Sarah Ingham is author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
TheyWorkforYou can be used as a guide to the performance of MPs: It’sNotWorkingForUs could be an alternative for taxpayers concerning the Civil Service.
A week ago, Dominic Raab resigned. Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, he was one of the biggest beasts in today’s political jungle. Following Civil Servants’ allegations about Raab’s beastliness, the Prime Minister asked Adam Tolley KC to investigate.
The Tolley Report gives the impression that the Ministry of Justice is less Department of State and more Mean Girls. Forget trying to sort out the lockdown-induced backlog in our courts, according to the Civil Service, the Secretary of State’s main job was to avoid giving hurty feelings to officials – whose amateurism was jaw-dropping.
Failure to prepare for meetings; failure to complete tasks on time; failure to ask for extensions; work that was “woeful” and “utterly useless”; “cultural resistance” to proposed reforms; “obstructiveness” …
Gleeful at Raab’s departure, allies of Civil Service cry bullies (©Julie Burchill) and opponents of the government have been busy countering with selective quotes of their own. They want to set in stone a #HorribleToryBosses narrative.
But the “abuse of power” and “unreasonably and persistently aggressive” cited by the media relate to a complaint about Raab’s time as Foreign Secretary, about which Tolley ducks any details.
If the complaint involved our Man in Madrid doing a little light freelancing over Gibraltar’s sovereignty, Raab was completely justified in going, er, ape. Ever since the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, the Rock (and its monkeys) has been politically totemic to the UK – as Winston Churchill knew only too well.
The former Foreign Secretary apparently mooted that diplomatic off-pistery was a breach of the Civil Service Code, a suggestion which was judged “intimidating behaviour”. But actions which even hint at selling out Gibraltar to Spain would be akin to treason to many voters. Raab, not officials, was answerable to Parliament, the electorate and the media.
The Civil Service Code is part of every official’s employment contract. Guidance includes “you must ensure you have Ministerial Authorisation for any contact with the media”. The deluge of fake news about Raab’s conduct over recent months can hardly be justified as whistleblowing. A spiteful agenda was at work – even if civil servants were not.
In early 2022 “a large number” of Ministry of Justice staff spent time cooking up a Group Complaint. Not all of them “had any direct experience of the DPM; some had never met him at all”. Nine were prepared to go on the record to Tolley. As he states, this Group Complaint “focused only to a limited extent on the DPM himself” but dragged in “Ministers and other Civil Servants”. (Sadly, Tolley spares us the intriguing details) However, it was the catalyst for the other complaints against Raab, including the Foreign Office Complaint.
Exonerated from accusations of being abusive, Raab is not the only minister undermined by Civil Servants. On Wednesday, the Guardian reported accusations of bullying by the Health Secretary Stephen Barclay. And indirectly, Boris Johnson’s scalp was claimed thanks to the actions of senior officials, both serving and former.
Partygate began the decline of the Johnson premiership, the teacup tempest over Chris Pincher caused the fall. In a letter to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner last July, simultaneously posted on Twitter, the former Permanent Under-Secretary Lord (Simon) McDonald stated the PM indeed knew of a formal complaint against Pincher.
Johnson was the primarily the author of his own misfortune, but he was also the scapegoat for the appalling conduct of Civil Servants, who are surely guilty of breaching their Code.
Civil Service boss Simon Case recused himself from the investigation into Partygate, when it emerged that a gathering was held in his office. The buck stops with him for allowing a permissive culture of lockdown law-breaking among officials to develop, including the knees-up on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral. He should recuse himself from his job.
Senior staff at the Ministry of Justice can follow Case out the door. They are obviously not up to the job of personnel management, otherwise their staff would not be making overwrought accusations about “a perverse culture of fear”, as well as colluding to bring down a Minister.
The iron-willed Raab – “determined to use his working time effectively” – somehow avoided shouting and swearing at his sub-prime staff. Tolley suggests he “ought to have realised that some individuals would find it difficult to cope with his style and should have adjusted his behaviour accordingly”. Karate? The former Lord Chancellor’s black belt should be in the patience of Job.
The Raab saga comes shortly after reports that Alok Sharma had the temerity to telephone officials shirking from home, leading to inevitable accusations of bullying, while the Public and Commercial Services Union is demanding a four-day week – for the same pay, of course.
In the past week, voters have been awakened to the true state of Civil Service, whose motto is surely “Inaction this Day”. Many will now be receptive to its reform, which is being advocated by Lord Maude. Some are hoping the “hard rain” promised by Dominic Cummings will fall.
Since the Eisenhower presidency, every new United States’ administration has published details of political appointees who will be overseeing key departments. The so-called Plum Book lists 7,000 Federal government posts.
Elected ministers are now the hostages of unelected officials, who seem ever ready to make accusations over the flimsiest of perceived transgressions. Patel, Raab, Sharma and now Barclay … Who are Civil Servants going to try and take down next? ConservativeHome should run a sweepstake.
All those celebrating Raab’s departure seem untroubled about democracy. But let’s not forget the government was elected in 2019 with a landslide majority of 80 seats, winning 43.6 per cent of the vote, the highest since 1979. The mandate was unequivocal.
Officials – fluent in Civil Service mandarin and victimhood – clearly have trouble understanding when We the People speak. It’s time to throw the British version of the Plum book at them.