The reports on civil service reform come thick and fast. A couple of weeks ago, there was the Institute for Government (IfG) report on ministerial choice in permanent secretary appointments. Last week the long-awaited IPPR report, commissioned by the Cabinet Office, on accountability and responsiveness in the senior civil service was published (see news; feature). We are expecting a government report on progress since the publication of the Civil Service Reform Plan a year ago, and a report from the Public Administration Select Committee following its inquiry into the future of the civil service.
These reports will be read by a relatively small audience, but they go to the heart of the Civil Service Commission’s responsibilities for upholding an impartial civil service through ensuring that recruitment at all levels is on merit, and free of patronage or favouritism. Despite our name, we are independent of the civil service. We are drawn from the private, voluntary and public sectors. We are directly involved in over 100 of the most senior civil service appointments every year, and audit and oversee the rest. From this unique perspective, we have a lot to say about how the civil service needs to transform itself through better skills and more effective external recruitment. We also see close up the importance, but also the risks, of ministerial involvement in appointments. Although neither the IfG nor the IPPR discussed their emerging findings with us, we intend to give their reports serious consideration.
For the commission, there are three tests that should be applied to any proposals for reforming the process of civil service recruitment.
First, will the proposals create a more effective civil service, particularly at the top? Both reports deal with what will seem narrow, almost esoteric, issues for a large number of civil servants. But these are clearly important issues for ministers; and, if the reports can in some way help to build trust in what sometimes seems a fractured relationship between the senior civil service and politicians, then they deserve serious discussion.
The commission’s second test is whether they will put at risk political impartiality. Impartiality is not some passing fad created by the 11 civil service commissioners. It has been fundamental to the British civil service and the political system for over a century. It was considered so important by Parliament that, as recently as 2010, it was enshrined in law, by a political consensus, as a core value of the civil service – along with objectivity, integrity and honesty. At that time the Civil Service Commission’s role in protecting it was also given legal underpinning in primary legislation for the first time. The commission is cautious about proposals such as giving ministers the final say in permanent secretary appointments because we take our responsibility seriously.
But let us be clear what we are protecting and what we are not. The IPPR confusingly sometimes seems to conflate impartiality with independence; and characterises the argument as being between the independence of civil servants on the one hand, and their responsiveness on the other. The commission does not support, or stand for, an independent civil service, if that means civil servants having no accountability to politicians or regarding politics as a dirty word, or feeling able, in some way, to frustrate the programme of the elected government. Indeed, the Civil Service Code requires exactly the opposite. The prime requirement on impartiality in the code is “to serve the government, whatever its political persuasion, to the best of your ability” and “to act in a way which deserves and retains the confidence of ministers”. Political impartiality is not about standing away from the political process; it is about getting stuck in and supporting the elected government to achieve its objectives, until the electorate decides that it is time for a change.
The commission’s third and final test is about ensuring that any significant changes to the civil service are supported by as broad a consensus as possible. It was a precious moment in 2010, in the dying days of the last Parliament, when politicians from all the main political parties came together to reinforce in legislation the long-standing model of an impartial civil service appointed on merit. While the civil service must serve the elected government with commitment, it is not the preserve of any one government or political party. That is why significant reforms should have wide political and public support, and reflect a broad consensus about the kind of civil service we need.