Thank you for inviting me to speak at today’s seminar – it is unusual in a way as a backbench MP to have the opportunity to speak on an issue which often seems to be debated by a select band of journalists, ministers, academics and of course civil servants.  In fact if I was a minister a civil servant would have written this speech.

Indeed it is probably fair to say that the “future of the Civil Service” is a topic which many MPs would regard as failing the “doorstep” test.  i.e. the Civil Service is not an issue which comes up on the doorstep at election time.  That may be true, but it is profoundly short-sighted to suppose that the issue of Civil Service reform is not right at the heart of delivering those things which do matter to people “on the doorstep”.  It also is a symptom of an incorrect image of who the Civil Service are (I will return to that point later).

Of course for me personally as a backbench MP my awareness of this issue is heightened by two factors.  Firstly I have been a civil servant myself – albeit a strange kind of civil servant, and only for the briefest of periods. 

SPAD

The second reason is that I am a member of the Public Administration Select Committee (not to be confused with PAC), which scrutinises amongst other things civil service issues.   This Parliament we have looked at issues such as the Jo Moore affair – after which we published a report entitled “These Unfortunate Events” based on a quote from the Permanent Secretary Sir Richard Mottram – I did suggest that we should base the title on his other much quoted and more colourful phrase i.e. “We’re all F*@**d” – but was told that parliamentary rules would probably preclude such a title appearing on the face of a Select Committee Report.

Nevertheless it was an influential report in my view which opened up both the question of the accountability of Special Advisers and the matter of the Government Information and Communication Service.  In response to the report the Government acknowledged the inadequacy of the system for dealing with complaints from Civil Servants against SPAD – in an atmosphere where SPADs are the direct personal appointee of Ministers – this matter was then of course considered in the Ninth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

In addition “These Unfortunate Events” led to the Government setting up the Phillis Review on GICS which reported recently.  You may also be aware that we have recently published a draft Civil Service Bill, and it would be sensible for me to tell you about our motivation and thinking in that area. 

I must say that I was pretty surprised when I became a member of PASC – to discover that there was no statutory framework governing the Civil Service – indeed there was no agreement on the definition of a Civil Servant.

As you know it was Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1854 who commissioned two Treasury officials Northcote and Trevelyan to produce a brief report on the future of the Civil Service. 

It was a revolutionary document – in a way you could see it as one of the death throes of the aristocratic constitution. 

Up until the industrial revolution public service – whether it was in the army, the Church, parliament or the civil service existed because of the aristocratic system of primogeniture – the first born son would inherit the estate – so a decent position had to be found for a gentleman within the warm embrace of the Aristocratic State. 

Of course that was wholly inadequate to deal with governing a country where the population was rising at a right angle, new cities were growing up, new rights being demanded, massive new wealth created – and demands for a fair slice of the pie coming from the growing working and middle classes. 

So Northcote-Trevelyan calls for recruitment by open examination on merit – and an end to aristocratic patronage – the revolutionary idea was that civil servants should be the best people to do the job. 

It was this merit principle and the values of integrity and impartiality – which made their report so durable – but who would have guessed that 150 years later this is till the text we rely upon.  That is not bad, but there are increasing signs that their timeless values will come under strain in the new information age we live in, unless they are re-examined and re-entrenched.

That is why we have brought forward our own draft Civil Service Bill –but it is not without its difficulties.  The Government has promised a bill for many years.  When if first joined the PASC, we were told that the Bill was imminent, but a change of Cabinet Secretary seemed to be accompanied by a change of heart. 

Being impatient and innovative we decided to be the first Select Committee to draft its own bill, not as an answer but to tease out the Government’s version.  However we found it impossible to find a simple definition of what a civil servant is – and why some people should be civil Servants and others not.   Furthermore we wanted to maintain the flexibility that is useful within the British system – we did not wish to overprescribe – so our bill is fairly basic – formalising the role of the Civil service Commission and giving Statutory backing to the Civil Service codes.  

Nevertheless I think it is important that the Government, as it has agreed to following the publication of its Bill, brings forward its own proposals.

The new information age – the pressure of a 24 hour media and increased scrutiny of government – more openness, freedom of information – the quest for delivering – the issues raised by the Kelly affair – the growth in Special Advisers – all these and more have put a strain of the Civil Service and its desire to provide impartiality and integrity. 

Traditionally of course civil servants in the era of Sir Humphrey were neither meant to be seen nor heard – but that is not longer the case – furthermore the growth of Quango and executive agencies muddies the waters still further on the traditional view of ministerial accountability.

Furthermore we have the influence of special advisers and the issue of neutrality.  Commentators often point out that civil servants are not meant to be completely neutral – they should be neutral on political partisanship but partisan in favour of the government and its policy – i.e. they are serial monogamists whoever is in power.

This is a difficult line to tread when you share the same bed with special advisers who are civil servants paid by the taxpayers – but where first loyalty may be to Party.

All the evidence we took suggested that most civil servants accept these ambiguities because Special Advisers are useful in drawing party political matters away from career civil servants – so we have not recommended following other countries by having a top tier of temporary political permanent secretaries.

I should go on now to say something about the Gershon Review – and in doing so to say more about the wider civil service involved in frontline delivery – it is too easy to become overly focussed on the small percentage of the Civil Service providing “advice” to government – after all these are the people MPs traditionally blame for any delay or inadequacy in replies to their letters or parliamentary Questions. 

LG story.

But of course the Gershon Report when it appears in its final form will present very many difficult issues for both the central high command of the Civil Services and the thousands of civil servants (and other public servants) around the country. 

The background to this might be thought to come out of the naïve optimism of New Labour after its Election in 1997 following 18 years in the political wilderness – as a result this was a massively inexperienced government. 

None of its most senior cabinet ministers – including the Prime Minister – had ever held a ministerial office before – in a way it is remarkable how successfully they hit the ground running which I’m sure is both a testament to the quality of those individuals – but also a testament to the integrity and impartiality of the Civil Service – and the thorough preparations that had been made.

But there was a sort of naïve belief that if you declared a policy, set targets, recruited people, invested the money – that those policies would be delivered.  But of course – as all of you know it’s just not that simple.

There has been an unprecedented and sustained rise in investment in public services – with average growth per annum of 4-5 per cent (6% this year) – so that by 2005 public expenditure will have risen by over £60 billion.

This presents the government with two problems – how does it manage the inevitable levelling of which will occur in public expenditure growth when it plateaus – not such a probability while economic growth is healthy – but a real issue.

Secondly – the government has to show thatbthis investment is bringing return not just in terms of public sector growth in jobs, but in the quality of the service itself. 

i.e. the great delivery question.

Despite the growth in investment public confidence in the ability of government to deliver has declined – people are probably getting more demanding – but there is also the issue of improving efficiency.

There is no doubt that the Gershon Review and the Government’s drive to reform public services will be a massive and controversial issue for the Civil Service and public debate.

The early indications that Gershon believes that 80,000 civil service posts could go in order to generate £15 billion per year to redeploy into delivery at the front line is the most eye-catching and probably worrying development for civil servants, but it goes wider than this.

The intention seems to be to save money, improve services and help companies all at the same time by

1. Big savings in the £120 bn/year spent on procurement – from defence to back office services.
2. Rationalising regulation
3. Looking at reducing the ratio of 2 or 3 to 1 of spending on human resources than the private sector.
4. More use of one stop shops e.g. Job Centre plus Tax
5. Really making government e-capable – technology
6. More self service through technology e.g. Ontario
7. More ‘para’-professionals – e.g. teachers/assistants
8. Cut paperwork – palm computers – police “case managers” etc

As an MP this will raise many difficult issues – I want to see delivery of public services for my constituents, but I do not want more uncertainty about job security etc for my constituents who are civil servants – I want them to keep their public service ethos and have a decent pension.

In seeking to improve delivery

• we must make sure we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water
• we mustn’t know the price of everything and the price of nothing
• by the same token civil servants have to be willing to embrace change
• a public service, rather than a public sector ethos requires that willingness

There has been a big growth in the public service – the challenge now is to maintain excellence, embrace change and delivery for the public we serve.