Institute for Government Seminar: 28 January 2013

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SPEAKING NOTE

INSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT SEMINAR: 28 JANUARY 2013

1. Thank you to the Institute for Government for providing this opportunity. It gives me the chance to explain the Civil Service Commission’s position more fully than I have been able to do so far: why we think Ministers should have a significant role in senior Civil Service appointments; but why we stop short of giving them the final choice.

1. Last summer in the Civil Service Reform Plan, the Government made two propositions for strengthening the role of Ministers in senior appointments.

1. The first proposition, which was not actually in the plan itself but was explained on the day,would give a Secretary of State a choice of candidates for Permanent Secretary appointments from a list approved by an appointments panel.

1. The second would allow for Ministers to request short-term, time-limited appointments to meet urgent business needs without the need for a competition. I am going to concentrate my remarks on the first of these – the issue of Ministerial choice – because the second is already possible, and happens, under the Civil Service Commission’s current procedures. But I know there has been some anxiety about that and I am happy to answer questions about it later, if you wish.

1. However, I do want to say by way of opening, that I and my colleagues on the Civil Service Commission regret the way the debate has developed since the Government put these proposals on the table. Although in themselves quite limited in their immediate effect, they have opened up a much wider questioning of whether the present model of a UK Civil Service, politically impartial, recruited on merit through fair and open competition, is still valid. As you would expect the Commission is totally opposed to any step towards politicisation. We were established to defend the principles of merit and impartiality and given new powers in 2010 by Parliament to enable us to do so. Don’t be surprised, therefore, if we remain their most vigorous proponents and push back at steps which seem to threaten them.

1. But, in our view, this is the wrong debate at the wrong time. If the real aim is to create the best possible Civil Service to tackle the immense economic, social and security challenges of 2013 or 2015 or 2020, then the emphasis must, in our view, be on improving the skills, experience and competence of those who are already civil servants and those we are seeking to attract and recruit into the Civil Service. Whether Ministers have choice has little to do with that aim; wider politicisation has even less.

1. So as a Commission we would really like to spend our time shaping that debate. We are not part of the Civil Service despite our name, so we can bring external challenge and perspective. Of the 11 Commissioners only I have a significant civil service career; a slight majority have private sector backgrounds. Our whole purpose is to get the best people into jobs at all levels in the civil service, particularly at the top: as the law says, “on merit on the basis of fair and open competition”. That is not some outdated principle. Getting the very best people into the Civil Service is, we think, a principle for all times.

1. It is our role in chairing the most senior competitions- well over 100 this year- which gives us a unique view – right across the Civil Service – on what is and is not working. And our role has grown as more and more senior jobs are opened up to public competition. 20, even 10 years ago, for example, it would have been unusual to open Permanent Secretary appointments to external competition. Now it is the norm. When that happens such appointments must by law be on merit after a fair and open competition.

1. From this vantage point we do not see a civil service which is a closed shop or resistant to change. Over the last 5 years, for example,we have chaired 372 open competitions for the posts at the top three levels and 49% of them have been won by non civil servants, the majority of those from the private sector.

1. We don’t believe that the answer to all the Civil Service’s problems is to recruit at senior levels from outside. On the contrary the best should be coming through a mix of internal development and external recruitment. But when there is external competition we want it to be more professional and evidence based. We want to see less process for its own sake and more sustained involvement in selection from senior managers. We don’t think enough attention has yet been given to defining the skills the Civil Service needs for the future. We are concerned that the lack of flexibility on pay and the generally negative picture of relations at the top between Ministers and civil servants will put off people of talent from applying. We are open to any new ideas for identifying and recruiting new talent and for injecting new skills into the Civil Service. With one proviso. We would be totally against using this as a cover for bringing in more political appointees or cronies of either civil servants or politicians.

1. These are the issues that really matter in transforming the Civil Service. Some are in the Civil Service Reform Plan itself – and we welcome them. The danger we see is that they will not be addressed with the urgency and single minded focus which is necessary.

1. Turning to the specific question of Ministerial involvement in senior appointments, the Commission is keen that Ministers play an important role in the selection of the most senior civil servants; and we continue to evolve our practice to encourage them to do so. If that role is played actively, Ministers can be a powerful and positive force for changing the skills and experience of a future Civil Service.

1. As for Permanent Secretaries we accept that there is a particular need for substantial Ministerial involvement in the appointment of those with whom they work most closely. That is why just before Christmas – and in response to the Civil Service Reform Plan – we published a detailed note on how Ministers should be involved in Permanent Secretary appointments. This note goes further than the Commission has ever gone in explicitly recognising the central role that a Secretary of State must play. Far from being held at arms-length, Secretaries of State can and should agree:

• what the job is and what skills and experience are needed;

• how it is to be filled – for example, through internal or public competition; and

• who should be on the selection panel.

1. They should – and usually do – meet the short-listed candidates. This is far more than just a briefing. Having met the candidates the Secretary of State feeds back to the selection panel on the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates and the issues he or she wants pursued in final interview.

1. The selection panel must recommend the single most suitable candidate for appointment; and at the final stage there is no Ministerial choice. But even then,the law gives the final power to appoint to the Prime Minister who, therefore, can veto the recommended candidate: a power which the Prime Minister exercised in the recent case of the Permanent Secretary at DECC.

1. This is a lot of involvement and influence. It reflects the reality that Government is a joint endeavour between elected Ministers and permanent non-aligned, civil servants; and that Ministers must have confidence that they can work closely, in a relationship of trust and understanding.I am very glad to say that the Government welcomed the guidance and said that it would see how it worked out before considering any next steps.

1. So why did we stop short of conceding to Ministers the final choice of candidate? After all it would arguably be quite a modest step. It would only affect a small number of appointments a year, though they are the most important ones. The Institute for Government itself has suggested it might bolster trust.

1. Three points.

1. First, if we really want appointments to be made on merit, what is the evidence that replacing the decisions of an independent panel with the decisions of a single individual will improve the chances of getting the best person for the job. In our view it will make the final decision more subjective and more open to personal prejudice and favouritism. These risks areinherent in any selection process where there is an individual whose power or authority exceedall the others. But that is precisely why we should not formalise it or remove the checks and balances which have long been part of this system.

1. Secondly– and this is the nub of the issue – we fear that this would be the first step down the road to personal patronage and politicisation. It would inevitably align the Permanent Secretary with the current Secretary of State – no doubt in part that is what it is intended to do. It would make it just a little less likely that the Secretary of State would receive the objective, impartial advice which is needed to do the job. The next Secretary of State and, indeed the next Government, would know that the incumbent was the personal choice of their predecessor. Making it much more likely that the new Secretary of State would want to replace that Permanent Secretary with his or her personal choice.

1. I am not arguing that this would happen overnight. Butfundamental change can come just as easily through a series of small steps in the wrong direction. We are clear that this would be the first of them – and others would follow.

1. Thirdly,I want to challenge the view that this is a small issue. The proposition that Ministers should make the final choice crosses a big line of principle. The modern Civil Service was founded on the principle that decisions on who to recruit should not be in the hands of one person, because that was inconsistent with recruitment on merit and led to appointments based on patronage and favouritism. The Commission has never, to my knowledge, departed from this.

1. We could, of course, take the risk as the IFG seems to have been suggesting. But the Civil Service Commission was not established by Parliament to take risks with a constitutional principle. It is as plain as can be, from the way the 2010 Act is constructed and the debates in Parliament on the Act, that we were put here to uphold the principle of an impartial Civil Service appointed on merit and to act as an explicit check on the power of the Executive to make Civil Service appointments. I do not believe, therefore, that it is in our gift to sign that principle away with the stroke of a pen even if we wanted to do so. The right place to do that, if it is to be done at all, is in Parliament and through legislation.

1. I hope it doesn’t come to that because I come back to my opening point. Whether we are debating the first step down a road to Ministerial choice or the wider politicisation of senior appointments, someone has to explain why that will lead to a better Civil Service. Would it really have made it easier to introduce 2,500 academies, or to make progress on welfare and pension reform, or to keep the Olympics safe, or to avoid problems like those which arose over the West Coast Mainline? Government is a highly complex and technical business. It undoubtedly needs a high degree of competence and skill both from politicians and civil servants. It is not clear why Ministerial choice or much wider politicisation furthers that cause.

1. So my proposition today is that we respect the longstanding standing principle that an impartial civil service is not chosen by ministers. We give a chance to the new Commission guidance which puts that principle in a modern context and ensures that Ministers have a proper and substantial role. And we concentrate on the issues of skills, experience and capabilities which really will transform the Civil Service.