Launched to great fanfare in 2012, the civil service reform plan pulled together a somewhat random collection of ongoing Whitehall programmes and various ministerial obsessions. One of the ongoing programmes (which had been around since at least 2008) was the development of a “policy profession” and I was commissioned around this time last year to carry out “a broad assessment of improvements in the quality of policymaking” that had resulted.
It was agreed that my report, which was completed in February this year, would be “in publishable format” but that it might not be published given the imminence of the general election. So, not a secret report, but not a public one either.
Now that the civil service reform agenda is officially dead (or, in the words of Sir Jeremy Heywood, “It’s not off the agenda at all. We’re not talking about it – we’re just getting on and doing it.”) it seemed sensible to capture for posterity this fleeting insight into efforts of the coalition government to improve policymaking.
“The worst submissions come from those … who have been shuffled into low priority areas because no-one has been able to find an appropriate exit for them.”
“It is deeply frustrating when you go out with something and then two months later … you see a submission that says there’s this problem, and then it’s sort of, oh, well, we always knew there was this.”
“I have been shocked at the poor quality of writing generally in the civil service – and that is policy documents as well as correspondence … I am the chief proof-reader for [the department].”
The research itself was divided into two halves. The Cabinet Office organised a couple of online surveys to capture the views of civil servants and I was sent wandering around Whitehall with a digital recorder and a list of 15 secretaries of state and senior ministers to interview. In many ways, the result was a sort of 360 degree review of the state of the policy profession. And, as so often with such reviews, the picture that emerged was one where policymakers’ self-assessment didn’t always align closely with those of their main customers:
“I don’t think the programme has been a disaster but it’s nowhere near delivered what ministers were told. And what some officials believe – what I am now told – is there was quite a lot of scepticism elsewhere in the department."
“We do [policy appraisal] pretty badly ex ante because we spend all this money of these estimates and noone reads them. And they make no difference.”
A particularly valuable feature of the research arose from a serendipitous combination of coalition realpolitik and David Cameron’s preference for a “steady-as-she-goes” style of government. This meant that most of my interviewees had been in post since June 2010 – a term of office which afforded them real insights into the inner workings of their departments. By contrast, those who had moved after the 2013 reshuffle were able to compare two years’ experience in one department with a similar length of time in another.
Combined with the views of policy professionals and frontline operational delivery professionals from the two surveys, this produced a final report stuffed full of fascinating nuggets that go straight to the heart of the ministerial/official relationship. (The top risk highlighted to ministers? “Communications and presentational issues” – although financial, legal and operational risks are also important…)
The complete report is available below, but I suppose the key takeaway is that, while the core civil service values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality were held in high regard by the ministers I interviewed, not one was able to identify any specific improvement to the policymaking process.
“One of the irritations of the civil service is that you get people who are just as effective policy makers who are earning 25 grand as on 75 grand.”
“The rotation of people and bodies has got to stop. You’ve got to have serious guys in there that can do the job. And so I think that whole culture of generalisation – you do everything nicely, do it well, you move on up – has got to stop.”
I should give the final word to one of my interviewees – a very well-respected former minister of state – who at the end of the interview commented with admirable honesty: “If you hadn’t told me that the government has a civil service reform plan, I wouldn’t have known.”