The government has made an “unforced error” in its approach to civil service appointments, the Institute for Government has warned.
In a new comment piece on Labour’s appointment of several senior civil servants with links to the Labour Party, IfG director Hannah White said the government’s decision to do this outside of the usual routes “poses risks to the impartiality of the civil service”.
The new Keir Starmer-led Labour government has been put under increasing pressure as a series of appointments have been revealed, including the hiring of a new director at the Treasury who had donated £20,000 to the party over the past decade, and a new director general in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology who had been seconded to the Labour Party while it was in opposition.
The latest appointment to come in for criticism is a former staffer at a Labour-affiliated think tank – who is also a former IfG staff member – appointed as a deputy director in the Cabinet Office’s ethics and constitution group.
All three were hired through the "exception" process, meaning the jobs were not advertised externally.
Labour has committed to reform standards through the creation of an ethics and integrity commission “to ensure probity in government” and Starmer outlined the importance of standards in his first cabinet meeting as prime minister.
But White said the government has made “an early mistake by attempting to side-step established recruitment practices”.
“An impartial civil service matters,” she said. “It is an asset to ministers and an asset to the country. Short-circuiting the recruitment practices, designed to ensure appointment on merit and protect impartiality, is a mistake.”
White said there are well-established routes for ministers to recruit outside support when they want “political advice from ideological fellow travellers, or to retain the services of expert advisers who know their mind and have shaped their thinking”. These include appointing special advisers (SpAds) and policy advisers or making use of direct ministerial appointments to, for example, appoint someone to lead an independent review or galvanise an issue as a government “tsar”.
She said these options “are all clear, established ways for ministers to bring in external support and expertise” and “none risk undermining the principles that underpin what all political parties say they value – a permanent and expert civil service ready to serve whoever forms the government of the day”.
These established routes “protect the civil service from politicisation and ministers from the appearance of impropriety, particularly where in-kind or financial donations are part of the picture”, White said. Neither of these objectives has been met by Labour’s approach, “which is all the more unfortunate given Keir Starmer’s focus on ethics and propriety during the election campaign”, she added.
White did also admit, however, that the policy adviser role – which tends to be ministerially-appointed civil servants based in a minister’s office for a time-limited period to advise on particular issues – is itself “ambiguous” and “one that has been ill-defined for some time”.
White said Labour’s approach is probably designed to avoid accusations that it is appointing too many SpAds and policy advisers, “perhaps conscious that this would run counter to its mantra of fiscal discipline, sensitive to public opinion on the cost of politics, or because it wants to keep SpAd appointments below the number brought in by Rishi Sunak”.
She said this desire to constrain the volume of appointments made through established routes “has crashed into a competing desire to bring in the external advisers who worked with the party in opposition” and that “the release valve has been a series of work-arounds”.
“Some of these exceptions haven’t raised an eyebrow: for example, expert former public servants being appointed in health and energy,” White said.
“The problems come where appointments have been made to those affiliated with, who have worked for, or who have donated to the party.
“It undermines the principle of merit – core to an impartial civil service – if ministers appear to freely give jobs to political allies without fair and open competition."
Shadow paymaster general and former Cabinet Office minister John Glen has called on the Civil Service Commission to investigate the appointments, saying there was “overwhelming evidence” that the Labour government was harming the integrity of Whitehall.
The Commission’s Recruitment Principles allow for specific time-limited "exceptions" to the legal requirement to recruit on merit on the basis of a fair and open competition. This must either be to meet the needs of the government or to enable the civil service to participate in a government employment initiative such as schemes that provide support for veterans or care leavers.
White said the exceptions process "should be just that – exceptional" and "should not be a back door for political appointments".
"None of the appointments seem so urgent as to be unable to wait for a rapid recruitment process to be run," she added.
The commission's approval for appointments by exception is only required in certain situations, such as for the appointment of civil servants at SCS Pay Band 2 minimum (£97,000) or above at any grade.
White said the seniority bar for its involvement should be lowered for candidates with a political background.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: "We don't comment on individuals."