Share
This report was prepared by George Bangham
Future of the Civil Service – Evolution or Revolution?
Will we ever see revolutionary change in the UK Civil Service? The short answer, proposed by Professor Colin Talbot (University of Manchester) in his talk to CPP on 7 February, is no. As Professor of Government and Public Policy at Manchester University, with long experience advising public organisations in the UK and overseas, he believes Whitehall will evolve more slowly, and could learn much from its global counterparts.
Several attempts at reform over the past 40 years have altered few core values, though Parliamentary momentum for change seems at a high point in recent months. Yet there is so far little sign of new legislation to change the appointment, organisation and responsibilities of civil servants – the current government has other priorities. Prof. Talbot argued we will instead achieve progress by introducing new expertise and training for the next generation of UK public servants.
Whitehall is currently witness to the UK's largest ever cuts in white-collar civil service jobs, pay, pensions and budgets. This coincides with an unusual period of pressure on senior Civil Servants from Parliament, which might at first seem to necessitate change. Recent high-profile media scandals like the West Coast mainline have brought ministers to publicly blame senior Civil Servants. Select Committees increasingly call senior officials to account directly, for example the Public Accounts Committee obliged the most senior Lawyer at HMRC to deliver evidence on corporate tax under oath in November 2011.
Prof. Talbot suggested, however, that the last 40 years of Whitehall reform demonstrate how slowly its institutions evolve. He highlighted that none of the main constitutional principles of Civil Service accountability – the Armstrong doctrine (Civil Servants have no constitutional position outside the government of the day) and Osmotherley rules – have been replaced, though Select Committees and the introduction of Executive Agencies have eroded their strength. The late Sir Peter Kemp's 1988 separation of operational delivery from 'Executive Agencies', which by 1995 incorporated about 80% of senior officials, has since lapsed to a relatively weak division. The only lasting innovation has been the growth of political appointees, as Special Advisers and 'Czars', who now number about 200, raising questions about the balance of power between Ministers and Whitehall.
The future lies, then, in the training and skills of new Civil Servants. This is the most promising avenue for short-term reform. Prof. Talbot was closely questioned as to exactly what 'new skillset' the UK needs. He emphasised that UK Civil Servants – unlike their French and German counterparts – typically have little legal training or experience in operational delivery. Beside widening the sociological makeup of the Service, he argued we need further training in policy evaluation, large contract commissioning, and quantitative data analysis. New incentives to push the limits of operational tradition, for example in the Government Legal Service, would greatly help the effort to modernise.
Audience members were left with an optimistic outlook for the 21st-century Civil Service, though its capacity for internal, institutional reform remains limited. It is most of all the responsibility of policy education to train a new generation of modernisers, who will allow Whitehall to compete once more with its leading counterparts overseas.
Related articles:
http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Civil-Service-Reform-Plan-acc-final.pdf
http://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/news/article-engineers-make-difference-policy-development/