'Storm and Sunshine':- Reform’s Plan for the Civil Service

Danny Kruger’s second speech about Reform’s plans for the civil service is genuinely interesting, not least because a lot of thought has gone into its preparation.

His first speech focussed on the way in which Reform would aim to ‘grip’ and ‘take back control’ of ‘the machine’. You can read my report on it here.

His second speech (copy here) focusses on …

‘getting the size and cost of government under control. Ministers cannot effectively function with a bloated, top-heavy bureaucracy. To be better, government needs to be smaller.’

He then argues that ...

‘There are three ways to reduce the size and cost of government:

1) to cut out government waste;

2) to improve government productivity, including through the ambitious use of AI; and

3) for government to do less and the private sector and civil society to do more.

We need to do all these things, but today I am focusing on the first one: to cut waste.”

So far, so sensible.

(Although mainly about ‘waste’, the speech contains a brief note of concern that the civil service might aim to ‘restrain’ a ‘populist government’. I will come back to that later.)

The main part of the speech - all about ‘waste’ - goes into considerable detail with concerns about:

• the growing headcount,

• the frustration felt by many junior and middle ranking officials as evidenced in Amy Gandon’s 2023 RE:state report ‘Civil Unrest’,

• inadequate pay for senior officials and good performers,

• poor productivity,

• insufficient recruitment from outside Whitehall, and

• the extent of duplication between central and departmental corporate functions.

This is again all very familiar stuff, focussing on concerns that I have reported ad nauseam in previous Substacks. And it is fairly positive stuff which realistically recognises likely trade-offs such as that between performance and pay, especially at senior levels.

My only comments, and mild criticisms, on this part of the speech, are these:-

• I wonder if Mr Kruger is to some extent playing to the gallery by focussing his efforts on cutting civil service numbers? Civil servants are a popular target, to be sure, and there are probably too many of them. But they represent a tiny proportion of the workforce. Reform, if it ever gets near power, might be better advised to choose other policy priorities.

• He wants to increase the performance-related bonus pot by 400%. But I don’t think bonuses work well in the civil service. It’s very hard to identify which officials to reward when, say, crime rates fall. The Permanent Secretary? Or all the various policing, criminal justice, drug policy etc. teams in the Home Office and Justice Department - and what about police officers up and down the country? Those hard workers that don’t get rewarded very often feel aggrieved and discouraged.

• But I do rather like the idea that across-the-board pay rises might be linked to ‘improvements in national economic growth or productivity, aligning Whitehall with the priorities of the country’. That might just work!

• Mr Kruger wants to increase the proportion of senior appointments that are made from outside the current civil service. Is the current percentage (26%) too low? Promotion is, after all, a very good way of rewarding high performers. And experience of government helps.

• It is sensible for Reform to commit to ‘reviewing each corporate function to determine whether it is something best left to departments or whether it should sit across Whitehall as a service to be used by departments as needed; but not both’.

• I am pleased that Reform has concluded that ‘ it would be wrong to apply blanket reduction targets across every department, irrespective of its purpose or its role in the government’s priorities’.

We now await Mr Kruger’s thoughts on the second and third ways of reducing the size and cost of government:- productivity, and doing less.

The Civil Service and Populism

The intro to the speech contained these sentences:

Reform is considering in detail the operation of the Civil Service and Ministerial Codes, the processes of appointing and removing senior civil servants, the proper degree of political instruction to civil servants, and the best way of organising the centre of government to give effect to the wishes of the Prime Minister. ... See here a discussion of how the civil service could restrain a populist government. https://ukcivilservant.substack.com/p/could-the-civil-service-restrain .

The link is to my blog reporting a speech by Associate Professor Ben Yong - so let me stress, for those that haven’t read it, that Ben’s and my concern was that ‘Democratic backsliding - the weakening or evisceration of institutions designed to sustain democracy - seems to be on the rise.’ And Reform would get no doubt get a pretty cool reception - not only from the civil service - if they did set out to ‘weaken or eviscerate institutions designed to sustain democracy’. But, even so, we concluded that:

The civil service is not some kind of constitutional guardian or bulwark. While officials can speak truth to power there is ... very little constitutional scaffolding. The ability of the civil service to push back and its permanence is largely based on the convention and ministerial forbearance.

And what legitimacy officials have is derivative on:

· elected ministers in the first instance,

· on parliament, when enforcing a statute,

· and on the courts in adhering to legality.

To be clear, there is no reason to think that the civil service would impede the implementation of other popular policies by a democratically elected government. Indeed, to quote Ben Yong again:

It’s not uncommon for the civil service to be over responsive to prove they can work with their new masters.

Mr Kruger and his colleagues are much more likely to meet opposition from within their own party when anti-immigration policies, for instance, have consequences for social care, the NHS - even prisons. It is reported this morning that African prison officers have been given visa extensions to avert a staffing crisis.

‘Whitehall sources said it was a necessity but not one the government wished to make any noise about given its commitment to curbing legal migration.

Civil servants who warn ministers about consequences such as these are not trying to thwart ministers’ policies. They are trying to help - and speaking truth to power.

[Speaking of which, there are now only a couple of days left if you want to buy half-price Christmas present copies of How to be a Civil Servant: Westminster Explained and Speaking Truth to Power - only 7 copies left in Amazon’s stock.]

Martin Stanley