Is the UK Civil Service becoming Americanised?

The relationship between US politicians and their officials was once modelled on ours.  The American Civil Service then became highly politicised.  Are we now following the same trajectory?

American politicians have, ever since the 1776 Declaration of Independence, argued endlessly about the extent to which the various States should relinquish power to a central Congress.  Having achieved independence, the Federalists wanted to import what they saw as the many strengths of the British constitution.  They favoured the establishment of a commercially powerful Union with a central bank, extensive tax-raising powers and strong armed forces.  Alexander Hamilton, for instance, believed that "the British Government was the best in the world and ... he doubted much whether anything short of it would do in America".

The Republicans, in contrast, thought that, the smaller the government, the better the chances of preserving the liberties that had been gained in independence from Britain.  To the extent that a central government was necessary, they wanted a strong Congress (elected State by State) with a weak executive. 

This fundamental divide within American politics was soon to come to a head in its Civil War and remains evident today, most obviously in the gun control and abortion debates. 

As in the UK, most American civil service appointments were initially within the gift of politicians.  The 1854 Northcote Trevelyan Report catalysed change on this side of the Atlantic and helped inspire the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in the USA.  As a result, around two-thirds of the US federal workforce was appointed on merit by 1909.

The 1914-18 First World War then demonstrated severe weaknesses in both administrations.

The UK answer (courtesy of Lord Haldane) was to ensure that civil servants became very close to ministers.  UK officials are supposed to know their ministers' minds so well that they take the same decisions that ministers would take, given the law and the substance of the relevant government policy.  This is the reason why civil servants are almost always present when ministers meet their colleagues to discuss policy, and when ministers meet others in 'official' meetings.  They listen into ministerial phone calls, take notes of meetings and debrief those who need to know.  British ministers cannot reach decisions in private, with each other or with someone else - nor can officials.

President Woodrow Wilson also wanted to strengthen his Civil Service whilst ensuring that, when civil servants exercised discretion, their decisions were the legitimate expression of the views of their political masters.  But he chose a quite different route to this end.  His alternative answer was the greatest possible separation of functions between politicians and officials.  Civil servants were to take decisions on specific cases within rules set by politicians.  This was intended to ensure that political interests (and corruption) did not influence administrative decisions.  I understand that these rules are now published annually and run into thousands of pages. 

Wilson's functional separation has been eroded by the politicisation of the top levels of the US executive.  Wilson had hoped to administer government, as in the UK, through a wholly merit-based civil service.  But the US spoils system was too strong.  There are now 2,000 senior posts which are Presidential appointments with the result that many candidates have few relevant qualifications and little relevant experience, and many posts remain open long after the arrival of a new President. 

In practice, each part of the federal bureaucracy now makes rules for itself because politicians do not have the time to do so.  Also, as American politicians are not very interested in holding officials to account, effective accountability is now to the courts rather than to the President or Congress.  All US courts, and particularly the American Supreme Court, appear to be much more 'political' than their UK counterparts.

Is the UK constitution slowly but steadily going the same way?

There has certainly been a good deal of politicisation of senior appointments in the UK.  Although still small in number, Special Advisers have become much more powerful over recent years.  And the 2016 Grimstone Review led to ministers having much greater influence in the public appointments process, so reversing the previous decades' trend towards reduced political influence.

Weaker parliamentary scrutiny also means that our courts are increasingly drawn into holding the executive to account.  Ministers and their officials now draft their own rules in the form of extensive secondary legislation and Henry VIII powers which avoid debate in Parliament.   I am far from the first to draw attention to ‘the slow death of Parliamentary scrutiny’  and ‘Death by Diktat’. Adam Wagner, in his Emergency State,  has forcefully drawn attention to the consequential threat to human rights. 

One result has been a busy Supreme Court; the Prorogation and Rwanda decisions are perhaps good examples of this. It remains to be seen whether the astonishing provisions in new Rwanda Bill might now provoke a serious clash over the fundamental relationship between Parliament and the courts.

Notes

I don't claim to be an expert in American history so would be glad to be corrected if anything above is seriously misleading.

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Martin Stanley Editor - Understanding the Civil Service