First civil service commissioner Gisela Stuart has expressed frustration at the pervasive use of the “Sir Humphrey image” to represent civil servants.
Baroness Stuart, speaking to MPs on the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, said: “I think it is really unfortunate that the only popularly attractive version people can see of the role of a civil servant is the Sir Humphrey image.”
She added: “Because I think as a profession it’s more than half a million people who really do fulfil some of the most diverse roles, and some of them really tough. And we probably should do more to recognise their professionalism, but also the variety of challenges they have to meet... on a daily basis.”
Stuart was responding to a question from PACAC chair Simon Hoare about the government’s vision for the civil service and how the commission can help to deliver on it.
Hoare said: “The civil service is an amalgam – it has been described by some as the blob, Sir Humphrey-like, who sits there as a way of trying to frustrate governments of all stripes from achieving their objectives. Others would describe it as the sort of Rolls Royce of public administration. I’m not quite sure whether they were drawing or sitting in the tepid bath which the prime minister spoke of some weeks ago.
"Has government, has Cabinet Office, has No.10 shared with you as first commissioner their vision for the civil service and how current and future recruitment can help them deliver that?”
Stuart said regulators must decide how they wish to regulate and that she and her fellow commissioners “feel very strongly that success is that the whole system is as rule compliant as possible, that we educate whenever possible, that otherwise we audit if we find things as they should be”.
Stuart added that “with the new cabinet secretary, there are currently a number of conversations going on across government, but I feel the role is for us as regulators to come in at the end and say 'these are the decisions you’ve reached and how do we facilitate that?'”.
She then addressed Hoare’s reference to Sir Humphrey Appleby, the character in the television series Yes, Minister, who is the permanent secretary at the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs and who became synonymous with all-powerful officialdom.
Just last week, technology secretary Peter Kyle announced a new suite of AI tools for civil servants named “Humphrey” in honour of the fictional character.
During the session yesterday morning, Stuart also commented on the debate around whether the roles of cabinet secretary and head of the civil service should remain combined, showing support for the status quo.
Francis Maude's 2023 review of civil service governance and the Institute for Government's Commission on the Centre of Government, which reported in 2024, both recommended splitting the roles.
Stuart said she had previously agreed that the roles should be split but has changed her mind since becoming first civil service commissioner in 2022.
"It's a very seductive argument and it has been tried and I was attracted to that model. Two years ago I would have said 'brilliant idea, this is the right way of going about it'," she said.
"What I have observed is that in order to have the authority that you carry as head of the civil service, you actually do require regular access to the prime minister, and I think you also require an understanding on managing and advising the whole of the cabinet."
She added: "Looking at it now, I think what is underestimated is how important that relationship is between the cabinet secretary and the permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office and the [civil service] chief operating officer. Those two together, and their relationship, gives you the maximum of: prime ministerial involvement, making sure you serve the government, and inspiring and dealing with the civil service.
Stuart, who has two years left in her five-year, non-renewable term as first civil service commissioner, also said the commission and Cabinet Office are close to agreeing a memorandum of understanding that recognises that the regulator "is not a business unit of the Cabinet Office".
In 2023, Stuart told PACAC that she is determined to update the framework for the relationship between government and the Civil Service Commission to strengthen the regulator's operational independence.
Stuart said the MoU has been written and just needs the "final nod" before being published. She said it will also be refreshed on a tri-annual basis in the future.
Explaining the reasoning behind the new framework, Stuart said: "The importance of not being a business unit, I think, is the importance of making sure that the regulator is independent and can function as an independent regulator.
"That requires two things from my point of view: one is timely appointments to vacancies by the sponsoring department, and the second one is that you have got a predictable defined budget... and that you are not subject to the vagaries of top-slicing."
Giving an example, she said: "If the Cabinet Office says we need to save money across the Cabinet Office and each department needs to find 7% savings, if you're a small regulator, you should not be part of that."