House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee Role of the Head of the Civil Service Written Evidence . 1 List of written evidence Page no. 1 Professor David Richards and Professor Martin Smith (HCS 01) 3 2 David Laughrin (HCS 02) 10 3 Rt Hon Peter Riddell (HCS 03) 15 4 Professor Colin Talbot (HCS 04) 18 5 Sue Cameron (HCS 05) 22 6 Sir Douglas Wass (HCS 06) 26 2 Written evidence submitted by Professor David Richards and Professor Martin Smith1 (HCS 01) 1. The growing role of the Prime Minister and the development of his office have led to questions over the ability of the Cabinet Secretary to fulfil the dual role of adviser to the Prime Minster and as Head of the Civil Service responsible for its day-to-day corporate management. A view both from within Whitehall and beyond has taken root that the balancing of these two roles has become too onerous a task for one individual to execute effectively. Especially in the context of the continual process of reform that now appears to be the norm within Whitehall. 2. It is however interesting to note that as recently as 2009-10 both Lord Turnbull and Sir Gus O’Donnell opposed the splitting of the post into separate jobs. Lord Turnbull noted that it: “...has been tried twice and it was a flop both times. If you talk to the people who got the job as Head of the Home Civil Service … I think that they would probably say, ‘I wish I’d never done it’. They got very badly isolated.” (HC 2010: Q 165). While Sir Gus O’Donnell, argued that the functions of the post fit together well and that previous attempts to separate them out had not worked well (HC 2010: Q342). This inquiry would therefore be well served to ascertain from the latter in particular what has changed in the ensuing months since he gave evidence on this subject to persuade him of the need for a volte face on this issue. 3. The debate over the appropriate demarcation of the dual roles of Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service is far from new. A brief history of the way in which responsibility for the corporate management of the Civil Service has been organised over the course of the last forty or so years reveals that it has been in something of a state of flux: • Early 20th century – core responsibility for the management of the Civil Service lay with the Treasury • Following Fulton (1968), responsibility was transferred to a new body - the Civil Service Department (CSD 1968-1981). • With the abolition of the CSD, Civil Service pay and personnel transferred back to the Treasury, while the day-to-day running of Whitehall was off-loaded to a new unit – the Management and Personnel Office [MPO] located in the Cabinet Office. • 1983 - the joint responsibility for Head of the Civil Service between the Treasury Permanent Secretary and the Cabinet Secretary was abandoned. • In 1987, the MPO was also abolished, with most of its functions passing back to the Treasury, but following the creation of Next Steps Agencies (1988), the Office of the Minister for the Civil Service (OMCS) was created to oversee efficiency issues. 1 Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, UK. 3 • The OMCS morphed into the Office of Public Service and Science (OPSS and later OPS 1992-98) in the Cabinet Office with efficiency and personnel responsibilities. • 1995 - the transfer of the Management and Pay Divisions from the Treasury to the Cabinet Office establishing the current model for the demarcation of responsibilities (Richards 2008). 4. Moreover, those with long Whitehall memories will recall that on occasions when the roles of Cabinet Secretary and the Head of the Civil Service were split, it proved at times to be a less than happy affair. For the most part, conflict between the two post- holders mirrored a competitive tension for ascendency in the Whitehall village between the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. This is less likely to be repeated this time around, although some concern will be raised if the new Head of the Civil Service is also the Treasury Permanent Secretary. Nevertheless, there will be those within the Civil Service who will no doubt feel some element of apprehension that the future role of Head of the Civil Service, notwithstanding which Department he or she comes from, will carry less clout, in particular in terms of having the ear of the Prime Minister. The new arrangements would therefore benefit from ensuring that there are a set of both formal and informal mechanisms available to the future Head of the Civil Service to allow for appropriate access to the Prime Minister, similar to that enjoyed by the current Cabinet Secretary. 5. The key argument for splitting the post resides on the view that currently, the greater demands on the job, in particular in terms of acting as the Prime Minister’s principal adviser has compromised the ability of recent office holders to devote the required attention to corporate management and leadership issues within Civil Service. Yet there is something of a contradiction here. On the one hand, the view is being presented that recent changes have led to a sizeable increase in the portfolio of duties and responsibilities now required of the Head of the Civil Service. Yet on the other hand, it is deemed to be only a part-time job equating to the equivalent of two days a week. This sends out something of a mixed message. Moreover, what are the implications for the new post-holder in terms of being able to continue to properly fulfil their current function of permanent secretary within their existing department? 6. This also raises a further issue. If, as unconfirmed reports suggest, it is the case that the key driver behind this reform is a desire by the next Cabinet Secretary to off-load the responsibilities of Head of the Civil Service, allowing him to concentrate on his main interest, that of the policy function, this once again smacks of one of the besetting sins of British administrative reform – that of ad hocery and short-termism to suit the personal whims of individuals [be they ministerial or bureaucratic] of the day - rather than properly thought-out, longer term organisational reform based on a set of coherent structural and managerial plans. 4 7. Despite these concerns, it is our view that the decision to now split these two roles should be cautiously welcomed. Such a move offers the clear potential to enhance the ability of the officeholders to undertake these newly demarcated roles of i] Cabinet Secretary with responsibility to act as the senior policy adviser to the Prime Minister and Secretary to the Cabinet and ii] Head of the Civil Service with responsibility for corporate leadership and management in Whitehall. It will however require the new post-holders to establish an effective relationship with one another, but based on clear specifications of roles and functions, lines of accountability, and processes of policy implementation. In particular, both post-holders will need to recognise that the success of the new arrangements is contingent on their establishing a mutually inter-dependent working relationship with each other. If though, their relationship instead descends into a power struggle based on staking out individual Whitehall fiefdoms, the consequences will be fraught. 8. There are of course risks to these reforms. First, under the current [and new] arrangements the Cabinet Secretary works to the Prime Minister. But, in future, it is not clear who the Head of the Civil Service should work to. If it is purely a corporate- management function then it is an issue that is directly of concern to the Minister for the Civil Service. But if there are policy aspects (relating to the functions of government, the organisation of the civil service, constitutional aspects of governmental relations etc), this can potentially cut-across the Cabinet Secretary’s remit. In such cases, is the Head of the Civil Service reporting to the Prime Minister as well as the Minister for the Civil Service or indirectly to the Prime Minister through the Cabinet Secretary? The point here is that the boundaries between the management and policy functions are not mutually exclusive, leading to a blurring in the lines of responsibility. 9. This then raises the vexed issue of accountability. At a general level, it is worth making the point that an element of constitutional ambiguity still exists concerning civil service accountability. On one level, the position is clearly set-out in the most recent Civil Service Code (11 November 2010) that ‘civil servants are accountable to Ministers, who in turn are accountable to Parliament’. From this perspective, civil servants are directly accountable for their actions to their relevant minister. Yet, this somewhat rubs-up against the view presented elsewhere in three documents that are not without some constitutional significance - the 1918 Report of the Machinery of Government: Ministry of Reconstruction [commonly referred to as the Haldane Report], the Carltona Doctrine (1943) and the Armstrong Memorandum (1985). In terms of the former, Lord Haldane’s report affirmed a principle already established by Northcote-Trevelyan that the relationship between ministers, including the Prime Minister, and officials should be intrinsically linked: ‘The Government of the country [cannot] be carried out without the aid of an efficient body of permanent officers, occupying a position duly subordinate to that of the ministers who are directly responsible to the Crown and to Parliament, yet possessing sufficient independence, character, ability and experience to be able to advise, assist, and to some extent, influence those who are from time to time set over them.’ (Cmnd 3638:1968, pp.108- 5 119).