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Political Special Advisers House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee Political Special Advisers Written Evidence List of written evidence 1 Professor David Richards, Professor Martin Smith and Mr. Patrick Diamond (SPAD 01) 2 Lord Butler of Brockwell (SPAD 02) 3 Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) (SPAD 03) 4 Civil Service Commission (SPAD 04) 5 Professor Francesca Gains (University of Manchester) and Professor Gerry Stoker (University of Southampton) (SPAD 05) 6 Mr Simon Cramp (SPAD 06) 7 Michael Jacobs (SPAD 07) 8 Democratic Audit (SPAD 08) 9 Professor Robert Hazell, Dr Ben Yong, Peter Waller and Brian Walker – The Constitution Unit, University College London (SPAD 09) 10 Zoe Gruhn & Felicity Slater (SPAD 10) 11 RTHon Harriet Harman QC MP (SPAD 11) 12 Steve Bates (SPAD 12) 13 Cabinet Office (SPAD 13) Written evidence submitted by Professor David Richards, Professor Martin Smith and Mr. Patrick Diamond1 (SPAD 01) 1. The preamble to this Inquiry highlights the initial position adopted by the current Coalition Government towards special advisers [SpAds] quoting the Rt Hon Francis Maude MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office in July 2010: ‘Too often in recent years the Service has been marginalised, either through the spread of SpAds or the over-use of expensive consultants.’ We would take issue with the notion that Whitehall has been marginalised by the relative growth of SpAds, most notably after 1997. In many ways this is both a misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the role played by SpAds within the British political system. Indeed, in terms of numbers and relative influence, there are very few special advisors in relation to permanent senior civil servants. 2. First, it is important to establish why SpAds should be regarded as playing a necessary, indeed crucial, part in the effective operation of good governance within the UK. The current Cabinet Office Code of Conduct for Special Advisers [June 2010] states that: ‘In order to provide effective assistance to Ministers, SpAds should work closely with the ministerial team and with permanent civil servants, and establish relationships of confidence and trust’. (Cabinet Office 2010: Para 7). In many ways, this is a reaffirmation of the core tenet underpinning minister-civil servant relations throughout the last one hundred years, as set out in Lord Haldane’s 1918 Report of the Machinery of Government: Ministry of Reconstruction. This Report formulated the view that the relationship between ministers and officials is in essence a symbiotic one, from which stems the convention that there should be no separation in the personality of ministers from their officials. Following the 1974 Wilson reforms, this principal was de facto extended to include SpAds, the three operating together effectively as a Holy Trinity. 3. This arrangement required that ministers, civil servants and SpAds be expected to work in a mutually beneficial and co-operative relationship based on a co-dependent rather than conflictual understanding of the governing process. From this perspective, the question as to ‘who benefits from SpAds’ is something of a misnomer. SpAds are a key resource in improving the overall quality of good governance, not actors who work to the benefit of just one group within the political system – be it ministers rather than civil servants. 1 David Richards and Martin Smith are both Professors of Politics at the Department of Politics, University of Sheffield. Mr. Patrick Diamond is a current doctoral student at the Department of Politics, University of Sheffield and formerly spent a decade as a special adviser in 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet Office and the Northern Ireland Office. 4. The introduction of SpAds in 1974 occurred at a point when the nature of the governing arena was entering a period of change. The emergence of a variety of forces - europeanisation, internationalisation, devolution, marketisation [alongside regulation] and managerialism within the public services - collectively led to a much more complex policy-making arena. The cumulative effect of these forces was evidenced by the subsequent eclipsing of the traditional hierarchical model on which Whitehall operated, a feature pick-up on by the former Cabinet Secretary, Andrew Turnbull in his 2005 Valedictory Lecture. He rightly applauded the plurality of voices now being heard in the policy-making process: We [Civil Service] no longer have a monopoly over policy advice. Indeed, we welcome the fact that we are much more open to ideas from think-tanks, special advisers and frontline practitioners. In developing policy, we not only consult more widely than we used to, but involve outsiders to a far greater degree in the policy making process. 5. From this perspective, and as previous inquires addressing the role of SpAds have rightly highlighted, they have become a crucial, necessary and permanent part of the architecture of British Government. SpAds have an important role, particularly in terms of providing ‘political’ advice, developing alternative policy advice to the civil service, as a mechanism for testing policy advice and linking ministers to different constituencies from the normal Whitehall networks. Indeed, many of the policy innovations initiated within Whitehall over the last twenty years have resulted from strong working relationships between ministers, civil servants and SpAds. SpAds have helped to infuse the policy process with new ideas, for example by drawing on examples of best practice from other comparable countries and by drawing on the best recent evidence from research in the social sciences. The strength of the relationship between the British government and the UK social science community is partly the result of effective networking and dissemination by SpAds in Whitehall. Moreover, if they have a close relationship with the minister, SpAds can extend the Minister’s reach within a department by acting as a gatekeeper and as the Minister’s ‘eyes and ears’. By offering steers on the minister’s behalf, SpAds help to increase the efficacy of the policy-making process, particularly in large departments with complex and wide- ranging responsibilities where ministers are making dozens of crucial decisions on a daily basis. Indeed, many civil servants also acknowledge that SpAds play a crucial role in ensuring that the permanent bureaucracy in Whitehall is not politicised, and that civil servants do not have to cross the line between advising ministers, and engaging in political decision-making. This has helped to preserve the neutrality and probity of the British civil service, despite several decades of profound political and social change. 6. Of course, since 1974, there have been a number of well-documented individual cases where the actions of SpAds has led to tension either within an individual department or more broadly across government. Here, past examples might include: the political advisers, Frances Morell and Francis Cripps, during Tony Benn’s time as Secretary of State, first in Industry and then Energy; and a decade later, Alan Walters, Charles Powell and Bernard Ingham at No. 10 during the latter stages of the Thatcher Administration. Yet, up until 1997, for the most part, the political advisers working in departments beyond No. 10 and the Treasury did not draw any great criticism. Their role generated only a residual element of suspicion among some permanent Whitehall staff, and in the main an accommodating and mutually beneficial relationship tended to be the norm. 7. After 1997, as has been well-charted elsewhere, the role of SpAds changed, doubling in number from the Major years. SpAds during the Labour Government conformed to two types - policy advisers and public relations managers. In terms of the former, there was an increase in SpAds at the centre, particularly No. 10 to enhance strategy on policy and co-ordination. Elsewhere, the Labour Government’s view of the Government Information Service it inherited was that it was ill-equipped to deal with the pressures placed on it by a rapidly changing twenty-four hour, news-media industry. The response here was to increase the number of political communications advisers, one generally being allocated to each department. Where issues did arise over SpAds during this period, those implicated were predominantly drawn from the category of media advisers and included the likes of Charlie Whelan, Jo Moore and Damian McBride. 8. Yet, these incidents should be put into some perspective. An in-depth survey of SpAds spanning the Labour years revealed that the views of most ministers, civil servants and SpAds was that more often than not a productive and effective working relationship was established among this triumvirate in most departments (see Richards 2008). Where misgivings over SpAds within Whitehall arose, these tended to concern minor power-spats over control of access to ministers, alongside a broader unease on the part of some officials that their own monopoly as the ‘harbingers of expertise and knowledge’ was diminishing. 9. Here then it is important to dispel the myth that the greater use of SpAds inevitably leads to a ‘counter civil service’ or a ‘creeping form of politicisation’. Such views are often drawn from erroneous analogies with the US ‘spoils’ or the French cabinet systems. The notion that at their peak less than ninety-odd political appointees are capable of overwhelming or neutering the power and resources of a bureaucratic machine the size of Whitehall is ill-judged. 10. From this perspective, we urge caution against any moves to place a strict limit on the number of SpAds available to government. The perception is that these arguments tend to be formulated mainly by retired or former civil servants and ministers who wish to cling-on to a halcyon model of Whitehall that has long since been eclipsed. 11. At the same time, a special case should be made towards the central coordinating departments, in particular No. 10 and the Treasury which are somewhat different. The nature of the British political system affords substantial resources and power to departments, while the centre has historically always remained relatively under- resourced.
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