The British civil service has been attacked relentlessly by its political masters and the media for 40 years, but radical reform almost never materialises. Whitehall has been blamed for most modern ills, from relative economic decline in the 1960s to bureaucratic inefficiency in the 1980s. Under a barrage of public vilification encouraged by populist politicians and a hostile media, the civil service has become increasingly demoralised. Ministers’ willingness to take a long, hard look at its future should be welcomed. But the Civil Service Reform Plan doesn’t offer the comprehensive re-assessment of the permanent bureaucracy that’s urgently required.
Instead of bolting managerial reforms onto the traditional model in an arbitrary, piecemeal manner, while assuming that the over-arching roles, systems and structures of the civil service should remain unchanged from the Northcote-Trevelyan model established in the 1850s, Britain needs a new settlement: fashioning a 21st century civil service capable of providing effective governance to meet today’s challenges.
Until the 1980s, British government was compared to a ‘club’: a self-selecting meritocracy of ministers and officials who protected one another’s interests, insulating the establishment from external pressures through a culture of secrecy and the belief that central government knew best. This settlement unravelled as changing social attitudes and the decline of deference towards the ruling elite prompted the opening up of once closed institutions. The legacy is a civil service judged no longer ‘fit for purpose’ by a newly-critical public, but the political class appears unwilling to define a new settlement for Whitehall. Whoever is in power post-2015 will need to break the impasse.
As it is, major reforms are being imposed without any attempt to re-think the culture, values and modus operandi of the service. The reform plan contains sensible ideas, but it’s a sweep of often disconnected reforms which offer nothing like the coherent public philosophy set out by Northcote-Trevelyan.
What is missing from the plan, above all, is an analysis of our changing society and economy, and of how Whitehall should respond to new challenges. To take two examples, the power-shift to the East and the threat of global competition will transform how Britain must act in order to pay its way in the world. In relation to social policy, meanwhile, an era of spending restraint combined with an ageing population and the resultant pressures on public services will require hard choices and imperfect compromises.
These strategic challenges underline the importance of an active state populated by civil servants of restless excellence judiciously serving the public interest. Inevitably, the definition of the public interest will diverge from that of the Northcote-Trevelyan era, given today’s ubiquitous markets and the end of ‘careers for life’. The public values of accountability, openness, probity, and transparency arguably deserve even greater protection today than that accorded them by Northcote-Trevelyan, given the extent of marketisation.
These changes ought to be subject to proper debate within the broader context of constitutional reform. Again, the reform plan barely considers how the bureaucracy ought to relate to other political institutions, notably Parliament and the devolved bodies in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. It is impossible to articulate the public interest mandate of the civil service without first considering the role of constitutional principles such as parliamentary sovereignty, and the rules governing the machinery of state such as the convention that officials advise while ministers decide.
Since the 1960s, the British civil service has arguably been the victim of its own success, willingly adapting to the pressures imposed on it by the political class. The 1968 Fulton report demanded greater specialisation and professionalism. The Thatcher reforms broke up Whitehall into discrete management units, with greater focus on the individual consumer. Under New Labour, the civil service compliantly sought to achieve Tony Blair’s much vaunted ‘delivery agenda’.
A new settlement is urgently required, however: one prepared to re-think core principles such as that of a permanent and politically-neutral bureaucracy. The Public Administration Select Committee recently called for a Royal Commission on the future of the civil service – an idea too glibly dismissed by coalition ministers. Changes in society and the economy will necessitate a major shift in culture, incorporating greater openness to civil society and local government. Politicians of all parties will seek to embrace ‘post-bureaucratic’ government in an era of austerity – but instead of grasping at the latest passing fad, what is needed is a coherent ‘21st century Northcote-Trevelyan settlement' for the modern age.