It’s become fashionable to argue that Whitehall doesn’t work because ministers are not up to the job. That the civil service’s neutrality is under threat due to politicisation. That the corridors of power are full of adversarial special advisers spinning and interfering. On all three counts, this is a terrible take.
One of the most common reflections of former ministers is how hard they found "gripping" the government machine and getting stuff done. There are lots of reasons for this, many of which we at Reform think tank have written about – layers of bureaucracy and convoluted processes, archaic regulations, poor data, legacy IT, a lack of cognitive diversity in senior civil service ranks – but one reason often overlooked is the woefully inadequate political support they are afforded.
Other Westminster-style systems take this seriously. In Australia, there are around 400 political staffers; in Canada, around 600. In comparison, last year the government reported 130 spads. Both those countries have populations millions smaller than the UK, and no one is arguing they have more complex issues to deal with.
In fact, given how centralised our model of government is, UK ministers have a particularly complex and high workload. It’s absurd to think that a couple of advisers in departments and a handful in No.10 and the Treasury is enough. As Sam Freedman – a former policy adviser, now a senior fellow at the Institute for Government – has pointed out, the PM’s political team is smaller than a German city mayor.
Encouragingly, Labour have quietly dropped the two-spad cap that applied – though often breached – to secretaries of state. Less happily, the new ministerial code retains the reference to cabinet ministers appointing spads.
The minister for border security and asylum, inarguably a vital and highly risky brief, doesn’t attend cabinet. Nor does the minister for care whose brief includes primary care, community care, social care and disabilities. Neither are therefore eligible for a special adviser.
As one former spad told us for a new paper out this week, government should “match the political resource to what’s needed”, and that includes giving junior ministers in key roles the support they need. The public expect ministers to deliver, so let’s stop tying one hand behind their back.
"The public expect ministers to deliver, so let’s stop tying one hand behind their back"
It also means getting serious about pay. We have long argued that the erosion of pay, particularly at the top of the civil service, needs urgent redress. It is absurd that the role of cabinet secretary is being advertised at £200,000. But that also applies to spads, who have experienced an even larger real-terms cut of over 30%.
The pay ceiling at the end of the New Labour era was the equivalent of £214k in today’s money; it’s currently £145k. Interviewees for our new paper repeatedly cited pay as a barrier to bringing in deeper experience and wiser heads. One former senior spad said that while it’s a privilege to serve, many face taking huge salary cuts, while “at the stroke of a pen you could be sacked”. Another told us poor pay has led to a “surfeit of youth over experience”. That’s a false economy.
Having more, better-qualified, better-paid advisers is not just good for ministers; it's good for civil servants. Former perm sec Olly Robbins gave a lecture in 2019 in which he said spads are “a feature of a system that in fact protects the professional civil service model from partisan politicisation, and allows ministers to feel they are getting a second opinion on critical issues. The service should welcome and support special advisers better”.
We also heard how spads can help departmental officials get things done across government, clearing blockages and bypassing hierarchical processes.
Back in 2013, Extended Ministerial Offices were introduced to the ministerial code. Then-Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude’s brainchild was designed to enable ministers much greater flexibility to build a strong team around them – drawn from the political and official. The concept was the right one, and an updated version – integrated ministerial offices – should be home to this larger cohort of advisers. And on the official side of the IMO, Whitehall needs to focus on getting the best talent into private office roles, which interviewees told us had declined in quality.
Good government requires good people. It requires a wide range of skills and a diversity of experience and views. It also requires a laser focus on delivering against promises made to the public. External political appointments can help provide that, unencumbered by the managerial and operational responsibilities of civil servants. Far from being a "necessary evil", spads, and other political appointees, are a crucial part of the machine.
Governing is political; grown-up government would recognise that and get serious about political support.
Charlotte Pickles is the director of the Reform think tank