CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0 :: Graham Chandler / Flickr
Michael Gove, the Duchy of Lancaster, gave a thoughtful and thought-provoking Ditchley Annual Lecture on 27th June about the need to change how policy making is done in order to respond to today’s challenges. This statement, alongside discussions of the future of the civil service, formed the backdrop to an online event by the Institute of Government (IoG) on 20th July 2020 on how to Reform the Civil Service.
Issues covered in the different sessions included the divide between policy analysis and implementation; how to disperse power and people around the country to enable better decision-making; as well as changing the culture to enable greater risk-taking, innovation, evaluation and diversity.
FDSD’s particular interests focus around how the civil service, and the way it and government is structured, could be altered to reduce short-termism; ensure greater public and stakeholder participation in policy making and implementation; as well as be better able to address complex systemic issues relating to sustainable development that cross departmental boundaries and disciplines.
The IoG event provided some insights into these challenges. However, whilst there was widespread concensus about the nature of these problems, there were far fewer ideas about how they could be fundamentally altered.
Speakers and participants recognised the need to move away from a vertical departmental approach to more horizontal working methods across policy areas and expertise. The current (and seemingly never-ending) silo thinking is reinforced, it was argued, by a culture of inflexibility and unresponsiveness to new trends. Suggested reforms included more cross-departmental teams, and an historical example of an environment unit in the Cabinet Office that had enabled holistic policy thinking and design. Another old idea was a development of the cross-departmental Public Service Agreements under New Labour, which, while perhaps having an overemphasis on targets, was copied internationally. That approach was, however, scrapped by the Coalition Government of 2010 to be replaced, in a backward step, by Single Departmental Plans.
The meeting’s participants also discussed how there is a need for much greater devolution and local decision-making to better understand and implement solutions, as well as to more thoroughly engage (not just consult) the public and local stakeholders. The latter approach is easily said, but will require a change in culture and training to enable civil servants to be more effective in brokering exchanges of knowledge and sometimes very different views and perspectives. This shift would also involve, according to Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, recognising that many policies should in effect start from the individual, and from place, not be top-down.
In terms of short-termism, and beyond the obvious impact of electoral cycles and the needs of new ministers to announce the next and new ‘big ideas’, other more subtle issues were identified. These included the way performance assessments act against achieving longer-term impact. Innovations are often not fully implemented as civil servants and ministers constantly move around. A civil servant from Singapore noted in response that they are assessed by previous as well as current bosses, ensuring a focus on longer-term impacts and not short term gains.
There is really nothing new or revelatory here. The danger is that if the consultation focuses purely on civil servants, it may miss the opportunity to fundamentally shift away from a top-down Whitehall-dominated Government to a more fluid participatory governance, better able to respond to challenges across places, for different kinds of people, and across business sectors in both the short and long-term.
FDSD will be consulting with colleagues to submit a more in-depth response to the consultation on Reform of the Civil Service, to reinforce these points. If you would like to contribute some ideas, please send these to us at info@fdsd.org.
