No Minister

I am not sure if Francis Maude would accept the description but he is an aspiring revolutionary. Last week, the Cabinet Minister laid out his plans to reform the civil service. Ok, I know every government has plans to reform the civil service, it is a constantly evolving institution which grows and shrinks from from one decade to the next (for reference it is now the smallest it has been since the Second World War). So what is so different about Mr Maude's plans to warrant a Joseph blog and the word revolutionary?

Like others before him he is calling, nay demanding that senior civil servants have experience of business. But he also announced radical changes to the tenure of employment in the civil service. The most significant of these is that the most senior civil servants - the Permanent Secretaries who head up each government department - will only be appointed for five-year terms. At the end of these terms, they have no guarantee of staying in the civil service at all let alone their jobs. Their continued employment will be dependent on the incumbent Secretary of State.  

Maude is also proposing that ministers will be also allowed directly to appoint a dozen or so key personnel in their private offices teams including making political appointments.

Now, I would absolutely advocate that we encourage more people from more diverse backgrounds and with wider experience to enter into public service. And I have no problem per se with ministers having access to more than one or two political advisers (although it is ironic that the party which gave the Labour Party so much stick about the number of special advisers it had when it was in government - it was around 70 by the way - is now proposing changes which would see the number of political appointments rocket).

But I do take issue with the changes to the employment contract of Perm Secs. The real value of Permanent Secretaries is precisely because that they are appointed at the pleasure of ministers. They are among the few people who can tell the minister "no". They can advise ministers robustly and professionally. If their careers in the civil service are to be dependent on politicians you can imagine their desire to stand up to those very politicians may not be as deep.

These changes put the independence of the civil service at risk. I say independence rather than impartiality because civil servants are not meant to be impartial. They are employed to implement the programme of the government of the day. Their impartiality comes into play on the day that government changes when they should and do transfer their commitment seamlessly to the new administration.  But their employment should always be independent of politicians.