A New Year heralds a new cabinet secretary and head of the civil service. Welcome, Chris, all is fine.
It says a lot about the past few years that the most experienced permanent secretary didn’t appear on many people’s lists for top pick as Simon Case’s replacement. A job that used to be defined as being in the shadows has in recent times been a very public one, through necessity rather than choice, I would suggest. Events have thrust the role and its occupants into the limelight. I suspect the new prime minister, as well as the new cabinet secretary, will be seeking to reverse that trend (insert gif of Homer Simpson stepping back into the hedge).
Less drama would, generally, be a good thing. For one, it’s a distraction and saps energy and goodwill. I had high hopes for this government before “TepidBathGate” and the accompanying briefing. Time will tell whether this was a misstep or a more fundamental issue that will poison the well. One of the problems for cabinet secretaries is that they are (usually) the head of the civil service, but when it’s being attacked from within government – particularly with the covert, or, in this case, overt approval of the prime minister – they are unable to publicly defend their staff, undermining their leadership. Doing this almost within hours of appointing Chris Wormald to the role was, I would suggest, one they’ll be teaching in the “how-not-to” bit of leadership programmes in the future.
The new cabinet secretary has been tasked with “rewiring government” and we saw a little of what that means in the speech Pat McFadden, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, made in December. However you describe this – as “missions” or, when it doesn’t work, “siloed government” – genuine collaboration across government and public services has been the goal of successive administrations. It’s not easy to ensure that the right decisions can be made and, crucially, that money can flow to the right projects and people.
It’s interesting that the new cab sec, in his 12 years as a permanent secretary, has worked in two departments that are at the forefront of this challenge: health and education. Relatively small civil service departments, but with huge responsibilities for significant areas of crucial public services. How to turn government ambition into reality on the ground is their daily challenge and so Wormald is well placed to understand the task at hand and help shape this work. Much has been said about hiring an insider to do this work, but it’s an electrician you need to rewire your house, not a theoretical physicist. Understanding the civil service with all its strengths, weaknesses and, crucially, the role that ministers play in making it work is vital if reform is to succeed.
He inherits a civil service that has suffered a battering over recent times. It has been under-resourced, underpaid and scapegoated. Despite this, it still has an incredible source of dedicated, talented people who want to make it work. It still attracts some of the brightest people in the country who want to change citizens’ lives for the better. It’s got big issues that need addressing and haven’t been in any meaningful or strategic way for decades. Pay is the top of my list and not just because that’s what you’d expect from a trade union leader. It goes to the heart of how we solve some of the problems that continue to manifest themselves in the service. How we recruit, retain and motivate people in what is ultimately a people business has been relegated to a cost-control mechanism.
We’ve been treading water on this for too long. What we need is fundamental structural and strategic reform, and this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do that. Get that right and integrate it with a strategic workforce plan, and you can build a service that’s ready for the challenges of the next decade.
Now that would be an achievement for a new cabinet secretary.
Dave Penman is general secretary of the FDA union