By Asa Bennett
“The Opposition aren't really the opposition. They are only the Government in exile. The Civil Service are the opposition in residence” Jim Hacker, Yes Minister.
In the latest addition to Prime Minister Brown’s incessant tide of problems, some of the country’s former top mandarins have given evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee that casts New Labour in a distinctly poor light.
Both Prime Minister Blair and Brown have been criticised for their destructive manner towards cabinet government, politicising the civil service and implementing a presidential, rather than consensual, style of leadership.
Lord Butler, cabinet secretary from 1988-98, said Blair and Brown were not “disposed to using cabinet government” since they were too “used to being a small unit, [holding] cards rather close to their chest”. However Lord Turnbull, cabinet secretary from 2002-2005, went further as he lamented the government’s “massive increase” in special advisers, the notorious title once held by Damian McBride, which served to political control over the civil service. Lord Turnbull’s claim is certainly valid, with the number of special advisers almost doubling from 1997-2000.
New Labour’s approach, justified by Blair’s chief of staff Jonathan Powell as necessary since cabinet government died “a long time ago”, may have been a step in the right direction — albeit politically disreputable — as the ministers could implement their policies (whether right or wrong) in an easier and more direct manner.
Government ministers come and go in cabinet reshuffles, or disappear altogether to be replaced by figures of a different political creed in the wake of an election, by contrast, the civil service will be in place throughout all this and is not as ephemeral. The civil servants are aware of this issue; consequently they occasionally diverge from their minister’s point of view and in some cases, obstruct the minister’s policies. This clash manifests itself in moments like when it was found that civil servants held major doubts about I.D cards and have sought to delay their implementation. The civil servants’ logic is based on the fact that after the next general election, it is likely that either the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats, parties who have promised to scrap the scheme, would be in office - so why waste money on a scheme that will soon be scrapped?
Also, the civil service, aware of their current ministers’ transience, have been discovered currying favour with their next potential ministerial overlords — with some Conservatives benefiting from “quite regular” approaches from top civil service officials.
However it would be wrong to expect the Conservatives to be any fairer to the civil service since David Cameron established an “implementation unit” whose sole purpose is to quicken the administration of Conservative policy.
It is clear that the civil service’s raison d’?tre as a politically neutral institution which helps implement governmental policy is open to question. Perhaps it is right then for the government to facilitate the application of their policies so they can be judged more fairly on the successes and failures of their ideas rather than just those that see the light of day.