Ask anyone in the FDA and they’ll tell you how bad I am at admin and self-organisation. I learned long ago to give up control of my diary to colleagues who are far more adept at time management.
Which is why a couple of weeks ago I ended up visiting all four countries of the UK plus a trip to the Republic of Ireland in just four days. It was, quite literally, Planes, Trains and Automobiles as I went from London to Llandudno to Belfast to Dublin to London to Oban. I saved the best for last, of course.
The FDA is the only union that has members in all the governments of the UK, and it struck me on my travels how civil servants are simultaneously serving governments of many different colours under different constitutional arrangements. The UK general election was called while I was in the air between Manchester and Belfast. This election, of course, ably demonstrates why a permanent, impartial civil service serves our country so well, being able to continue to serve the current government yet ready to serve the next if there is a change.
The civil service has got quite good at changes of administration of late. Over the last decade alone we’ve seen five different prime ministers, seven chancellors of the exchequer and then the dozens of secretary of state changes, never mind the junior ministers. Even in simpler times, ministerial changes can mean dramatic changes of policy and direction akin to a change of government.
Without making any assumptions on the outcome, my hope is that this election at least provides the stability that the country and the civil service needs. The political chaos that we have endured since the 2016 Brexit referendum has taken its toll in many ways, but it’s also led to some very bad government. Some of that lies squarely at the door of political leaders but another feature of that chaos has been the endless cycle of elections and the jockeying for position for posts from prime minister down.
The result has been a lack of strategic thinking or settled policymaking. The big challenges all governments face require big thinking, but that requires stability. Instead, we’ve had a series of short-term retail policy initiatives more focused on the polls than the public they’re supposed to serve.
In civil service terms just think of that last decade. We’ve had austerity and drastic reduction in staffing numbers. Brexit blew that apart but we’ve then had successive governments in denial about the consequences of exiting the EU and the inevitable demands this would place on the civil service. Covid not only brought its own challenges but demonstrated the consequences of hollowing out many public services.
Government has adopted a “make do and mend” approach, throwing resources at issues that create a political problem, then decrying the increase in the size of the state. Pay in the civil service is the perfect example. Ideologically driven to deny the inevitable consequences of uncompetitive pay, instead of having a strategic approach to reward, ministers create a system that has suppressed pay to a point where we have record turnover. We’ve got shortages in key skills because we can’t compete externally and the system in the senior civil service actively encourages movement between posts as the only real mechanism to get a pay rise. Ministers then complain about the inability to recruit from outside and the churn rates inside the service and wonder quizzically where it all went wrong.
Civil servants know the big challenges the public sector faces because they’re living with them every day. Whoever wins the election is going to need a civil service with the right resources, skills and motivation to help transform those services.
That’s not going to be easy in a tight fiscal environment, but it’s possible with strategic thinking, good engagement and an abandonment of ideological baggage.