No civil servant who has endured the last decade can come away from that experience without being a little bit scarred. They’ve witnessed governments who have played fast and loose with our constitution (proroguing parliament), the rule of law (in a limited and specific way) as well as the relentless attacks on the civil service, its values and any number of individual civil servants. Add in for good measure the absolute chaos of those years, the ministerial merry go round, the bullying scandals and failure of prime ministers to uphold standards, and it’s easy to see why the generational compact that existed between civil servants and ministers has been strained.
When you’re routinely being trashed in the press and constitutionally unable to defend yourself, the temptation has been for some to brief the press or, in the case of The Civil Savant, write their “The Civil Servant” column in the Guardian.
It’s been an amusing read at times detailing the chaos of Brexit, Covid and challenge of being a civil servant under those difficult and troubling times. Their latest column, however, has raised issues that I have seen increasingly surface over the last few years, the blurring of the lines between legitimate pushback and concern from civil servants that sometimes, without intention, morphs into a sense of legitimate right to voice opposition.
The Savant’s latest column dealt with the decision of the government to cut overseas aid to boost defence spending. It railed against the decision and the prime minister’s attempt to deal with the new administration in the US. It suggested the policy didn’t carry public support, which is at best challengeable, but also that somehow the decision and the process for making it was illegitimate. And so, despite the usual rider that civil servants need to get on with it, they concluded that FCDO civil servants are in a similar place to their USAID counterparts and will be documenting the impact of this decision to “whistle blow” and make public.
I can fully understand how those who have committed their life to the incredible good that overseas aid does will be dismayed by this decision – they may also have a professional opinion on the consequences of these choices and whether they deliver the outcomes that have been stated – but it is a legitimate choice for a government to make. The job of the civil service is to provide the best advice it can, then when ministers make a decision, to implement that policy.
"I can fully understand how those who have committed their life to the incredible good that overseas aid does will be dismayed by this decision... but it is a legitimate choice for a government to make"
Ministers have a duty under the ministerial code to take into account the evidence-based advice from civil servants, but they also have the constitutional right to ignore it; they just have to own the consequences of that decision. It is the duty of civil servants to point out those consequences so that a minister makes an informed choice, but it is theirs to make. The idea that if civil servants don’t like that decision, they should store up details of the impact to leak – because that’s what it would be, leaking, not whistleblowing – undermines the integrity and impartiality of the civil service as much as any pronouncement from Rees-Mogg, and at a time when our collective job in government is to restore the values that have taken such a hammering over the last decade.
As a young civil servant, I worked in what is now DWP in a local social security office in the late ’80s and early ’90s. I helped introduce some of the most draconian welfare policies imaginable at the time. I was a social fund officer; I also dealt with hardship cases of 16 and 17-year-olds automatically denied benefits unless they could prove they were in physical or moral danger. I did my job to the best of my ability and also what I could within the confines of the civil service code to work for changes to those policies and highlight their impact, but my job was to implement them. As a 21-year-old civil servant, I knew that.
We have to be able to separate out differences of opinion from ethical challenges for civil servants. If a civil servant has a legitimate policy expertise and is involved in developing that policy, their job is to advise ministers, using evidence to back that up. If you’re just a civil servant working in a department that has an opinion on those policies, it is just that, an opinion.
I fully understand that confidence in the usual channels for dealing with these ethical challenges has been strained – it’s one of the reasons why the FDA has proposed that departments introduce an “ethical tsar” role. It’s an idea we’ve picked up from our experience in the security services. Under this proposal, civil servants who have these concerns could express them, get advice or pushback if appropriate, and the tsar could also be a source of guidance to managers who have to address these issues day to day.
I know from my conversations with the new cabinet secretary that he is keen to restore those values and pride back in the civil service. If that is to be delivered then it places obligations on all of us, including ministers, which is why “Tepid Bathgate” was so disappointing.
If we are to rebuild that pride and maintain the confidence of ministers, those boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate challenge need to be explained and policed. As with any rebuilding programme, it will take time, collective effort and a recognition of how we got here. It requires a clear service-wide strategy to rebuild the culture of impartiality and professionalism that has served our country so well.
As the voice for managers and professionals across the civil service, the FDA is in a unique position to work with the government to tackle this challenge.