Senior positions continued to be occupied by an Oxbridge elite with generalist degrees, while specialists and outsiders very rarely progressed to the higher grades. Similarly and perhaps more seriously, huge concerns exists about the gross under-representation of women and ethnic minorities at senior levels.
Recruitment into the higher civil service is managed by firstly elimination tests, then interviews by the Civil Service Selection Board and then another interview for short-listed candidates by the Final Selection Board. It is in these highly competitive final stages that the bias towards Oxbridge graduates, and against women and ethnic minorities, shows itself.
Due to the close relationship senior civil servants have with government ministers, and the considerable influence they can possess, it has traditionally seemed important that the civil service remains “anonymous, permanent and politically neutral.” Politicians have the mandate of the electorate, whereas the civil service consists of unelected officials working closely with the government. It has always been assumed, therefore, that the civil service must be politically neutral, and loyally serve ministers regardless of which party is in government. The civil service is there to provide impartial advice on government policy, and about the practical limitations of certain ideas.
Permanence is seen to be important within the civil service as a counteract to the relatively short period of time which ministers hold their job for. The average length of time for a minister to retain the same job is two years, and so they will often be unused to the job and inexperienced. It is therefore important that there are senior civil servants with years of experience and plenty of knowledge about the departments’ work, ensuring continuity and stability of administration.
The principle of anonymity ensures that senior civil servants aren’t publicly identified with the successes or failures of government policies. This is in line with the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, which states that ministers are personally responsible for the actions of their department, including those of civil servants. This doctrine can only function if senior civil servants are anonymous.
One additional feature which separates the civil service’s administrative character from the political role played by politicians is expertise. Although entering the service with a generalist rather than specialist nature, they pick up valuable experience and expertise during the intensive ‘Fast track’ training which new recruits to the senior civil service receive. As ministers aren’t assigned positions on relevant political expertise, it is important that senior civil servants are experts in administration.
The civil service has remained fairly similar in its structure and characteristics since the Northcote-Trevelyan Report 1850s.
The most radical recent reforms have occurred during the last 20 years. The Fulton Report set the ball rolling, but it was Thatcher’s administration which really kick-started radical reform. On entering government she was intent on reducing the size of the state, reducing government expenditure, and this included the civil service. This firstly meant immediately freezing civil service recruitment.
Thatcher was keen on introducing free market principles throughout the public sector, not withholding the civil service. One of her first moves was bringing in Derek Rayner from the private sector and giving him a senior civil service post, as head of the new Efficiency Unit. The purpose of this unit was to review the civil service from within, improving management and reducing costs. Thatcher also wanted to see a greater degree of responsibility taken by senior civil servants over policy, contravening the principle of ministerial responsibility. Performance-related pay was also envisioned, although appeared difficult to apply in practise.
These reforms still left many unsatisfied, and Thatcher’s next head of the Efficiency Unit, Robin Ibbs was commissioned to produce a report with further recommendations. The product of the Ibbs Report (1987) was largely the Next Steps agencies. The recommendations of the report were considered so radical they were kept under-wraps until after the 1987 election. The Report again heavily criticised the civil service for being too large, for being too conservative and for spending too much money without being cost effective.
The recommendation was for semi-autonomous agencies to be set up with responsibility for the day-to-day implementation of policy. These agencies were to be headed by a chief executive responsible for management within the boundaries of government policy, and accountable to the relevant minister. The long-term aim was for 95% of civil servants to be employed within agencies, with the remaining 5% being employed centrally by the ministries. Due to the willingness of the Major and then the Blair government to continue these reforms, this target is nearly met, as 77% of civil servants were employed by agencies in 1998.
The philosophy behind the Next Step Agencies is the divorcing of administration from policy formulation, in order to remove political obstacles from improved efficiency and private sector-style management. This separated the policy-advising senior civil service from the rest of the civil service.
Besides following through the reforms laid out during the Thatcher administration, Major introduced the Citizens Charter in 1991. Its aim was to make civil servants more accountable to the public and to improve standards. The idea was to set targets for agencies, describing the service the public is entitled to.
In 1998 Blair replaced the Citizens Charter with the Service First programme. Although similarly ran by a team in the Cabinet Office, the Service First Programme concentrates on focus groups, canvassing public opinion about the quality of services. By asking the people using the facilities how they are doing, it becomes possible to look at ways of raising standards.
The main consequence of the Next Step reforms on the traditional features of Senior British civil servants is on their permanence. As the emphasis in the Next Steps Agencies is firmly on cost-effectiveness and good private-sector styled management, many of the chief executives were imported directly from some of Britains most efficient companies. One example of this is Derek Lewis who came in from business to become the chief executive of the Prisons service. This goes directly against the traditional rarity of “outsiders” entering into the higher ranks of the civil service, however was also a necessity if its aims were to be completed, as management has always had low priority within the civil service. However the opening up of senior posts to outside competition clearly compromises permanence.
The relationship between Ministers and chief executives is also rather dubious. Ministerial responsibility requires responsibility for all civil servants under their control. The position of the chief executive is unclear, as was made apparent in the case of Derek Lewis in 1995. After drastic failures by the Prisons service, the Home Secretary was adamant that he only had responsibility for policy issues, whereas the chief executive had responsibility for administrative failures, resulting in the dismissal of Derek Lewis. However the boundary between policy and administrative errors is hazy to say the least, and the principle of ministerial responsibility was out of the window.
All the recent reforms have been squared largely at the administrative side of the service rather than the senior civil service. Major blows to the traditional “anonymity, permanence and political neutrality” have occurred without any need for any additional legislation or reform.
The principle of ministerial responsibility and the anonymity of senior civil servants was brought under serious disrepute over the Westland Affair (1985). This was probably the first time that ministers actually named specific civil servants as being the ones on whom blame fell. Civil servants were instructed by Downing Street to leak certain information which was damaging to Michael Heseltine. The relevant ministers blamed the civil servants involved, and the vice versa. There were no resignations as the Ministers claimed that the civil servants had acted on their own initiative.
The “Spycatcher” affair managed to ruin both the “anonymity” and “neutrality” of the civil service. On a number of occasions Thatcher had asked the Cabinet Secretary, Robert Armstrong to defend government policy, compromising his neutrality. The affair in question was over the governments wish to ban the publication of a book called “Spycatcher”. The person sent to argue what was a political decision in court was Armstrong.
Finally political neutrality has been hit hardest by the huge surge in political aides. The number of special political advisors has increases astronomically under Blair. While combating the claims of centrist conservatism within senior civil servants, politicised policy advisors don’t have the same non-partisan objective outlook.
The characteristics of “anonymity, permanence and political neutrality” were valued for their creation of a supposedly objective civil service, carrying out government policy and constructively advising about the practicalities of policy.
However justification for change comes from the claims of a census-inclined civil service, holding back forward-thinking radical governments. The expertise resulting from their permanence has been criticised as being the wrong kind of expertise, with not enough emphasis on management, and a lack of exposure to market forces leading to complacency.
To a large extent senior British civil servants are no longer “anonymous, permanent and politically neutral,” and as Blair’s Labour government has shown no signs of reversing Thatcher’s reforms, they can only really become less so.
Bibliography: British Politics Today, Jones and Kavanagh
British Politics In Focus 4th Ed
Longmans Study Guides Chap 7
Fulcrum A-Level Revision Notes
