Finlay Thacker-McPherson is a student of MSc Public Policy at the University of Edinburgh
The state of the British civil service has become, over the course of the last century, one of total dysfunction.
The civil service as a whole has broken incentive and feedback loops that are totally out of line with a functioning, productive organisation able to carry out its intended purpose. It has become a pathological force, destroying innovation and stifling any attempt at implementing transformational overhauls that would fundamentally change the civil service, and therefore the British state, for the better.
Perhaps most worryingly, the civil service frustrates and impedes the implementation of radically reformist ideas, the vandalism of the AI unit in Number 10, and the effective shelving of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) are not isolated mistakes, but the system functioning as the civil service and its senior members intend it to. These issues are exacerbated by the total lack of accountability within the civil service, in which ministers and the cabinet are reduced to something of a Potemkin village. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office, bloated and without oversight, largely runs the show.
This is not to mention the absurd level of influence without genuine or effective guardrails afforded to the Treasury and its strongly anti-innovation stance on policy. It is clear, from these issues and many more, that the British state needs urgent reform, and has done for decades.
Reform UK has immediately, and with significant communications efforts, seized upon this need for radical state reform, and has placed this at the heart of their plans for government. They have positioned Danny Kruger MP as the figure responsible for heading up their plans for state reform, and have devoted significant talent, time, and publicity to their plans for the civil service and beyond.
To their credit, their Fixing the Centre document includes some important ideas. Notably, Reform has pledged to scrap the Cabinet Office, thereby removing a prominent and bloated impediment to innovation within the civil service.
They have also frequently touted their plans to bring those with outside expertise and success, in fields such as science, technology, and business into the fold and appointing them to senior roles within the civil service, including replacing the current system in which Permanent Secretaries are often hired from within departments themselves.
This is undoubtedly a good idea, and one that the Conservatives should also adopt when looking at their plans for reforming the British state once in government. Additionally, the Conservatives have correctly decided to cut civil service headcount from the extremely bloated and out of control numbers we have now – something that Reform has mirrored in their proposals.
There remain three areas, at least, in which Reform’s own policy proposal provides the Conservative Party with a chance to grasp first-mover advantage, or a clear path to go further in a smarter fashion, and thus begin to reclaim issue ownership over state reform.
The clearest first-mover advantage opportunity comes in perhaps the most important and domineering department in Whitehall, and the one that is in desperate need of change, the Treasury. In Fixing the Centre, Reform states that their policies to overhaul the vast, undue influence that the Treasury holds over all of Whitehall will be published in due course. This, therefore, provides the Conservative Party with a golden chance to take control of the state reform narrative.
Even without this element present, the Conservatives must still commit to reforming the Treasury, with the Treasury Green Book earmarked for revision in its entirety, in order to counter the iron-clad hold it casts across Whitehall, with its risk-averse, overly cautious approach that has permeated every department and places short-term thinking as paramount at the expense of long-term investment in potentially transformational innovations. The Treasury has a decades-long commitment to abetting stagnation, and Reform have handed the Conservatives a chance to be known as the flagship party pledging to fight this.
In aid of this, and as part of a wider plan to change the governing modus operandi of the British state, there should be a promise to expand the ARIA-type approach into all government departments and place it at the heart of an innovative implementation programme. ARIA’s calling card is the fact that it is small, autonomous, expert-led, and deliberately insulated from bureaucratic interference. It was designed to take risks, tolerate failure, and pursue transformational outcomes rather than a defensible bureaucratic process.
Reform vaguely makes reference to a pledge to implement innovation taskforces, without any serious explanation of what makes such units work or why previous attempts have failed. The Conservatives, by contrast, should pledge to the genuine expansion of this philosophy to become something of a guide within Whitehall, and therefore represent a fundamentally different vision of what the British state can be.
Reform has also, rightfully, identified the procurement practices currently undertaken by the civil service as farcical wastes of money in which the government, and therefore the British people, are routinely ripped off. However, they have prescribed a centralised procurement policing initiative in which all contracts agreed upon are subject to approval by a procurement task force. To simply police contracts that arise is to paper over the cracks of the fundamentally broken procurement practices employed by departments across Whitehall.
The Conservatives must go further and pledge to totally rebuild the procurement process from the ground up, bringing in expertise from outside of the typical civil service environment to ensure that procurement is not an afterthought or a game of who can receive the most taxpayer money. A future Conservative government must penalise and suspend any company with poor procurement performance or late delivery.
The most compelling reason for a Conservative programme for change being best suited to bring genuine, fundamental change is that the Conservatives have been in a position in which the Treasury, Cabinet Office, and ‘the blob’ have attacked and vandalised their reformist policies before. The AI unit in Number 10 during Johnson’s government, the creation of ARIA, and the Education reforms under Gove were all serious reformist programmes that changed the way the government approached the issues at hand, but perhaps most importantly, it gave the staffers in charge of implementing them first-hand experience at the reaction from the entrenched interests within the civil service, Cabinet Office, and Treasury towards these ideas.
While the desire from the Conservatives to distance themselves from the last 14 years of government is understandable, and necessary given their failings, on state reform, they can use it as proof that they will now be ready for the push back against such innovative programmes and are ready to go further to defend them. Reform, on the other hand, will be jumping in at the deep end, with no idea of ways in which ‘the blob’ will attempt to disrupt and impede progress.
The Conservatives should make this clear, in their communications and in their policy proposals, that they are prepared and ready to take on the vested interests of the British state because they have prior knowledge of the exact ways ‘the blob’ will attempt to stop them.
Finlay Thacker-McPherson is a student of MSc Public Policy at the University of Edinburgh
The state of the British civil service has become, over the course of the last century, one of total dysfunction.
The civil service as a whole has broken incentive and feedback loops that are totally out of line with a functioning, productive organisation able to carry out its intended purpose. It has become a pathological force, destroying innovation and stifling any attempt at implementing transformational overhauls that would fundamentally change the civil service, and therefore the British state, for the better.
Perhaps most worryingly, the civil service frustrates and impedes the implementation of radically reformist ideas, the vandalism of the AI unit in Number 10, and the effective shelving of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) are not isolated mistakes, but the system functioning as the civil service and its senior members intend it to. These issues are exacerbated by the total lack of accountability within the civil service, in which ministers and the cabinet are reduced to something of a Potemkin village. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office, bloated and without oversight, largely runs the show.
This is not to mention the absurd level of influence without genuine or effective guardrails afforded to the Treasury and its strongly anti-innovation stance on policy. It is clear, from these issues and many more, that the British state needs urgent reform, and has done for decades.
Reform UK has immediately, and with significant communications efforts, seized upon this need for radical state reform, and has placed this at the heart of their plans for government. They have positioned Danny Kruger MP as the figure responsible for heading up their plans for state reform, and have devoted significant talent, time, and publicity to their plans for the civil service and beyond.
To their credit, their Fixing the Centre document includes some important ideas. Notably, Reform has pledged to scrap the Cabinet Office, thereby removing a prominent and bloated impediment to innovation within the civil service.
They have also frequently touted their plans to bring those with outside expertise and success, in fields such as science, technology, and business into the fold and appointing them to senior roles within the civil service, including replacing the current system in which Permanent Secretaries are often hired from within departments themselves.
This is undoubtedly a good idea, and one that the Conservatives should also adopt when looking at their plans for reforming the British state once in government. Additionally, the Conservatives have correctly decided to cut civil service headcount from the extremely bloated and out of control numbers we have now – something that Reform has mirrored in their proposals.
There remain three areas, at least, in which Reform’s own policy proposal provides the Conservative Party with a chance to grasp first-mover advantage, or a clear path to go further in a smarter fashion, and thus begin to reclaim issue ownership over state reform.
The clearest first-mover advantage opportunity comes in perhaps the most important and domineering department in Whitehall, and the one that is in desperate need of change, the Treasury. In Fixing the Centre, Reform states that their policies to overhaul the vast, undue influence that the Treasury holds over all of Whitehall will be published in due course. This, therefore, provides the Conservative Party with a golden chance to take control of the state reform narrative.
Even without this element present, the Conservatives must still commit to reforming the Treasury, with the Treasury Green Book earmarked for revision in its entirety, in order to counter the iron-clad hold it casts across Whitehall, with its risk-averse, overly cautious approach that has permeated every department and places short-term thinking as paramount at the expense of long-term investment in potentially transformational innovations. The Treasury has a decades-long commitment to abetting stagnation, and Reform have handed the Conservatives a chance to be known as the flagship party pledging to fight this.
In aid of this, and as part of a wider plan to change the governing modus operandi of the British state, there should be a promise to expand the ARIA-type approach into all government departments and place it at the heart of an innovative implementation programme. ARIA’s calling card is the fact that it is small, autonomous, expert-led, and deliberately insulated from bureaucratic interference. It was designed to take risks, tolerate failure, and pursue transformational outcomes rather than a defensible bureaucratic process.
Reform vaguely makes reference to a pledge to implement innovation taskforces, without any serious explanation of what makes such units work or why previous attempts have failed. The Conservatives, by contrast, should pledge to the genuine expansion of this philosophy to become something of a guide within Whitehall, and therefore represent a fundamentally different vision of what the British state can be.
Reform has also, rightfully, identified the procurement practices currently undertaken by the civil service as farcical wastes of money in which the government, and therefore the British people, are routinely ripped off. However, they have prescribed a centralised procurement policing initiative in which all contracts agreed upon are subject to approval by a procurement task force. To simply police contracts that arise is to paper over the cracks of the fundamentally broken procurement practices employed by departments across Whitehall.
The Conservatives must go further and pledge to totally rebuild the procurement process from the ground up, bringing in expertise from outside of the typical civil service environment to ensure that procurement is not an afterthought or a game of who can receive the most taxpayer money. A future Conservative government must penalise and suspend any company with poor procurement performance or late delivery.
The most compelling reason for a Conservative programme for change being best suited to bring genuine, fundamental change is that the Conservatives have been in a position in which the Treasury, Cabinet Office, and ‘the blob’ have attacked and vandalised their reformist policies before. The AI unit in Number 10 during Johnson’s government, the creation of ARIA, and the Education reforms under Gove were all serious reformist programmes that changed the way the government approached the issues at hand, but perhaps most importantly, it gave the staffers in charge of implementing them first-hand experience at the reaction from the entrenched interests within the civil service, Cabinet Office, and Treasury towards these ideas.
While the desire from the Conservatives to distance themselves from the last 14 years of government is understandable, and necessary given their failings, on state reform, they can use it as proof that they will now be ready for the push back against such innovative programmes and are ready to go further to defend them. Reform, on the other hand, will be jumping in at the deep end, with no idea of ways in which ‘the blob’ will attempt to disrupt and impede progress.
The Conservatives should make this clear, in their communications and in their policy proposals, that they are prepared and ready to take on the vested interests of the British state because they have prior knowledge of the exact ways ‘the blob’ will attempt to stop them.