What do ministers really think of their officials? Jonathan Owen asked Andrew Mitchell – former international development secretary – to appraise the civil service
Did your views on the civil service change during your time in office?
Both as a junior minister for social security in the 1990s and as secretary of state for international development more recently, I always had the highest regard for the integrity and intelligence of the civil service. Of course, some civil servants were better than others – but the impartiality and integrity and commitment of the civil servants I worked with was never in question.
What challenges did you face in working with civil servants?
I never really felt there were challenges as such. The idea that civil servants like ministers who do what they want is in my experience completely untrue. What civil servants like is ministers who know their mind and know what they want to achieve and who can operate around the Whitehall jungle. I always found that so long as you were clear with what you wanted to achieve, civil servants were adept at delivering.
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If you were Cabinet Office minister, how would you change the civil service?
I would always treat it with respect. I think that when politicians go after the civil service often it’s a reflection of the old adage that a bad workman blames his tools. If you’re dealing with a Rolls Royce engine, which there is no doubt the British civil service in general is, you do not hit it with a blunt instrument."
Can you tell us a story that reveals something about the civil service?
When I became international development secretary in 2010 I arrived after five years in preparation in opposition with about 112 things we wanted to do or to change. I found the civil service were respectful of our agenda and after a comparatively easy transition determined to make a success of what we wanted to do.
On one occasion quite early on a senior civil servant told me that, while they understood what we were trying to achieve in a particular aspect of policy (Myaid, now called Aidmatch, they believed we were going about it in the wrong way and it could be improved.
After raising two eyebrows I asked them to take me through the logic of what they were saying. It rapidly became apparent that they had thought carefully about what we were seeking to achieve and had come up with a better way of doing so.
It’s an example of the civil service at its best in helping ministers to avoid pitfalls and giving the genuinely impartial and expert advice as they did on this occasion.
Andrew Mitchell is the member of parliament for Sutton Coldfield. He was secretary of state for international development from 2010 to 2012, and then chief whip in the coalition government