In pursuit of the IPPR’s findings on perm sec appointments, Winnie Agbonlahor tracks down report author Guy Lodge.
Last week, the Institute for Public Policy Reform (IPPR) finally published its report ‘Accountability and Responsiveness in the Senior Civil Service: Lessons from Overseas’: commissioned by the Cabinet Office, the report sets out six recommendations gleaned from government systems in other countries. These include enabling the PM to appoint permanent secretaries from a shortlist drawn up by the Civil Service Commission (CSC); the employment of perm secs on fixed-term four-year contracts, with their renewal dependent on performance; and letting secretaries of state appoint the members of beefed-up private offices (see box).
This appointment reform would represent significant change: currently, the CSC appoints perm secs – albeit following feedback on the shortlist from secretaries of state, and subject to a veto by the PM. And while minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude has described the findings as “evolutionary” and in line “with the grain of our Westminster system”, first civil service commissioner Sir David Normington is more cautious. Report author Guy Lodge, interviewed by CSW, is keen to reassure civil servants that there’s nothing to fear.
Wouldn’t giving the PM the power to appoint perm secs politicise the civil service?
“No, it wouldn’t, because we’re using a merit-based, non-partisan recruitment process whereby the CSC oversees the appointment – as is currently the case.
Politicisation would mean the PM appointing anyone they wanted, but we’re saying there has to be a strong, robust and transparent process in place. If you look at countries that operate a similar model – such as Australia, Canada and Singapore – they have put these proposals in place without politicisation.”
Could the introduction of four-year contracts lead to the loss of continuity and expertise?
“No. Fixed-term contracts are a way of underpinning a stronger performance culture. The presumption is that if you are high-performing and you meet objectives, the contract will be renewed. The current objectives should be used as a basis for the fixed-term contracts.”
Why should the PM make appointments, rather than secretaries of state?
“The PM is the head of the government: the best place for the most important personnel decisions. He or she will be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of individual ministers and departments, and able to appoint permanent secretaries who complement those strengths and weaknesses.
There is also a practical reason, to do with the high level of turnover you get with ministerial posts in the UK. When there are regular reshuffles, it makes more sense for the PM to make the call. And there is a sense that secretaries of state would not be comfortable inheriting permanent secretaries appointed by their predecessors [in cases of reshuffles]. It was pointed out to us that ministers would rather have the appointments made by the PM.
Secretaries of state will still be highly influential in the appointments process, as they are now: they’d help design the job spec, and endorse the shortlist.”
Why did you decide on a four-year contract?
“Under our model, you wouldn’t have a situation whereby a new PM would come in and all contracts would end, with the prime minister appointing a new set of permanent secretaries. We don’t want to go down that road at all. That’s why we say fixed-term contracts should be four years, and not five: to make sure they don’t coincide with the electoral cycle. But if a four-year contract falls due for renewal less than six months before an election, the contract could be extended and the decision left to the incoming government.”
Would perm secs always end up staying for the full four years?
“It wouldn’t make sense to have a fixed-term contract absolutely set in stone, with no scope for any flexibility. If a personal relationship between a permanent secretary and secretary of state breaks down, there would need to be the potential to fix that problem by bringing in a new permanent secretary.”
Might bigger, appointed private offices end up isolating ministers from their departments?
“In some countries, ministerial offices which have become very big have indeed become isolated from the department. We thought hard about this in designing our recommendation, because you wouldn’t want to emulate that in the UK. So we’d have to make sure that there is a strong relationship between the ministerial offices and departments, and the only way of doing that is by having civil servants from the department working in the ministerial offices. We shouldn’t move to an office made up entirely of political appointees. It’s important to have a mixture of civil servants – who are the umbilical cord to the department – plus non-partisan expert advisers, as well as political advisers.”
How serious are the current tensions between ministers and senior civil servants?
“You hear things like: ‘Whitehall is at war’, about all these tensions between ministers and mandarins. My sense is that there isn’t enough nuance to the debate, which is very polarised and not based on evidence. The claims are that the civil service is deliberately obstructing ministers or, from the other side, that any moves to strengthen the responsiveness of the civil service will lead to automatic politicisation – but both of these claims are over-hyped.”