REPORT
The Public Administration Select Committee has agreed to the following Report:—
Introduction
1. The Committee has been conducting a broad-ranging
inquiry into the machinery of government and the organisation
of public services. A concern to ensure that public services are
delivered in an efficient manner using modern forms of organisation
and technologies have gained pace in recent years, under governments
of different parties. These developments have taken various forms,
but their common themes have been to make government and public
services work more effectively and cost-efficiently for the citizens
who pay for them, and to improve the quality of public services
over time in line with progress elsewhere in society, notably
in private sector standards of service.
2. It is right that these objectives should be relentlessly
pursued and we welcome the Government's vigorous commitment to
them shown in the 1999 'Modernising Government' White Paper and
its associated change programme for the public services. A major
civil service reform effort has also recently begun. These programmes
were presented as a continuous process, rather than offering the
prospects of immediate results. On its publication Jack Cunningham,
then Minister for the Cabinet Office, characterised 'Modernising
Government' as: 'A vision for transforming the way government
works for people—a long term programme for achieving that
transformation.'[13]
The White Paper included a message from the Prime Minister stating
that: 'It is central to our priorities because better government
means better service to the public.'[14]
The Government set three main aims for the programme:
Alongside these aims were five key commitments:
These broad themes were linked to an action plan,
and in September 2000 the Cabinet Office published an annual report
on the progress of the 'Modernising Government' programme. Some
of these themes had been articulated earlier in the mid 1990s,
for example, in the development of efforts to deliver services
electronically and to promote good standards of public service
delivery through the Citizen's Charter initiative.
3. In the course of our inquiry we have heard evidence
from a wide range of witnesses, including senior politicians,
top civil servants, academics, journalists and other commentators,
most of whom also submitted written evidence. We were pleased
to note that official witnesses responded positively to the evidence
as our inquiry progressed. Our focus was on the experience of
government service delivery and policy-making in the UK since
the mid1990s, the lessons to be learned and the identification
of major problems, and the progress and prospects of current initiatives.
The expertise and experience of our witnesses have been invaluable
to us; we would also like to express our gratitude to Professor
Patrick Dunleavy for his work as our special adviser on this inquiry.
The Committee also visited the North East to look at public service
changes from the local delivery level.[15]
In the course of our work we have already published two reports
on particular strands of our inquiry, 'The Ministerial Code: Improving
the Rule Book'[16]
and 'Special Advisers: Boon or Bane?'[17]
In addition, our recent report 'Mapping the Quango State'[18]
explores an important part of the background, concerning the public
bodies which play a key role in service delivery.
4. The particular reference points for this report
are the current administration's 'Modernising Government' process
of change in the operation of policy-making and the delivery of
public services, together with some closely associated civil service
reform initiatives. Our aim here is to make some preliminary observations
on important aspects of these programmes, and to highlight some
emerging issues about implementation. We hope that we, or our
successors, will be able to give more detailed consideration to
some of these matters in the near future. In this sense it is
very much work in progress.
5. Our key theme is the importance of achieving and
maintaining combined progress on two key issues: improving the
performance of public services at the same time as maintaining
or increasing their public accountability. Both goals are crucial
for maintaining public confidence in what government does, yet
they are too often treated separately. Instead we believe that
they are indissolubly connected. Public services need to deliver
performance of a high quality; but they also need to be properly
accountable for their performance. Indeed, accountability should
be a spur to performance, and we believe that it should be recognised
as one of the key principles of the 'Modernising Government' programme.
We say more on this theme below.
Joining-up government
6. Perhaps the most ambitious of the new goals and
approaches stressed in the 'Modernising Government' agenda is
the need to challenge departmentalism and the fragmenting consequences
of the extensive 'agencification' of central government carried
out under the 'Next Steps' change programme from 1988 to 1996.
Instead, the new emphasis is upon 'holistic governance' (in the
original academic phrase) or on 'joined-up government' (in the
more plain-speaking civil service usage for which both Sir Michael
Bichard and Sir Robin Mountfield have claimed authorship, although
the phrase has a much longer pedigree). The essential idea here
is not just the perennial effort in Whitehall to get to grips
with all those issues which cross-departmental boundary lines.
It is also to seek to re-engineer governance processes so as genuinely
to reunify or reorientate them to meet the needs of the client
groups being served. Ideally, joining-up should make the governance
process as simple and transparent as possible instead of citizens
or organisations having to deal on connected issues with a maze
of different agencies. It also means establishing unified cross-departmental
programmes, with integrated spending budgets. We very much welcome
the initiatives that have been taken so far in this area, but
would like to see them taken further. This means more projects
than those already identified in the Spending Review, with money
ring-fenced for bids for joint working, and clear ministerial
and civil service responsibility for making them work. This last
point is especially important. A culture in which Ministers and
civil servants traditionally defend the narrow interests of their
departments or agencies has to be changed to one in which they
are judged and rewarded to the extent that they advance the key
strategic objectives of the Government as a whole.
7. The focus of joining-up government has largely
been on the centre, concentrating on how Whitehall departments
can be persuaded or cajoled to abandon their 'silo' mentality
and to work together to produce better and more co-ordinated policy-making
and delivery. We heard evidence about the difficulties in co-ordinating
service delivery due to the vertical organisation of departments
(a function both of traditional measures of public accountability
and of bureaucratic hierarchy). Many of the most intractable problems
of modern government have a horizontal or inter-connected nature—for
example, social exclusion encompasses a range of issues and multiple
departmental responsibilities. One kind of effort to achieve greater
co-ordination has seen the introduction of cross-cutting units,
like the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) and the Performance and Innovation
Unit (PIU) within the Cabinet Office, which have sought to alter
the way in which government operates by forming strategic cross-departmental
alliances at the centre. Another much more important strand in
terms of spending money has stressed integrated programmes, often
arising from the work of a taskforce, such as the New Deal initiative,
with budget headings spanning several departments, or the Sure
Start Programme. Like much of the 'Modernising Government' programme,
the success of these initiatives will only be properly assessed
over the long term, and will be measured not only in terms of
improved service delivery but also in how effective they are in
eroding an administrative culture of departmental baronies. Professor
Pollitt advanced the merits of a positive incrementalism, which
involves finding out what works and then building on it. This
requires a continuous process of research and evaluation.
8. Another way to create more joined-up government
is to reorganise departments on cross-cutting or client-group
lines. A traditional set of options in public administration emphasised
structuring agencies around clients, rather than around staff
skills, administrative processes or geographical areas. There
may be some advantages in this approach, and various examples
are currently canvassed - such as integrating all social assistance
programmes for working age people (currently in the Department
of Social Security, DSS) along with employment and labour market
services (currently in the Department for Education and Employment,
DfEE). But we are not persuaded that any reorganisation of government
departments by itself can offer a real answer to the problem.
However, this needs to be properly discussed. In October1970,
the then Prime Minister, Edward Heath, issued a White Paper, 'The
Reorganisation of Central Government'[19],
which set out ambitious plans to alter the machinery of government.
If major changes to the machinery are to be undertaken now, we
believe that a similar consultation exercise is required. There
is a particular issue about whether the development of executive
agencies (introduced under previous administrations to improve
accountability and separate the service delivery from the policy
function of government) creates difficulties for joined-up delivery.
We welcome the recent announcement of a review of executive agencies
and hope it will give special attention to this matter.
9. Increasingly, departments and agencies, and individual
civil servants within them, are expected to meet measurable targets.
If government is to be effectively joined up, it is essential
that this ambition is reflected in the targets being set, both
for organisations and for key managers. Nor is it enough for individual
agencies to achieve their own organisational targets unless these
contribute to collective governmental goals. It is also essential
that goals are measured in terms of outcomes rather than outputs.
We agree with Moira Wallace, Head of the SEU, that it is the focus
on outcomes that pulls together an organisation's activity and
provides the key discipline for joined-up working.[20]
Central-local relations and valuing
the public services
10. Government in Britain is distinguished by a culture
of administrative centralism, which—along with departmentalism—presents
a key challenge to any sustained attempt to make the machinery
of government work better. Programmes driven top-down from the
centre often seem to offer the opportunity for speedy delivery,
and hence fit with the imperatives for individual Ministers to
be seen to make a difference to policy-making in relatively short
time periods. But this approach can be at the expense of building
up the local strategic capacity that will be required for durable
results, and where new top-down programmes are initiated in rapid
succession, and without much genuine evaluation of what is working
and what is not, the results can be actively inimical to the sustained
development of good public service delivery on the ground. It
is essential that there is local ownership of programmes, including
shared ownership of the performance measures that are used to
evaluate them. There is also the danger that a top-down and centrally-driven
approach will worsen the already considerable problems of co-ordination
at local and regional level, a possibility clearly identified
in the PIU report 'Reaching Out'. We welcome the establishment
of the Regional Co-ordination Unit in the Cabinet Office in response
to this report and we will be monitoring the extent to which it
succeeds in resolving some of these difficulties, and we will
be monitoring the extent to which it succeeds. The regional Government
Offices have a crucial role to play here also. However, their
role will only become more effective when they represent the whole
range of Government departments, instead of less than a handful
as at present. It is essential that joining-up at the centre is
matched by equivalent joining-up as initiatives progress through
the system.
11. The issue of maintaining and enhancing a local
strategic capacity for the whole governmental machine to act effectively
is the crucial one. On our visit to north east England many of
those we talked to told of the pressure put on local resources
both by the constant need to bid and rebid for central funds and
the requirement to comply with a plethora of inspection regimes
and externally-imposed targets. We heard complaints about the
lack of trust this implies. The problems of excessive centralism
have to be broken, both for democratic and delivery reasons. They
have started to be broken in Scotland, Wales and London, and this
process now needs to be extended in England. The twin imperatives
of performance and accountability seem to us to point inexorably
towards a system of elected regional government combined with
unitary local authorities. We hope that the Government will give
serious consideration to how it can speedily move this process
forward. There is also the issue of complexity: in a world of
partnerships, zones and area-based initiatives, there can be a
real problem for accountability if citizens do not know who is
responsible for the programmes that impact upon them. We believe
that this is an issue that requires more consideration than it
has so far received.
12. One of the key principles of the 'Modernising
Government' programme is to 'value public service, not denigrate
it'[21].
This switch of direction (now accepted by all major parties) came
against a background where in the 1990s it was widely believed
that the emphasis of government was on cutting the cost of public
services, privatising them, and criticising the performance of
public sector workers. We welcome the Government's clear endorsement
of the public service ideal. A shared ethical commitment to this
ideal across the public sector continues to provide some of the
best underpinnings and guarantees for maintaining and developing
good performance and standards. However, it is not enough to value
public service ideals in an abstract way. They need to be actively
encouraged and positively cultivated. We believe that there is
much more that can and should be done on this front. For example,
we think that it might be helpful for all public servants to be
given a copy of a Public Service Code, incorporating the 'seven
principles of public life' developed by the Committee on Standards
in Public Life.[22]
We also think it would be useful for all new staff of agencies
or departments, designated as 'public service' organisations,
to receive appropriate induction and training in what the ethos
of public service entails and implies. In his evidence to us David
Walker argued the merits of a single, unified public service for
Britain[23].
While we remain unpersuaded by this idea, we do accept that benefits
could flow from a determined effort to disseminate a unified public
service ethos throughout the public sector.
13. This issue connects with the importance of professionalism
and the special role of the professions in the public services.
We often assign a great deal of discretion to professional staff
in public service contexts, and both government and the public
at large must often rely on the socialisation of professional
values to safeguard client interests. With the general public
service ideal, a proper professionalism is the fundamental ingredient
in delivering high standards of performance. However, an improper
professionalism that defends its own interests and resists public
scrutiny can be very dangerous in areas like the health service
or social work, as a series of recent scandals (such as the Shipman
murders, concerns over hospitals with high failure rates, the
illegal storage of body parts, and recurring problems over children
left unprotected by social services) all emphasise. We believe
that the relationship between professionalism and accountability
has now become a key issue for the whole of the public sector,
and deserves urgent attention. We need a new version of professionalism
that respects the need for proper public accountability, and places
it unambiguously at the centre of professional values. At the
same time, we also need to develop a version of public accountability
that respects the need for inescapable professional discretion
in allowing individual case-by-case decision-making in way that
is not being constantly 'second guessed' or subject to bureaucratised
processes. One way to secure this goal would be to get more coherence
and consistency than currently exists into the assorted schemes
of professional regulation. This might be achieved by the establishment
of a Council of the Professions, although the precise organisational
form is less important than the recognition of the need. If our
suggestion above of a Public Service Code is pursued, then the
professional regulation of key public service occupations—such
as doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers and others—should
aim to see the code fully incorporated into professional values
and education.
The advent of e-Government
14. The new technologies surrounding the internet
and the world-wide Web offer remarkable, perhaps unprecedented,
opportunities for simultaneously advancing the quality of public
services, cutting costs and increasing public accountability.
Intelligently and rapidly applied they can play an integral role
in the project of making government work better. 'Modernising
Government' rightly assigns a high salience to information-age
government, using new technology to meet the needs of citizens
and business more effectively, and identifying it as one of five
key commitments in the White Paper. This will be one of the most
important cross-cutting 'drivers' for change in the Civil Service
and the wider public sector for at least a decade ahead, and the
Government has put in place powerful machinery for its delivery.
While the1999 National Audit Office (NAO) report on 'Governing
on the Web'[24]
found a weak set of government targets and a very confused and
patchy pattern of progress on meeting them across departments
and agencies, the Government has since established the Office
of the e-Envoy (OeE) in the Cabinet Office. During 2000 OeE tasked
all departments to produce e-governance strategy documents setting
out how they will attain the main government target of 100 per
cent capacity for delivery of services electronically by 2005.
The Treasury has also incorporated reference to this target in
the latest round of Public Service Agreements (PSAs) negotiated
with departments. There is no doubt that electronic technology
is a key tool in achieving joined-up and citizen-focused government.
Fundamental administrative innovations, such as establishing one-stop-shops
to offer a range of services from agencies or departments to the
same client groups, either over the phone, or via the Web, or
in a front-office service, cannot work without the necessary investment
in IT. If citizens and enterprises can conduct direct electronic
dealings with government, this will open up the prospect both
of easier access for the user and considerable savings to the
public purse. The NAO study 'Governing on the Web' showed, for
instance, that handling a phone call in a call centre costs the
government at least £2.50, whereas the marginal cost of an
extra citizen or enterprise accessing a government Web site is
close to zero once the site is established.[25]
With the DSS alone handling some 300 million phone calls a year,
getting citizens to use on-line access is clearly an attractive
proposition, and the PSAs of the major departments dealing with
the public all now include targets for increasing the use of electronic
services by citizens and enterprises.
15. Like much of the modernising agenda, e-government
remains work in progress. Because agencies are used to paper-based
and relatively labour-intensive systems, and officials in effect
derive their livelihood from them, they may not see much advantage
to them in pushing ahead with rapid changes that will erode their
established methods of working. Overcoming this latent 'channel
rivalry' problem demands relentless attention and firm leadership
from the centre of government. It also needs e-champions in every
part of government and every public body. The need for sustained
investment, excellent project analysis, and strong change management
is clear in many policy areas. In our recent inquiry into the
maladministration of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme
we learned that the IT systems in the DSS had suffered from a
marked lack of investment over many years. In our report we welcomed
the DSS's intention to improve its IT systems and the fact that
a target to achieve this was included in its most recent PSA[26].
Across government we have seen examples of failed IT schemes (for
instance the Home Office passport system) which suggests that
it still has much to learn, although we note that such failures
are not confined to the public sector, which suggests that there
is a wider problem of project management skills. We heard evidence
from Ann Steward, of the OeE, that the targets set for e-government
will be met. She told us that 40 per cent of government services
are currently able to be delivered electronically, which represents
very good progress towards meeting the target of 100 per cent
by 2005.[27]
It is vitally important that this progress is maintained, but
quite difficult to be sure how much progress there really is.
We note that the Trade and Industry Select Committee reported
in March 2001 that 'there is still a slight whiff of unreality
in the electronic government agenda'[28],
and said that they suspected that too many services were being
put on-line quickly for the sake of meeting the electronic capability
target, without paying enough regard to ensuring good quality
facilities or actively increasing take-up by customers. The NAO
will report in detail on progress towards e-governance and Web/internet
access for government in a follow-up report forthcoming in December
2001.
16. We believe that actively developing the electronic
usage of government Web sites and internet facilities will require
concentrated attention by the centre, and by departments and agencies.
It will also require progress on other fronts, such as the UK
Government Portal designed to provide easy entry to government
information and services, and the development of the Government
Gateway to facilitate easy electronic access across government.
People will increasingly demand transparent forms of electronic
access to government and public services, both as users and citizens,
and will not tolerate a failure to provide it. Nor is access the
same as usage, although it is a pre-condition. If many of the
users of public services do not have access, both in skills and
equipment, to the new technology, its purpose will not be realised.
OeE told us that 32 per cent of the population currently has access
to the internet (either at home or at work)[29],
so that issues around e-exclusion are still major ones for public
service implementation. But, if a self-sustaining e-governance
track can be established, then savings made should be able to
fund extended 'outreach' work to ensure that all sections of society
share in the progress. For instance, if the DSS can reduce its
routine phone bills and cut down on highly expensive paperwork
and front-office visits, then it becomes feasible to consider,
say, field workers equipped with 'one-stop shop' PCs visiting
old age pensioners at home to ensure that their full entitlements
to benefits are assessed and taken up.
17. A further barrier to progress towards e-governance
is the difficulty of data sharing. If joined-up government is
to be effective, official data needs to be shared across departments
(as with the Knowledge Network), agencies, localities and other
public bodies. The barriers to success in this area are political,
administrative and technological. The forthcoming PIU report on
'Privacy and Data Sharing' may help to begin dismantling some
of them and securing public acceptance for change. Ensuring that
an appropriate framework for public accountability in the use
and interchange of citizen and business information across government
is in place will play a vital part in the pace of change. The
Human Rights Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the shift in
government to electronic storage of all information, and the easy
availability of government information over the Web, offer important
opportunities for government to convince citizens that a 'big
brother' approach is ruled out, and that data on them will only
be used under strictly controlled conditions, without unauthorised
leakage outside government or within. If government does not provide
citizens at large with such assurances, then the future progress
of e-governance could be held back unnecessarily.
The Civil Service and policy-making
18. The UK Civil Service has a unique status in British
public life. It has been highly valued by Ministers of all parties,
and its members have traditionally expected to pursue life-time
careers in Whitehall departments or their agencies. One vital
consequence of this approach has been the requirement that the
Civil Service must serve impartially governments of all political
persuasions. Another distinctive feature has been the extent to
which permanent senior officials (rather than political appointees
brought in afresh with each new administration) have been involved
in tendering policy advice to Ministers on the full range of government
issues. To meet these very demanding requirements, the Civil Service
has traditionally prided itself on recruiting some of the best
minds of each generation. We are in no doubt that the service
represents a resource of immense value to government and that
the values and skills it embodies are crucial ones (not least
the value of 'speaking truth unto power'). Yet, it has also attracted
more criticism from Ministers over the last twenty years and has
seemed old-fashioned in aspects of its training, culture and approach
to policy-making. The Civil Service cannot be frozen in a mould
appropriate to one particular era, but must instead constantly
change and reform if it is to meet the changing demands of government.
An elegance in relation to process needs to be matched by a robust
commitment to attaining effective outcomes.
19. Meeting these complex and demanding requirements
may now demand new skills, and new people, with the central Civil
Service moving from being line administrators to being experts
in fields such as change management, extended strategic contracting,
the development of multi-channel procurement and delivery systems,
and so on. Accordingly, the Government has proposed extensive
modernisation of the Civil Service. In 1999 the Prime Minister
asked Sir Richard Wilson (the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the
Home Civil Service) to produce proposals for reform in light of
the Government's modernising agenda. Sir Richard's report to the
Prime Minister ('Civil Service Reform') was published in December
1999. It committed the Civil Service to action on the basis of
six key themes:
Four supplementary detailed plans (covering 'A Diverse
Civil Service', 'Performance Management', 'Vision and Values',
and 'Bringing in and Bringing on Talent') were also produced.
In December 2000 Sir Richard published an annual report on progress.
20. Among the key problems identified by critics
of the Civil Service have been the perceived slowness of its reaction,
poor performance in providing policy advice, an inattention to
policy delivery, inadequate understanding of risk management issues,
and bad project management. Geoff Mulgan, Director of the PIU
and a former adviser to the Prime Minister, admitted in his evidence
to us that the Government were frustrated by the speed of change
in Whitehall—as he imagined were the Conservative administrations
of the 1980s and 1990s.[30]
A basic question is whether the Civil Service is the most appropriate
body to reform itself. Critics argue that many attempts to reform
the service, from the Fulton reforms of the late 1960s onwards,
have still left it needing fundamental change. There is a feeling
in some quarters that the Civil Service has once again absorbed
attempts at reform. A possible conclusion may be that the service
is incapable of effectively changing itself and that reform must
be imposed from outside. This was the view of the former Cabinet
Minister, Dr David Clark. He told us that he had 'studied the
reforms Sir Richard [Wilson] put forward. But I think he almost
gave the game away when he said his reforms were reforms for the
Civil Service, by the Civil Service, led by the Civil Service'.
[31]
In a speech in May 1999, Sir Richard said the Civil Service 'has
to face the challenge of continuing change and modernisation.
The important thing is to ensure that the process is constructive
and does not damage our core values'.[32]
We very much agree with this concern to preserve what is effective
and important in how the Civil Service operates. But we suggest
that, thirty years or more after Fulton, the time is ripe for
a new Royal Commission to take comprehensive stock of the Civil
Service and map out a more comprehensive strategy for change.
21. Wider questions about the contemporary role of
the service, and the skills needed to perform it effectively,
have not really been addressed inside Whitehall so far. Kate Jenkins
(one of the key architects of the Next Steps reforms in 1987-8)
said in her evidence to us: 'There are a lot of assumptions that
have built up around it [the Civil Service] exemplified by the
fact that in my 20 years in the Civil Service I do not think anybody
could ever tell me what my professional and constitutional role
was—even though everybody assumed that I knew it and had
acquired it by osmosis on entering the Civil Service'.[33]
Recent changes had made the position even less clear: 'I would
argue that what we need now is greater clarity than would have
been fashionable 15 or 20 years ago about what the profession
is. My sense, talking to a lot of civil servants, is that they
have rather lost the sense of what their professionalism is, what
the specific skills are that they bring to the job.'[34]
The need for skills definition, going beyond the old and hackneyed
arguments about specialists and generalists, is urgent.
22. In contrast to the position in most comparable
countries, the position of the Civil Service in the UK is not
governed by a Civil Service Act. We believe that in the new constitutional
climate shaped by devolution, the Human Rights Act, and the Freedom
of Information Act, the time is now overdue for a Civil Service
Act designed to put the service on a clearer and firmer constitutional
footing, and defining to whom it is responsible. Civil servants
may now have over-riding statutory obligations which considerably
circumscribe the traditional dicta that they are there simply
to serve Ministers, yet these considerations cannot be effectively
expressed only in internal codes of conduct. A Civil Service Act
has long been promised (most recently in the Government's response
to the recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public
Life last year).[35]
It would offer an opportunity to address many of the questions
to which we have drawn attention above. We have previously recommended
that the Government introduce such an Act at the earliest opportunity
and would ourselves welcome an opportunity to comment on a draft.
23. The delivery of policy advice has traditionally
been a core function of the senior Civil Service. A combination
of recent developments has increasingly brought that into question.
Governments have increasingly expected civil servants to engage
more effectively in management—of projects, of change and
of the delivery of services. A succession of policy disasters
(for which the Civil Service is rightly or wrongly blamed) may
have affected the esteem in which the policy function is held.
A variety of sources of alternative policy advice (including special
advisers to Ministers and outside think-tanks) has developed.
The Civil Service no longer holds a monopoly of policy advice
or of the skills and information needed to develop advice. Many
observers argue that the thinning of the ranks of the senior Civil
Service has reduced its capacity to tender policy advice effectively
or authoritatively. It was suggested to us by Sir Peter Kemp that
the time had come to split the dual function of a Permanent Secretary
into two posts, a Chief Executive and a Chief Policy Adviser.[36]
We do not believe that this would bring more advantages than disadvantages,
when joining-up government remains such an important objective.
But the proposal does clearly identify the problems of combining
the roles of policy adviser with programme manager at the very
top of departments (and perhaps some major agencies also).
24. The Civil Service's policy-making expertise has
also been called into question by the fact it that has traditionally
been composed in the main of generalists—that is, people
equipped with a good undergraduate education but not further trained
in any specific professional skill and frequently moving between
departments and positions, deploying generic 'administrative'
skills rather than further developing any particular specialisation.
The maintenance of the 'generalist' model has also been a familiar
object of criticism, though it continues to be defended by some
as allowing flexibility. Sir Robin Mountfield remarked to us that
generalism was in itself a form of professionalism, and one particularly
useful in terms of joined-up government. By contrast Professor
Dunleavy drew particular attention to the low proportion (by international
comparative standards) of civil servants holding advanced qualifications.
He suggested that a lack of advanced education could mean over
time top civil servants have fewer resources of expertise or developed
analytic capacities to draw on, making them over-reliant on acquiring
information from files and assessing it in customary, organisationally-shaped
ways. This way of approaching hard decisions might have contributed
to a string of policy failures over the last twenty years.[37]
We believe that at least as much blame may attach to Ministers
as to civil servants for policy disasters and failures. But it
is true that much training in the Civil Service (at the top ranks)
has traditionally been short-term, informal and internal, un-checked
and unvalidated by external bodies.
25. The Civil Service is now taking steps to improve
its formal in-service training and to improve its performance
skills. The Civil Service College has been brought under the new
Centre for Management and Policy Studies (CMPS) in the Cabinet
Office. CMPS offers a variety of courses to civil servants and
to Ministers (often together, an important innovation), and also
to people from outside. Particular attention is being given to
risk management and evidence-based policy skills. The Civil Service
has taken seriously criticisms of its policy-making performance.
Professor Amman told us that the CMPS was developing 'new approaches
to policy-making, based on the latest developments in knowledge
management, and that is one of the most original things that we
are doing to try to make policy more joined-up and evidence-based
through the use of information technology'.[38]
In September 1999 the Cabinet Office Strategic Policy Making Team
produced a document entitled 'Professional Policy-making for the
Twenty-first Century'. These are important developments, which
we welcome. But we believe that progress on such internal career
training needs to be assessed objectively, and that internal training
needs to be combined with opportunities for civil servants to
acquire advanced qualifications through external study.
26. Risk management is another area where the Civil
Service is often accused of lacking key skills and expertise.
A Civil Service capable of handling the hugely important 'risk
issues' confronting government in the twenty-first century will
have to be both better educated and much better trained than in
the past, especially in regulatory areas. In managing public services,
the Government wishes the civil servants of the future to be better
risk managers (an issue discussed in the PIU report 'Wiring it
Up'). It is not that they are expected to recommend policies which
are more likely to fail (although there may be instances where
they may represent to Ministers that the more risky policy, if
successful, will deliver greater benefits), but that, in the Civil
Service context, it is about being aware of what may go wrong
(and how likely this is) and how contingency plans may be made
to ward off disaster. This is an important area, with implications
for traditional public sector audit and accountability, to which
we hope that we or our successors will return.
27. In the future Civil Service it is also likely
that individual civil servants will be more publicly visible and
identifiable with particular policies, a step which is already
implicit in the executive agency model. We took evidence from
Louise Casey, who takes responsibility for the Rough Sleepers
Unit, and is an example of a highly visible civil servant. This
new profile for civil servants has implications not only for accountability
(is the Minister or the civil servant accountable?) but also for
the role of junior Ministers (if a named civil servant is identified
with a particular policy, what is the Minister for?). In principle
it is right that accountability for policies and programmes should
be more clearly identified, both politically and administratively,
but the implications for government and Parliament need to be
fully explored.
Diversity of recruitment and experience
in the Civil Service
28. The 'Modernising Government' White Paper set
a number of targets for increasing the diversity of the Civil
Service. The achievement of these targets is not only valuable
in itself, in terms of general equal opportunity policy, but is
also important in ensuring that the senior Civil Service is representative
of, and contains people with knowledge about, all sections of
the society which it serves, and the consequences of policies
for citizens. The diversity targets cover gender, ethnicity, education
and socio-economic background, and are a response to the charge
that the senior Civil Service, especially, is too homogenous,
and too drawn from a narrow set of social backgrounds. Critics
argue that maintaining too narrow a recruitment base could make
the Civil Service inward-looking and ill-equipped by background
and personal experience to meet the challenges facing the country
in the twenty-first century.
29. As a result of Sir Richard's report, each government
department has established its own diversity action plan and the
Cabinet Office set service-wide targets for the senior Civil Service.
The service-wide targets are that: the proportion of women in
the senior Civil Service is to be increased from 17.8 per cent
in 1998 to 35 per cent in 2005; the representation of people with
disabilities is to be increased from 1.5 per cent in 1998 to 3
per cent in 2005; and the representation of people from an ethnic
minority background should rise from 1.6 per cent to 3.2 per cent
by the same date. (At 14 December 2000 the actual figures were
22 per cent for women, 1.7 per cent for people with disabilities
and 2.1 per cent from an ethnic minority background.)[39]
We are concerned that these desirable targets are not all that
likely to be achieved. Sir Richard Wilson said that the target
for the percentage of women in the senior Civil Service was unlikely
to be reached because there were not enough women in the ranks
just below who were in line for promotion.[40]
If this one target cannot be met, for reasons which could have
been foreseen, it is possible that others may be equally doubtful;
and it raises questions about the basis of such target-setting.
We take it for granted that the pursuit of targets will not be
at the expense of quality.
30. While welcoming these developments, we recognise
the force of the point made by Sir Robin Mountfield that it may
be preferable to diversify recruitment at levels just below that
of Permanent Secretary if the intention is to broaden the pool
from which Permanent Secretaries are chosen.[41]
However, we do believe there should be open competition for all
Permanent Secretary posts. There are practical obstacles in the
way of such external recruitment and these include salary and
pension differences. Civil service rates of pay have usually been
substantially lower than those for people of comparable ability
elsewhere. If outsiders of quality are to be attracted, then the
pay issue is inescapable. So is the question of pensions, which
'lock' civil servants into a Whitehall pathway after a few years.
We understand that there is currently a review of pension arrangements
taking place, which we welcome, while recognising that the implications
of change are far-reaching.
Outside recruitment and secondments
31. Many suggestions have been made for opening up
the civil service at senior levels to provide channels for a wider
range of people, especially those with private sector business
management experience, to be able to compete for senior positions.
We heard different opinions on the proportion of senior staff
that it would be appropriate to recruit from outside to prevent
a civil service department becoming a 'stagnant puddle'[42],
and also on the appropriate job levels for such recruitment to
take place. While advocating outside recruitment, Sir Christopher
Foster acknowledged the 'considerable risks' in bringing people
in from outside because 'you know them less well and...one out
of three you wish you had not'.[43]
He thought that the proportion of permanent civil servants should
be kept at 80 or 90 per cent. Others argue that the levels of
'core staffing' needing to be protected for career civil servants
in order to avoid any dilution or erosion of core civil service
values are much lower at senior levels, perhaps only around 50
per cent. Experience in countries which have moved to a much greater
reliance on short-term contracts for senior civil servants have
found there are disadvantages as well as advantages. In the first
place, as Professor Rhodes told us, Civil Services can experience
a loss of institutional memory[44],
a problem to which Kate Jenkins alluded as she reflected on changes
since she had begun her civil service career. A further difficulty
is that once some turnover of civil servants to private sector
careers, or of private sector people coming into the Civil Service,
is planned for, actual turnover is even faster than expected.
Individuals coming in from the private sector tend not to serve
as long as it was intended they should. Sir Robin Mountfield argued
that there could be a possibly unforeseen result of introducing
greater competition for jobs, both internally and from outside:
namely that a concentration on filling a series of immediate job
vacancies could militate against planning career development for
a cohort of civil servants as a whole and the preparation of selected
individuals for top jobs.[45]
We believe that it is right that the Civil Service should draw
in talent and skills from outside, and in numbers sufficient to
make a real difference. But, just as the best private sector organisations
nurture and develop their own staff, this goal has to be the central
emphasis of the Civil Service too. Proposing changes to the composition
of the Civil Service always carries some potential for damaging
consequences, which need to be carefully balanced against the
advantages. The service depends for its character and values upon
an established ethos of political impartiality, strong legal compliance
and resistance to corruption, to mention only three key aspects
of the traditional system. The fact that we have a Civil Service
that is a byword for incorruptibility is an important aspect of
this. It is essential that change is managed in such a way that
the core values of the service are not put at risk.
32. There are a number of alternative ways of diversifying
the experience of those who come to take up senior positions in
Whitehall and its agencies. An important feature of the Civil
Service reform programme is the expectation that in the future
senior civil servants will be expected to have wider experience
in a variety of possible settings. To be considered for promotion
to the senior Civil Service, individuals will be expected to have
significant experience outside Whitehall, whether by working in
front-line service delivery agencies and positions or secondment
to outside organisations. There will also be greater movement
between departments, and witnesses pointed to the increasing service-wide
advertisement of posts. We believe that these developments, if
actively pursued, offer great potential for enhancing skills.
33. Among the initiatives included in the Wilson
reforms was the identification of 100 key tasks for which secondees
could be brought in, and a year-on-year increase for five years
in open competition for middle and senior managers. On these targets,
Sir Richard was bullish, saying:
'We have committed ourselves to increasing the number
of open competitions by 10 per cent a year over five years. I
think we will probably be shown to have done in one year what
we aimed to do in five. We have committed ourselves to identifying
100 key posts, which are to be filled by bringing in people on
secondment, a more open service. We have identified 180 posts
now and have written to 1,000 organisations to try to get the
best people we can to fill them'.[46]
This represents positive progress, but the increased use of secondments
is not a substitute for real mobility and permanent change in
the pattern of career paths.
34. Secondments can bring with them difficulties,
not only when they take place within the service but also when
they involve movement in and out. For example, the FDA, representing
the senior ranks of the Civil Service, told us that promotions
while on secondment are not always recognised by the parent department.
If this is the case within Whitehall then the problem is likely
to be even worse when secondment involves organisations from a
different sector altogether. A further impediment is the natural
fear of people who may still expect to make their career in one
organisation that, if they are absent for any length of time,
others may steal a march on them. (This concern may apply also
to staff asked to leave Whitehall to gain experience of front-line
service delivery). If secondments are to be effective, it is important
that such difficulties are squarely faced and properly resolved.
35. Some of the organisations which may be keenest
on seconding higher-paid people to work in the Civil Service,
or in offering positions to high-flying civil servants within
their own organisation for a period, may do so because it creates
competitive advantages or added-value for them in their main line
of work. For instance, they might think it would be a helpful
investment for their future abilities to negotiate with or influence
government, or they may derive substantial parts of their corporate
income from work for the departments or agencies concerned—as
for instance do many management consultancies, large accountancy
firms, or companies offering extensive services to the public
sector. It will be important to ensure that possible conflicts
of interest are clearly identified and kept under review at three
levels: at the level of individual secondments with particular
organisations; at the level of the overall pattern of secondments
within a given department or agency over time; and across Whitehall
and central government as a whole.
Audit in the public sector
36. Issues of audit, regulation and inspection have
become increasingly important in the modern management of the
public sector. Influential commentators such as Professor Christopher
Hood and Michael Power have pointed to an 'audit explosion' in
which the use of audit processes has extended beyond traditional
audit bodies such as the NAO and the Audit Commission to a wide
range of sector-specific 'internal bureaucratic regulators'. We
believe that classical audit work and approaches still have some
way to go before they are as comprehensive as they should be.
There is also scope for performance audit work by the NAO and
Audit Commission to have more impact on policy implementation.
We support the recommendation of the recent Sharman review that
public audit should always follow public money so that the effectiveness
of public policies can be meaningfully assessed, even when grants
or transfers pass to private sector bodies.[47]
However, on the growth of internal regulators and the use of quasi-audits
to control public policy implementation, especially by local bodies,
we heard much evidence to the effect that the present arrangements
for regulation and inspection are both excessive and poorly coordinated.
For example, on our visit to the North East we were told by the
Head of the Crime Prevention Partnership that as the Area Commander
he now had 'more PIs (performance indicators) than PCs (police
constables)'. The audit and inspection explosion carries with
it the danger that process will triumph over product. We welcome
moves by the Government to review and reduce the regulatory burden
on implementing organisations, especially where public sector
bodies are able to demonstrate their competence in performance
in an evidence-based way. We would like to see this easing of
the regulatory burdens go further, consistent with the maintenance
of appropriate public accountability.
37. In recent years UK governments have been concerned
to test legislation for its compliance costs to business through
regulatory impact assessments. Yet this same discipline has not
been extended to the public sector. We believe that it should
be. New legislative requirements, including the demands of the
'Modernising Government' programme and current local government
changes, do not come cost-free. Indeed, the costs can be considerable
and it is right that they should be openly and explicitly recognised.
We believe that a compliance cost assessment procedure for the
impact of legislation on the public sector would help to achieve
this. The methods used to determine costs incurred could range
from a fairly narrow study of direct costs to more extended cost-benefit
analysis. We put this idea to the Cabinet Office Minister, Lord
Falconer, who replied: 'I can see real merit in that.'[48]
38. More broadly, we believe that a full review is
now needed of the whole world of audit, regulation and inspection
as far as the public sector is concerned, in order to ensure that
the arrangements in place are coherent, consistent and appropriate.
We also have some concerns on the monitoring of performance. While
we recognise that all departments are putting out more information
relating to their performance, we question the extent to which
effective monitoring is actually taking place. We have been told
repeatedly that it is the responsibility of departments to monitor
their own performance. Michael Heseltine argued in evidence to
us that the Audit Commission has saved millions of pounds of tax
payers' money through work monitoring local government performance,
and felt that their remit should be extended right across government.[49]
However, the NAO already undertake value for money performance
audits across all central government departments[50],
and have built up an invaluable base of expertise since beginning
this role in 1983. There are limits on NAO's remit, however, which
does not allow them to query policy decisions or assess their
substantive wisdom, only to assess the effectiveness of implementation
within announced policy guidelines set by Ministers.
Parliament, citizens and accountability
39. Proper attention must be paid to the role of
Parliament in supervising government performance and progress
on modernisation. At the moment there is a risk of accountability
arrangements by-passing Parliament in a welter of auditors, watch-dogs,
ombudsmen, inspectors and charters. The Audit Commission, for
instance, is a quango responsible only to the Department of Environment,
Transport and the Regions, and with no regular and direct answerability
to Parliament for the work that it undertakes or the guidance
reports that it issues. It is important that these mechanisms
are linked to political accountability, both locally and nationally.
The powerful combination of the NAO and the Public Accounts Committee
(PAC) might fruitfully be extended across the Select Committee
system of the House of Commons, and we welcome the modest step
recommended in the 2001 Sharman report that the NAO should prepare
an annual report for each departmental Select Committee on issues
falling within that Committee's scope of concerns.[51]
Extending the remit for independent monitoring further along these
lines would help to complement joined-up government with joined-up
accountability. We are attracted by the idea of the NAO having
a broader role in relation to Parliament, helping Select Committees
to monitor the performance of departments. For instance, we note
that the PAC only has time to discuss around half the value-for-money
reports produced by the NAO each year. Other reports could be
sent to the relevant departmental Select Committees, for them
to discuss or not as they chose. The Audit Commission also needs
to be brought into the parliamentary accountability loop, by reporting
to the Select Committee on the Environment, Transport and the
Regions for its work on local government; to the Health Committee
for its work on NHS bodies, and to the Home Affairs Committee
for its work on the police service. A case might also be explored
for a new national body to perform a wider policy review and policy-questioning
role, going beyond either the NAO or the Audit Commission performance
audit briefs. The way Parliament allocates money to the Government,
and also the way that Treasury rules operate, have a major impact
on the way the Civil Service takes forward this agenda.
40. In all of this it is important to keep citizens
at the front of the picture. For example, individual citizens
could be given a brief synoptic account of how the money raised
in central taxation has been spent. Work in central government-sponsored
focus groups has shown that many citizens spontaneously mention
the leaflets which local authorities distribute each year, explaining
their expenditures and revenues, at the time when council tax
payments are notified. There is currently no central government
equivalent of this direct communication, for example a leaflet
circulated with Inland Revenue income tax forms. The Government
has instituted an Annual Report, an innovation which we welcome,
which is extensively distributed in supermarkets and elsewhere.
But this document is strongly presentational and its statements
are not independently verified or endorsed, which we believe they
should be. The real drivers of audit and accountability in public
services should be what users want from services, and their experience
of them. The centrality of effective complaint and redress mechanisms
needs to be recognised. An approach that begins to define a serious
framework of rights (and responsibilities) for public service
users of the kind tentatively developed under the Citizen's Charter,
but somewhat lost sight of subsequently, needs to be resurrected
and extended. Public services need to be open for business at
times and in places convenient for those who use them. We look
to the 'consumer champions' in each Department, and to the Service
First Unit in the Cabinet Office, to move these issues forward.
Making government work at the
centre
41. We heard much evidence on the question of whether
greater strategic direction at the centre would involve a strengthening
of the Prime Minister's office or some other alternative, such
as a strengthened Cabinet Office. Our view is that the key issue
here involves extending strategic capacity at the centre, and
that which particular mechanism is favoured is rather a secondary
issue. Strategic capacity to co-ordinate policy and think ahead
could be strengthened in a number of ways, involving new relationships
between No 10 Downing Street, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office,
the key central players. Our preference is for a model which strengthens
Cabinet government as a whole, rather than for one which supplants
it with something else, although the case for a Prime Minister's
Department needs to be properly assessed. This means that the
Treasury should not be the sole custodian of the PSAs, which now
underpin the Government's spending programme. Working closely
with the Prime Minister's office and headed by a powerful Cabinet
Minister charged by the Prime Minister with delivering the Government's
strategic objectives, the Cabinet Office should play a central
role. But this requires that the Cabinet Office becomes less of
the 'bran tub'[52]
described to us by Michael Heseltine, and more of a central strategist
and performance monitor with real clout within government. We
note that the recent peer review of the Cabinet Office concluded
that it should have fewer priorities and focus on these more strongly.[53]
42. The 'Modernising Government' programme as a whole
is complex and has multiple elements. It is not always clear where
the really key priorities are, with the resulting danger that
civil servants will endeavour to work methodically on all of them
at once. This is a great virtue; but it is also a considerable
disability in terms of putting first things first. In our view
the immense checklists contained within the 'Modernising Government'
programme need to be converted into a much stronger definition
of what the key priorities for action are, with clear responsibilities
assigned for delivering them. The same applies to the Civil Service
reform programme. One key reason for the difficulty in determining
priorities is the highly complex organisation of the Cabinet Office
itself, with a profusion of small units and divisions all exercising
surveillance and issuing instructions from the centre of government.
Many of the units—such as SEU, PIU, OeE (and its predecessor
the Central IT Unit)—have produced some excellent reports.
But it remains to be seen how effective they will be in producing
durable results. One concern is their ability to implement their
own recommendations. Geoff Mulgan told us that it was the job
of departments to implement the findings of PIU reports[54],
since staff only serve short secondments with it. The relatively
small size of the cross-cutting units makes it difficult for them
consistently to monitor the implementation of results. We look
to the Cabinet Office to simplify and streamline its own patterns
of internal organisation, including the briefs of senior staff
and Cabinet Office Ministers, in order to express in a much more
ordered and integrated programmatic way what the Government wishes
to be done by way of 'Modernising Government' and implementing
Civil Service reform. There is also a case for the Cabinet Office
to consider what more needs to be done to get to grips with the
risk assessment and risk management issues that are central to
modern government.
Conclusion
43. Making government work better is a process. It
is a continuing task, with many strands to it. We commend the
Government for the vigorous way in which it has approached the
task, its attempt to grapple with some key issues, and for a range
of important initiatives. We hope to continue to monitor progress
of the bold programme of the 'Modernising Government' White Paper.
In this report we have sought to identify some emerging issues
that we believe need to be addressed if this programme is to be
carried forward successfully. Some fundamental issues we have
not addressed: the fact that public services will only work well
if people are prepared to pay enough for them, and if they are
staffed by people of high quality who are properly rewarded and
highly motivated; nor how much the state should do, whether as
direct provider or enabler or partner; nor if radical changes
to the pattern of public provision are required. These are important
matters, but they go beyond our brief here. What is certain is
that government has a permanent obligation to ensure that it is
working as effectively as possible for the citizens who pay for
it; and that public service should genuinely mean service to the
public. This is what making government work means.
14 Prime
Minister's message to public servants, Modernising Government
(1999) Cm 4310 Back
15 For
projects and contacts, see Annex Back
20
HC (2000-2001) 94-vii Q 1259 Back
22 First
Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life
Cm 2850-I, p14 Back
23 HC
(2000-2001) 94-i Q738 Back
26 HC
(1999-2000) 433 Administrative Failure: Inherited SERPS Back
27 HC
(2000-2001) 94-iii Q889 Back
28 HC
(2000-2001) 66 p xiii Back
29 HC
(2000-2001) 94-iii Q897 Back
30 HC
(2000-2001) 94-iii Q840 Back
31 HC
(2000-2001) 94-iv Q916 Back
32 The
Civil Service in the New Millennium,
May 1999 Back
33 HC
(1999-2000) 238-ii Q173 Back
35 The
Government's Response to the Sixth Report of the Committee on
Standards in Public Life Cm
4817 p8 Back
36 HC
(1999-2000) 238-iii Q214 Back
37 HC
(1999-2000) 94-i Q747 Back
38 HC
(2000-2001) 94-ii Q769 Back
39 The
Civil Service Reform Programme Annual Report 2000
p 23 Back
40 HC
(1999-2000) 238-vi Q446 Back
41 HC
(2000-2001) 94-vi Q1051 Back
42 HC
(2000-2001) 94-v Q1007 Back
43 HC
(2000-2001) 94-vi Q1047 Back
44 HC
(1999-2000) 238-v Q339 Back
45 HC
(2000-2001) 94-xiv Q1051 Back
46 HC
(2000-2001) 94-vi Q387 Back
47 Holding
to Account: The Review of Audit and Accountability for Central
Government. A Report by
Lord Sharman of Redlynch 2001 Back
48 HC
(2000-2001) 94-vii Q1203 Back
49 HC
(2000-2001) 94-iv Q925 Back
50 The
NAO has recently published Measuring the Performance of Government
Departments HC (2000-2001) 301 Back
52 HC
(2000-2001) 94-iv Q963 Back
53 Be
the Change: Peer Review Report of the Cabinet Office Role in Modernising
Government, December 2000 Back
13 Cabinet Office Press Release 30 March 1999 Back