Few, if any, of the thousands of eager graduates applying for this year’s civil service fast stream programme are likely to have heard of Rupert Hughes, who died in August, aged 80.
Yet even though they may not know it, the young people hoping to join one of the country’s most highly esteemed graduate employer schemes are following in the footsteps of Hughes and many like him: people who have made a career dedicated (though they’d run a mile before expressing it like this) to public service.
Hughes, who was described in his Guardian obituary as a heroic figure, was a senior civil servant. He was the architect of a radical piece of legislation, the 1989 Children Act, which helped to unravel and bring into a single place what had previously been a tangle of public and private laws on crucial issues affecting children, including protection, care, family support, adoption and fostering.
Tributes for Hughes after his death included praise for his skills. He was, said Jo Tunnard, the former chief executive of the Family Rights Group, with whom Hughes worked on the Children Act, “masterly at cajoling and steering while also listening and responding”.
That may sound simple. But consider Hughes’ achievement. In a decade dominated by a Conservative government, led by Margaret Thatcher, whose rubric was all about curbing the activities of the state, Hughes created cross-party support for an act that set a groundbreaking threshold for state intervention in family life.
This was someone who cared deeply about the wellbeing of children and dedicated his working life to improving the lot of some of the most vulnerable young people in the country.
In 40 years’ time, how will today’s fast stream entrants look back on their own careers as civil service leaders? They will certainly be looking at a service different from the one in which civil servants like Hughes, who retired in 1995, spent their working lives.
The civil service of 2055 will, for one thing, be more diverse. The government has begun to make real efforts to make Whitehall more reflective of the country as a whole and, in 40 years’ time, the results of that should have finally fed through to the highest levels of the service, which remains decidedly white and male. In 2014, 38% of senior civil servants were women, 4% were from a black and minority ethnic background, and only 3% were people with a disability. By 2055, it’s to be hoped that those stats will have shifted. A start has been made: last year’s fast stream entry included 14% of successful applicants from a BME background.
There will be other changes, too. Civil service chief executive John Manzoni has made it clear that he wants to centralise civil service jobs like HR, technology, finance and communications, and although the government has so far shied away from major mergers or closure of Whitehall departments, that could eventually be on the cards. So by 2055, departments might not even exist in their present form.
If the decentralisation of powers and budgets to local government continues, or even accelerates, central government structures could look quite different by the middle of the 21st century. The traditional Fast Stream loyalty to department above all is changing rapidly.
New fast streamers will get more experience across Whitehall, rather than being inculcated into the ways of a single department. The aim is to build a talent pipeline, spreading the best candidates out across Whitehall. A new generation of civil servants is being hired for their expertise in professional areas like delivery, project management and finance. That’s important, of course, but those areas of specialist knowledge will still, it’s fair to say, need to be combined with ageless leadership skills. Persistence, cajoling, steering and the ability to influence aren’t going to go out of fashion anytime soon.
So let’s hope that changes to employment conditions in the civil service – such as asking civil servants to pay more into their pension scheme and receive less at the end of it; changes such as re-employing civil servants on zero-hours contracts; changes such as an unpopular performance management system – don’t end up deterring the brightest candidates.
So far, the Fast Stream has held up as one of the most popular graduate schemes in the country, and those who get on the programme still rate the experience highly. The chance to improve the country, to be challenged intellectually and to get paid a decent wage for doing so is still a draw for many bright graduates.
Those nearing the end of their civil service careers in 2015, and those who have been at the sharp end of Whitehall cuts, could be forgiven if they are cynical about the shape of the service over the next four years, let alone the next 40. But however it changes, the civil service will still need leaders who demonstrate, just like Rupert Hughes, dedication to public service, infused with humility and humanity. Good luck!