Firstly, apologies to anyone under the age of 40 for using a Yes, Minister reference. Sir Humphrey Appleby used a phrase that would terrify the hapless Jim Hacker: “That’s very brave of you minister – a courageous decision.” Hacker never wanted to be brave, as brave also meant being personally associated with a decision.
I do get a bit annoyed when lazy journalists use tired Yes, Minister references, but that exchange highlights an issue that occurs every day in government and one which we have had an insight into with the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) recent hearings on Kids Company.
Firstly to PAC. I’ve criticised their conduct towards officials in the past; sometimes they can be downright rude. But having watched some of the exchanges at these and a couple of other hearings, new chair Meg Hillier certainly sets a more professional tone. They had some meat to get into here, so there was a bit less grandstanding. The hearing with former Cabinet Office permanent secretary Richard Heaton and education perm sec Chris Wormald got down to the brass tacks of the affair. The question the committee kept coming back to was whether successive ministers and prime ministers had placed undue pressure on civil servants to agree funding when there appeared to be long-standing concerns about the financial management of the organisation.
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It’s an interesting case. For all the speculation on pet charities and ministers wanting to be associated with Coldplay, officials at both the education department and the Cabinet Office appeared to understand that Kids Company was an unusual organisation. It didn’t fit the mould in many ways, but was doing groundbreaking, innovative work to help kids who had fallen through any number of safety nets.
A variety of concerns had been raised and a number of initiatives had been agreed to try to help the charity over the longer term, including bringing in some external expertise. It demonstrated exactly how running government is complicated and taking a decision is never quite as black-and-white as external commentators and PAC members try to make out.
But it’s clear that civil servants had, in two different departments and with three successive governments, raised concerns. It was also clear that ministers viewed it as a worthy cause and a priority for public support, which is of course their right. It was impressive to see two permanent secretaries indicate that, despite concern, they had agreed to funding and were therefore accountable for those decisions. There was no buck-passing to ministers.
A point was reached where concern became too great, however, and a ministerial direction was called for – the “courageous” decision. It is then for the minister who made that decision to be accountable for it.
The PAC obviously smells blood when it comes to a ministerial direction, but that is how the system should work. Ministers are entitled to make decisions against advice and be accountable for them. When he was Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude said there should be more ministerial directions, that it was a healthy sign. Whether he would welcome them himself as a minister we’ll never know and, of course, it should make ministers think twice – do they want to be courageous? But in the end, ministers are elected to make decisions and sometimes they must be bold in a way that is very difficult for an official.
Another recent ministerial direction was at the business department, over subsidising payments to companies taking on apprentices who had lost their jobs at the steel works Redcar. Perm sec Martin Donnelly didn’t feel it passed the value-for-money test. The minister felt it was the right thing to do. Can both be right? I don’t know the details here but it looks like it was something that was difficult to justify on financial grounds alone. The impact of a private company closing can be devastating for a community and the government can look pretty helpless, so it’s a sensitive political situation. The opportunity to support young apprentices in maintaining their employment and build confidence in the local economy, may well be a good political decision, even a good economic one. So yes, I think both can be right.
The PAC was emphatic that perm secs, as accounting officers, have a duty to hold the line against political pressure if they feel public money is being misspent. That can never be an easy place to be with your political master. But there is also no doubt that both perm secs took that role seriously, and so they should, as it’s they who are accountable if they agree to the expenditure in question.
We rightly expect a lot from our perm secs and this is just one of the many unseen elements that makes those roles so invaluable to the greater public good, while at the same time demonstrating how completely undervalued they are – by any measure.