury, which had previously gone to non-political civil servants. It was said that he had to have a proper official rank and not be just an adviser if he was to represent the Chancellor at international discussions. (So I suppose he acquired the technical authority to require the assistance of permanent Treasury economists, whereas previously he would have to ask them - or get the Chancellor to ask the Permanent Secretary to instruct them!) But because of the human chemistry involved no one even noticed the difference. A lot of the credit for this smooth arrangement was due to the Treasury's top permanent economist, who saw no point in fighting the man on whose judgment the chancellor relied. The adviser in question will probably fight a safe Labour seat in the next election, and his full time services will be lost to the chancellor without any offsetting constitutional gain. Delivery When it comes to the delivery of services I need to speak in a still, small voice. For I have very little feeling for practical operation and delivery. Indeed the sub group dealing with this issue was the third on my list of preferences for this conference. But I cannot help observing the fact many of the people who write papers for the prime minister on the subject are no more obviously qualified than I am. Seen from a distance, we seem to have a series of brilliant undergraduate essays. And when one essay fails to convince another adviser is asked to write another one. Aspiring civil servants are now told that delivery and implementation are now at least as important as the traditional job of whispering policy advice into the minister's ear. But I suspect it is still the case that the brightest of new recruits will hope that they will be the exception and will be called upon to advise the minister on high policy or how to handle difficult political situations. It will be very difficult to overcome a culture in which the top ranks of the civil service, although called "administrators", were really policy advisers and the people who had to carry out the policies were one class below and known as executive officers. These class divisions have long been abolished and replaced by an incomprehensible system of numbered grades. The old administrative grade is still there under the guise of "fast track admission". I cannot help noticing that the one area where UK implementation and delivery are internationally regarded as successful is the armed services. Is it a coincidence that in the defence department the top generals, admirals and air marshals are certainly not inferior to the senior civilian civil servants; and indeed as Joint Chiefs of Staff, they have independent access to the prime minister [and the cabinet as well?] The lack of such people was surely be noticeable in the areas such as the BSE crisis and the mass fuel price revolt of a couple of years ago. The armed services have also prided themselves on their intelligence work -- finding out what is going on among potential opponents, which is a different matter to forecasting or policy analysis. The occasional appointment of people who are billed in the press as energy czars or health service czars represents a groping in this direction. But even in a liberal society there is surely a case for a government having at its disposal genuine trouble-shooters with effective resources behind them. Permanent Politicians Coming to more controversial subjects, is it not time to question on the emphasis put on the political impartiality of civil service advisers. This is taken to fantastic extremes in a recent handbook. (How to be a Civil Servant, by Martin Stanley, Politico, 2000). For instance "it is essential that you give no sign that you oppose the principles and underlying thrust of the government's policies" and "you must avoid saying anything that demonstrates that you personally agree or disagree with ministers' decisions". It is questionable whether someone so desiccated and so detached makes the best possible adviser. Supposed political impartiality works best in an era of simple left-right politics when an official can take a perverse pride in producing schemes both for nationalisation and denationalisation. It works much less well in the face of complex issues, which have both a political and a technical aspect - for instance the Thatcher government's desire to jettison the philosophy of economic management which had prevailed until the mid-1970s. It will be interesting to hear what our American and Canadian visitors have to say here. I am certainly not suggesting a revolutionary change. These matters can be left to evolve, which is one reason for being a little bit cautious about implanting present distinctions in stone in a new Civil Service Act. But I will dare to descent from the Wicks Committee (on Standards in Public Life) on a specific point. As I understand it, the Committee reaffirms that both permanent and private secretaries should be chosen by departments rather than by ministers. (It does not even consider the Church of England's precedent by which the church presents two candidates for Archbishop of Canterbury, knowing which one is certain to be rejected by the prime minister!) It is surely reasonable that a minister should not have to work with either a head of department or a head of his private office who is politically or personally uncongenial. In fact I should like to see anyone impose on Gordon Brown a permanent secretary of whom he disapproved. In practice of course both prime ministers and other heavyweight ministers do get involved in such appointments, by giving their views privately to the top civil servants who make them. But can we not get away from these muddy waters by allowing the minister a formal say? British government did not break down when permanent secretaries were appointed from the outside world in World War II; and I doubt if it would if Ministers could make such choices today. Confidentiality of Advice Finally may I introduce a personal hobby horse? This is the emphasis put on the iron-clad confidentiality of advice given by officials, whether permanent or special advisers, to ministers. This is the rock on which the civil service establishment has made its stand over the last 50 years. It suits politicians who are not called to account if they reject official advice for insufficient reasons. But officials are not called to account if this advice has been bad. If civil servants may disclose advice, will it make them reluctant to give their honest opinions? It is equally arguable that their work would be improved if it had to withstand public scrutiny. I need not repeat what has been said over the ages about the privilege of power without responsibility. I have only recently learnt that the Fulton committee appointed by Harold Wilson originally intended to argue for greater openness in this respect, but was talked out of it by the prime minister and permanent Treasury secretary of the time. Let me take a specific and immediate example? The Treasury study of British entry into the euro will be published in a few weeks. There will be thousands of pages or analyses, some of it very technical; and we will be told both how thorough and how open the government has been. But this kind of analysis does not speak for itself and both europhiles and eurosceptics will find plenty of material to back their views. I have no doubt too that there will be an honest and non-technical public summary of the work available. But what would be much more interesting would be to see the position paper that officials and advisers have distilled out of all this for the chancellor and the prime minister to back up their view that the time is not yet ripe for entry. If this position paper were published, I doubt if it would set the Thames on fire; but it would help to bury a long out-moded dogma.
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