“Good people” in the civil service are “caught in bad systems”, Pat McFadden has said, in response to questions over the prime minister’s criticism of Whitehall last week.
During Keir Starmer’s Plan for Change announcement last week, the PM said “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”. Unions slammed the comments as a "betrayal" of civil servants.
McFadden began his speech on reform of the state this morning by addressing the issue.
He said: "Too often the debate instantly falls into a distortion about whether or not someone is attacking civil servants. So let me be clear, I work with hard-working and diligent civil servants every day. They want to do well for their country and the public. The people are good, but the systems and structures that they work in are too often outdated and make it hard for them to deliver. And no one will welcome change in that situation more than civil servants themselves.
"Do we think that people like the fact that they’ve gone to a lot of meetings and sometimes feel that they’re banging their head against a brick wall? Of course they don’t. They want to achieve and we have to help them do it. It’s right that we expect people to focus on delivery and right that we drive the system towards that goal."
McFadden added: "So I’m not here today to talk about what lanyards people are wearing or to open up another chapter in the culture war. Those are just pointless distractions. Gimmicks from politicians who don’t have serious answers to serious questions. I’m more interested in an answer rather than a grievance, because reform of the state is about delivering for people."
McFadden was asked during a Q&A following his reform speech this morning if the PM had alienated civil servants with these comments.
McFadden said it is “perfectly legitimate for the prime minister, for me, for any minister to say: we want the system to work better, we want people to focus on delivery”.
“If people are being asked to pay in, we want them to focus on the best outcome they can have, whether it’s NHS waiting time, whether it’s getting you your passport on time, or whatever that service is. Like a lot of our public institutions, things need to adapt and change over time. And that is what we’re both saying about this, and in the speech I’ve made today, setting out some ways, through technology, through test and learn, through small projects in which we think we can make that happen.”
Asked earlier, in a Sky News interview ahead of the speech, if the government was picking a fight with the civil service, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said: “I’m praising the civil servants today. I think we’ve got a lot of good people caught in bad systems and the point I’m making today is that we’ve got huge change in the private sphere, if we think about all the companies we use and rely on. Airbnb, or Spotify or WhatsApp, didn’t even exist 20 years ago – they’ve changed our lives. Has the way the government thinks about delivering services changed at the speed of the private sphere? It hasn’t.”
McFadden also gave his view on working from home as part of his media promotion of the new reform announcements. In an interview with Times Radio, he said: “I’m a believer in working in the office. I think it’s good for people to come into the office, you get shared learning from your colleagues, you get the culture of working in a team. I think that’s harder if you’re at home all the time.
“Of course, the civil service is flexible, as an employer of people who’ve got particular circumstances, which might mean they have to be at home sometimes.
“But if you ask me on the whole, do I want people in the office and getting the benefits of shared work? The answer is yes.”