As any government press officer will tell you, it’s hard to get positive coverage of the civil service in the mainstream media. Most mass-circulation reporters are only interested in stories about political embarrassments and administrative debacles – and in recent months, the civil service reform agenda has provided plenty of both. The summer’s ‘one year on’ report acknowledged slow delivery in important fields such as improving capabilities, modernising the workplace, talent management and transactional shared services: last week, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude spelled out his regrets about the pace of change. Meanwhile, political briefings against civil service chief Sir Bob Kerslake – apparently emanating from departmental secretaries of state as well as central figures – have created a tasty mandarins v ministers story, leaving the impression that the reform agenda has stalled.
This is manifestly untrue – for on another, more substantive aspect of the shared services agenda, the ice sheets are moving. It was more than two years ago, when Sir Bob was still in his first perm sec’s job at the communities department, that he told CSW of the need for an “instinctive collaborative and corporate approach to dealing with problems”: stronger corporate leadership was required across Whitehall, he said, and “I think we’re in a period of transition in the civil service towards that model” (p10, 7 Sept 2011).
His views aligned with those of the new government, which was determined to strengthen central direction and coordination of the civil service’s functions and professions. It quickly tightened the leadership of project management, ICT and training; the Treasury solicitor has been centralising the management of legal professionals; and procurement and communications are fast making up for languid starts.
Now property, where progress has been consistently disappointing, is set for a shake-up with the Homes and Communities Agency’s new role. We see big changes in HR management, plus stronger coordination in the policy profession. And new CIPFA chief Rob Whiteman’s Opinion piece makes clear that many public finance professionals would like to see more central leadership in this crucial area. When reforms get this kind of momentum across so many fields of the civil service’s operations and professions, there’s a really good chance of achieving critical mass.
Something big is happening here. The civil service’s structure and culture ensure that every plan is always compromised; that nobody ever triumphs absolutely. And for years now, government’s ability to deliver has been constrained by staff cuts, pay controls and political attacks that have damaged civil service capacity, morale and motivation. But on almost every front, it appears that corporate leadership is becoming stronger and more effective; that the blunt instruments of spending controls are giving way to the more nuanced tools of management networks.
If these signs of progress realise their potential, then the government – and its much-lambasted civil service chief – will have fostered the civil service’s biggest and most important organisational change programme for some decades. The mainstream press won’t think that worth covering – but that, I’m afraid, is the nature of the beast.
Matt Ross, Editor. matt.ross@dods.co.uk