Who would be a civil servant in 2012? Life is getting harder for the average mandarin. Their hours are being extended, their holidays are being shortened and most have had their pay frozen for some time. Worse than that, when they’re not being asked to find yet more things to cut, they’re being blamed for rail franchising fiascos or chastised for not having the right skills to do exactly what the coalition wants, when it wants it.
The lot of the average ‘bowler-hatted Sir Humphrey’ is dwindling, fast.
This matters to the party in opposition just as much as the government. If Labour wins the next election, the civil service cannot be switched, wholesale, as it can be in the US and in Germany. Today’s mandarins are tomorrow’s, too. Labour will have to mend the damage done by the coalition’s assault on Whitehall and overcome problems with morale, capacity and change fatigue.
Labour can begin this process of reconciliation now, as we draft our policies for 2015. When policy mechanics were discussed at conference fringe events, discussion rightly focused on how we can make our ideas meaningful and compelling for voters. But relatively little was said about the civil service’s role in delivery. At the Progress-Institute for Government panel discussion on policymaking, Catherine Haddon built on her recent report by rightly urging us to understand implementation when making policy. This would be a good start, but we need to go further.
What is required is a conscious effort to understand and empathise with the bureaucracy. Not only do we need to consider how far civil servants will be able to deliver the policies we suggest, we also need to build a constructive relationship with Whitehall in a break from the historic tendency of politicians to take a ‘them-and-us’ approach. We should not impose cultural change, rather we should develop new approaches and attitudes in an atmosphere of collaboration and togetherness.
To do this we need to more thoroughly understand how the bureaucracy works. Whitehall is not monolithic: there is no single point of view; no one position that needs to be overcome for politicians to get their way. Each department contains myriad directorates, teams and policy desks, all of which are competing for both the minister’s time and a slice of an ever-smaller budgetary pie.
Whitehall is often pilloried for having different departments with teams doing closely related tasks. It is true that in some cases, one team might never find out the other exists, let alone seek to work with it – hence constant calls for ‘joined-up’ government. This competition and duplication is not necessarily bad or wasteful, however. At its best, it ensures the development of different points of view, provides challenge, and guards against ‘groupthink’. It means that policy results can be more rigorous and robust having gone through a gladiatorial battle between different departments or directorates. Understanding how the civil service interacts with itself is vitally important for successful policymaking.
Finally, it’s essential to grasp the character and mentality of civil servants themselves. The rightwing press has often portrayed mandarins as comfortable freeloaders with cushy pensions, long holidays and minimal incentives for performance improvement. Unfortunately, given the size of the civil service, there is, no doubt, a minority that fit this stereotype.
But the vast majority are hard-working, committed and eager to deliver ministers’ vision for the country – whether that vision is right or wrong. Labour should embrace and champion civil servants for the (often unnoticed) things they get right, not lecture and harangue them like certain sections of the media. The long-term result of a better relationship between politicians and bureaucrats will be felt by all: policy formation and delivery will be more efficient, effective and, ultimately, successful.
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Greg Falconer is a foreign policy expert and former Whitehall civil servant. He tweets at @gregfalconer
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Obviously never received a reply from a Government ‘mandarin’ when asked why with policy in place it isn’t being implemented.
You need to remember that failures are seen as a reflection of the body the ‘mandarin’s’ represent and when the ‘mandarin’s’ fail, reply with spin, untruths and in some cases ‘facts’ which weren’t even related to the question raised, it is the Government not the ‘mandarin’ who is held accountable.
In my humble opinion the Tories (Coalition as they prefer) didn’t win the last election Labour lost it and ‘we’ lost it because on to many issues ‘we’ didn’t listen.
It goes without saying that this is largely down to Ministers, MP’s etc and gimmicks like the Big Conversation, policy portals etc. used to appease more than take on board issues at grass routes, but, outside of ‘party workings’, when the ‘mandarin’s’ act as they did they too assisted with the belief that many unfortunately got which was the view that Labour was now a Government that simply wasn’t listening.
Is it listening now, with one nation, squeezed middle, hard working. Spin spin spin.
This article is about persuading those in control to implement our policies, so why not be specific and let us know exactly how you want them to do that.
Oh yea as labour did not to long ago with his listening campaign, of which Miliband was apart. Spin spin spin and I think in 2010 the people showed both Labour and the Tories we are sick of it.