How much power and influence does the civil service have?

How Much Power And Influence Do The Civil Service Have?

The tentacles of the Civil Service reach deep into British society, this is understandable due to the main function of the Civil Service. Being the administrative element of the executive branch of government, it is responsible for executing, or implementing, government policy. Civil servants ensure that statute law and government policy are put into place.

‘Civil servants are servants of the Crown. In today’s world, the executive responsibilities of the Crown are carried out by the elected government of the day. The Civil Service serves that government, irrespective of its political complexion… It provides continuity through the changes of government… On policy matters, the Civil Service is responsible for advising Ministers on policy options and ensuring the implementation of Minister’s decisions. Ministers must decide on policy issues – and are accountable to Parliament and the public for them, but they expect the Civil Servants to be experts in areas of administration and keep them under review; to analyse and evaluate the options for new approaches; and to provide them with thorough and objective advice on the implications, costs and benefits of alternate courses of action… Outside the policy area, the Government relies upon the high standards of integrity, fairness and confidentiality of the Civil Service, upon Civil Servants’ commitment to service for every citizen and economy and efficiency on behalf of the taxpayer, and upon the Civil Service’s flexibility and sensitivity to changes in Government policy in handling some of the largest managerial and service delivery tasks in the economy.’

‘The Civil Service: Continuity and Change’, Government policy paper, 1994

The traditional and constitutional view of the advisory role of the Civil Service is to advise ministers on the decisions that need to be made, to brief ministers on the issues involved and to present options to make the minister’s decision making easier. At no stage though should Civil Servants be responsible for decision making. There is a clear dividing line between the decision-making role of the minister and the supporting role of the Civil Servant.

‘Civil Servants advise; ministers decide’ – as Margaret Thatcher put it in 1989.

Ministers are the representatives of the elected government of the country, with most ministers being MPs they will have been elected. Some ministers will be from the House of Lords, and therefore, not elected, and the government is not directly elected but at least it has some democratic credentials as it is drawn from the House of Commons. Civil Servants are not elected and because of this they should not have the power to make decisions. Decision making is the responsibility of the politicians and it is they who should take responsibility for the success or failures of departmental policy. For this reason Civil Servants are said to be anonymous, this doesn’t mean that their identities be kept secret, but it does mean that they should not be held accountable for their advice or for departmental policy Ministers are responsible to Parliament for departmental policy, while Civil Servants are not. In the case of policy errors or mistakes in implementation it is the minister who has to resign, not the Civil Servant – the Civil Servant should not be held responsible because they have no role in decision making.

Despite this view that Civil Servants should not hold political power they have come under criticism. Politicians from both left and right have accused Civil Servants of having considerable influence over policy making -

Ministers have a large workload and have limited time, as a result, they rely heavily on their Civil Service advice and this puts the Civil Servants into a privileged and influential position. Any advisor should have some influence, if they don’t there is not much point in them being there. However, if ministers lack the time to check Civil Servants’ advice, the danger is that they ...

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Once decisions have been made it is left to the Civil Service to implement them. Again this leaves room for the Civil Servant to interfere in the political process by delaying or obstructing the implementation of policy. By finding loopholes, creating difficulties or simply refusing to co-operate, policies can be undone.

Civil Servants also have the opportunity to ‘control’ the minister by restricting the supply of information to him or by presenting it in such a way as to limit his options. It would be wrong to suggest that this happens often, it remains true that the Civil Service has considerable power.

Senior Civil Servants tend to be permanently attached to a government, whereas a minister has no such security. Not only will he be removed if his party loses a general election, but he can be dismissed by the Prime Minister or transferred to another department. A new minister would be at a disadvantage in relation with his permanent officials who retain their position after a change of government. Senior officials will have usually spent their working life in the Civil Service, perhaps as long as forty years. This means they will be experts on particular aspects of government - they understand the main issues, have an extensive grasp of relevant information and are familiar with the variety of individuals and groups who are concerned with politics, they are also expert administrators. In contrast, ministers come to office with little experience of their new responsibility, often with little or no administrative experience and certainly scant knowledge of how the intricacies of government work. In circumstances, whereas a party coming to power has been out of office for a number of years, very few ministers will have had previous experience. This too can strengthen the Civil Services’ position. Whenever there is a change of government, the incoming minister cannot see the papers of his predecessor, because of this each change of government gives the Civil Service a sharp, if temporary, increase of power.

There are a variety of ways in which Civil Service influence over policy could manifest itself. Among them are:

Imposing on new ministers established policies and practices within the department.
Resistance to any radical policies. Civil Servants are not permitted to defy stated government policy and there is little evidence to suggest they do. Nevertheless, by stressing the negative aspects of new policies and constantly advocating a more cautious line, there is a possibility that ministers may well be forced to ‘water down’ proposals.
Manipulation of information may occur. Ministers rely on officials to supply them with background facts upon which to base decisions. Skilful officials may be able to present statistics and research findings in a way as to influence final conclusions.
The BBC TV series ‘Yes Minister’, often showed Civil Servants hatching conspiracies with colleagues in other departments in order to get their own way. Though clearly over exaggerated for the dramatic and comedic effect, many ministers, including Margaret Thatcher, privately admitted that the show carried some truth.

The following summarises the advantages that Civil Servants have over their ministers:

ADVANTAGES OF CIVIL SERVANTS

Advantages enjoyed by Civil Servants

Permanence
Professionalism
Access To Information
More Time Available
Less Political Constraints

Disadvantages suffered by ministers

Temporary Appointment
Often No Specialised Knowledge
Rely On Officials For Information
Heavy Workload
Constrained By Colleagues, etc.

We know that Civil Servants give advice and in this sense they are bound to have some influence over decisions. The question is, whether there is a systematic attempt by Civil Servants to affect the way the government makes its decisions. If there is, then Civil Servants do indeed exercise influence.

The following are theories on the subject:

The Orthodox View – This is that Civil Servants are indeed neutral in their work with government, that ministers are effectively in control and there is no premeditated attempt to subvert policy-making and implementation by the top Civil Service. Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who believed in this view, points out that governments with a number of different types of radical programmes have been able to carry them through. This would cite the extensive social, economic and industrial reforms of the 1940s. This suggests that the charge of excessive influence or interference by senior officials is designed to deflect attention away from the failures of ministers. They say that Civil Servants only appear to be powerful when governments are weak.

The Left Wing View – Principally spawned from the experience of the Labour Governments of the 1960s. Labour Cabinet minister Tony Benn entered office with plans to modernise Britain. In particular there were plans to introduce more long-term and precise economic planning. This was said to directly threaten the power of the greatest department of state, the Treasury. The creation of a new Civil Service department, the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), staffed by specialist economists who were committed to the idea of centralised planning, was a direct challenge to Treasury power. When the idea of planning collapsed within two years, the sinister influence of the Treasury was immediately blamed by such left-wingers. When the Fulton Committee recommended sweeping reforms of the Civil Service in 1968 and when the attempt to implement them was thwarted, the case was proved, announced by the anti-civil service lobby. There was, they argued, a permanent ‘establishment’ in Britain which had controlled much of the state, including the law, the professions, government, the diplomatic service and the great financial institutions for many years, The ‘establishment’ was made up of representatives of a ruling class who maintained their influence by controlling these institutions and especially by determining who could enter them. Most importantly, they continued, the ‘establishment’ was utterly opposed to all forms of socialist policies. They used the Civil Service as a defence against their implementation

The Right Wing View – This idea was promoted by Margaret Thatcher and her supporters. Far from being part of a Conservative Establishment, they declared, the Civil Service was dominated by characters who preferred to see the maintenance or extension of centralised state power. They pointed to the growth in size of the state and its influence over society since the 1940s as clear proof of this. The Civil Service had always been there to endorse it. In 1971 the Conservative government under Edward Heath, reversed its policies towards the state. He had plans to scale down the role of the state, especially in the economic and industrial spheres. Within two years, however, he had changed direction (this became known as the ‘Heath U-Turn’). The hand of the Civil Service was suspected in these events.

Other Views – This is the idea that the senior Civil Service tends to prefer policies which have consensus support, i.e. are widely supported in the country and do not alienate substantial parts of the population. This is a logical position to take as policies which do enjoy widespread support will be easier to implement. Some politicians, of course, may have mistaken the consensus position for active political opposition. It can also be observed that this is close to the constitutional role of Civil Servants. If they serve the state and the state will run better if there is consensus support for policies, then this position is seen as a healthy one.

Departmentalism – This is a tendency for individual departments to develop long term policies of their own. When a new minister of government comes to power, the department will seek to impose its own ‘culture’ upon them. The Treasury is most often suspected of such tactics – it is notoriously opposed to increased public expenditure or any radical spending plans. If the senior Treasury officials can persuade each new Chancellor of the Exchequer of the virtues of thrift, their influence automatically grows. An example of this, in 1999, when Chancellor Gordon Brown was resisting calls for extensive increases in spending on health and education, some critics suggested he had ‘gone native’, suggesting that Brown had been influenced by the Civil Servants, adopting their norm of behaviour and so losing his enthusiasm for spending.

Politicisation – This sees the Civil Service as overtly political in its motivations. This is not to say that it’s either left or right wing, the Civil Service is seen as open to undue influence by ministers, that it tends to lose its traditional neutrality and, like a chameleon, adopts too readily to the political environment and becomes the willing instrument of party rule. The reason why it might do this is to increase its influence by throwing its lot in with powerful politicians of the day.

All the above information concludes to show that the Civil Service has influence and power of some sort, how much power depends on each individual Civil Servant and the minister. As was stated above we know that Civil Servants give advice and in this sense they are bound to have some influence over decisions, it just depends how far the Civil Servant is willing to interfere with the political matters to get their point across to the minister, whilst making it look like it was the ministers decision, not theirs.

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Pyper, Robert, The British Civil Service, UK: Prentice Hall / Harvester Wheatsheaf, (1995)

Williams, Andy, UK Government and Politics, UK: Heinemann Education Publishers, (1995)