While most of Westminster was looking west to the US and the re-election of Donald Trump, the government decided to publish the new ministerial code on Wednesday afternoon. An odd decision – not quite take out your trash day, but many would assume the government doesn’t want this on the front pages.
It’s been a while coming. In opposition Labour made a lot of noise on standards. Let’s face it, they had plenty of material to work on. The Institute for Government has, of course, a good graph on the timeframe for publication of ministerial codes. Only Theresa May took longer and of course poor old Liz Truss never got hers out of the drafts folder.
There are of course elements to be welcomed. There’s greater clarity and separation on standards and procedures. Keir Starmer has included a reference to obligations to comply with international law and treaties, removed in 2015. Hopefully now we’ll see a similar clause reinstated in the civil service code.
The Nolan Principles – not a seventies pop band but the Seven Principles of Public Life – have been reinserted after being removed by Boris Johnson. I’d want to say inexplicably removed by Boris Johnson, but events have led me to draw a different conclusion.
Dave Penman is the general secretary of the FDA, the union for senior civil servants
There’s a clause on trade union membership, confirming that ministers are entitled to hold membership. Our door is always open as they say and a gentle reminder that we can’t advise on issues that pre-date your membership, so get in quick.
Starmer has gone further than any previous prime minister and given the independent adviser (now on standards rather than interests) the ability to initiate investigations without the authority of the prime minister. This had been recommended by the Committee for Standards in Public Life yonks ago, and called for by the FDA, IfG and Uncle Tom Cobley. Everyone could see the conflict of interest and deadening effect it had on the ability to challenge poor behaviour, but then that’s exactly why previous prime ministers had kept it.
But before we go round slapping the new prime minister on the back, that is only a first step. The adviser considers many complaints, from conflicts of interest to other ethical challenges, but they will also be tasked with dealing with complaints about personal conduct. It is of course important that the adviser can investigate these complaints without the say so of the PM, but that’s only one of the elements required to ensure the process for handling complaints has the confidence of those who are subject to bullying and harassment.
As is recognised in HR practices in the civil service and beyond, dealing with bullying and harassment is complex. It is, in its most basic form an abuse of power, and the power imbalance between some of the most senior politicians in the country and civil servants whose role it is to serve them can be extreme. Confidence in challenging inappropriate conduct, rebalancing that power, takes more than saying the PM can’t veto an investigation. It requires transparency on process, confidence in how any complaint will be dealt with and clarity on the rights and obligations placed on all parties.
If a civil servant complains about another civil servant, even their permanent secretary, there’s a laid-out process for how that complaint will be dealt with, timeframes for completion and processes for challenge. Where is the equivalent when it comes to a complaint against a minster? No one, absolutely no one, wants to raise a complaint about a minister. Many worry it is career suicide or will result in them being moved from the very job they’ve spent their career trying to get. Recent experience has only reinforced this. Too often I’m told by complainants that if they had their time again, they would not put themselves through it – it wasn’t worth it.
If the government and the prime minister are serious about dealing with this issue, then they need to go further. They don’t need to reinvent the wheel. One of the legacies of the Alex Salmond affair was the introduction of fully independent process for handling complaints against ministers in the Scottish Government. This includes the decision on whether to investigate and – crucially – the outcome of the investigation. The first minister is presented with this and has to decide on a sanction if appropriate.
But under the new ministerial code, the prime minister is still the ultimate decision maker on guilt. The adviser does just that – advises. There is also no obligation to publish the advice; the adviser “may” require publication. The process is predicated on influence and cajoling a Prime Minister to do the right thing with threats of publication if not, a legacy of incremental changes to the code where successive prime ministers have clung on to the power of final decision – despite facing pressure to give it up. That is a far cry from a truly independent process.
Starmer and Labour came in promising change and there are warm words in the opening paragraphs on the code, but if the sun is truly rising on a new dawn of standards in government, they need to fix the roof, not just replace a few tiles.