Former cabinet secretaries have raised concern at over-politicisation and marginalisation of the civil service.
Robin Butler, who was cab sec and head of the home civil service for a decade – from 1988 to 1998 – warned that the UK is moving towards a US-style system where new governments replace senior civil servants with political appointees.
Fellow former cab sec Richard Wilson, who succeeded Butler in the role, agreed “the balance is wrong” and said he is “deeply uneasy” with the current situation.
Andrew Turnbull, who was Wilson’s successor as cab sec, said he agreed that there was an imbalance issue but that “politicisation” may be a “misdiagnosis”.
The ex-cab secs were speaking at a House of Lords debate on Thursday convened by Butler.
Kicking off the debate, Lord Butler said: "It seems to me that, overall, a clear pattern is emerging. We have moved to the American pattern of replacing senior civil servants with political appointees when the party of government changes. As one of my former colleagues said to me, civil servants in the centre of government have become an endangered species."
Butler said “wise governments combine the political impetus given by spads with the objective advice and continuity that the civil service provides on the other side” and that he fears that “at the highest level this balance has gone awry”.
Comparing the transition this year from the Conservatives to Labour unfavourably to the equivalent transition in 1997, when he was still cab sec, Butler said: “In 1997, the transition from a Conservative to a Labour government seemed to go pretty well. I do not think that the same can be said about the recent transition.
"I welcomed the appointment of Sue Gray as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, although many of my former colleagues did not. I thought that the experience and advice of Sue Gray, a former senior Cabinet Office civil servant, would help the Labour Party prepare for government. But, for whatever reason, that arrangement did not work out.”
Butler said the balance between political appointees and civil service staff in the prime minister’s office has “completely changed” following Gray’s departure. “The political staff in No.10 have taken over almost completely,” he said.
Butler pointed to Morgan McSweeney, who masterminded Labour’s election victory, taking over as chief of staff and to special advisers occupying the roles of deputy chief of staff, head of political strategy, director of policy, director of communications, press secretary, speech-writer and director of digital strategy.
“All of them have politically appointed staff supporting them,” he said. “At the last count, there were said to be 41 spads in No. 10.”
Butler added: "This country has been well served by a permanent civil service, providing continuity and constructive advice to whatever government our democratic arrangements produce, with the aim of helping them to implement their policies. I believe that that help on the part of the civil service should be unstinting. "
Lord Wilson agreed, saying: “I have to say that I am worried at the moment. I think No. 10 is going awry. The skill of the civil service with an incoming government is to enable them to appear to have been in power even when they are learning the job, but that has not happened.”
Wilson said the job of governments and ministers is more difficult than it used to be due to social media, "where you have to comment all the time rather than stopping, thinking and taking advice". And he said the job of the civil service is "weakening because of Brexit, which was a huge blow in terms of management, followed in no time by the pandemic".
"The loss of people at the top has been very bad: Tom Scholar is the worst, but there have been others that are pretty bad," he added.
Wilson said he believes the country needs a “royal commission on the civil service” as “too many things are going wrong".
"HR management is going wrong, as are many other things," he added. "This debate should be the prelude to a more serious look at what is happening."
Lord Turnbull said he agreed that “all is not well within the triangle of relationships between ministers, civil servants and special advisers”, but that the term “politicisation” may be a “misdiagnosis”.
He said his concern was that, “over time, more of the work of civil servants, particularly policy advice, is being done by special advisers”.
“The correct diagnosis is that the civil service is being marginalised and not being used to best advantage,” he said.
Turnbull said “the pushing out of civil servants is seen most clearly in the new arrangements at the top of the prime minister’s office” following Gray’s departure, as mentioned earlier in the debate by Butler.
He said the concept of having a “chief of staff” has also been a cause for some of these issues and is “like chewing gum and Halloween: an unwelcome import from the United States”.
“The title of chief of staff, in the UK context, is a nonsense,” he said. “The special adviser code makes it clear that the chief of staff cannot manage civil service staff. When Jonathan Powell was appointed with that title, the rules were changed to allow him to do so, but he found that it was not necessary for him to fulfil his role and the power was allowed to lapse.”
Instead, Turnbull said there should be a special adviser cadre with its own leader, and an official cadre led by of the head of the civil service or permanent secretaries.
“Neither should attempt to outrank the other,” he added. “They should collaborate to make the best use of the different skills and experience that each side can bring.”
Michael Bichard, a former permanent secretary at the Department for Education and Employment , said the civil service needs to be “self-critical” and improve so that it can resist the arguments for further politicisation, by delivering that.
“I do not support politicisation—I really do not—but I can see why some people argue for it,” Lord Bichard said. “What people and ministers want is a civil service which, at the very least, anticipates and solves problems, delivers decent services, can be trusted, and has political nous. That is how we will resist the arguments for further politicisation, by delivering that.”
Bichard recently told CSW that current cab sec Simon Case should apologise on behalf of the civil service for a series of government scandals dating back to the 1970s and called for the new government to make a series of reforms to standards to reform a system “which is excessively defensive, reluctant to learn the lessons of failure and too focused on protecting government ministers and the reputation of departments at the expense of the public”.
Fiona Twycross, a minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, addressed the comments at the end of the debate.
She said: “We do not believe that the civil service should be politicised and do not intend to allow this to happen on our watch.”
Baroness Twycross said the portrayal by Butler “felt slightly overstated”, but added “I recognise his concerns”.
She said ministers will “continue to strengthen our relationship with civil servants while ensuring that the civil service remains impartial” and will “continue to protect the very foundation of a non-politicised, impartial civil service”.