Martin Wheatley
This week’s ministerial reshuffle has drowned out the publication of a very important report about how to make government more effective. In July 2022, the Government asked Francis Maude (Lord Maude of Horsham) to review Civil Service Accountability and Governance. Over a year on, his final report contains a thorough, radical, analysis and set of recommendations dealing with: ‘stewardship’ (the governance and assurance of the management of the government machine); the structure of the centre of government; the appointment of civil servants; accountability in departments; managing decisions and programmes across government; the deployment and skills of ministers and special advisers, and Arm’s Length Bodies.
These are issues which GovernUp and the Commission for Smart Government, the Institute for Government, Reform, and other commentators have addressed in depth, with further serious contributions from the latter two in the pipeline. However, this week’s report is powerful both because the Government commissioned it, and because Francis Maude personally has such long experience and insight – not least from his time as Cabinet Office Minister, when his longevity in office and focused, determined approach, brought about significant improvements in the management of the Civil Service.
The most vital point Maude makes is about the need for radical change. It has been hugely damaging that the British state, over decades and under successive governments, has failed, as he says, ‘over decades to implement or sustain agreed and uncontroversial reforms and improvements.’ Without a reformed and modernised government machine, how can political leaders hope to tackle the massive challenges of the coming years, a modernised productive economy, stronger public services, and international relations in an increasingly troubled world? He is also bang on the money to see a principal reason for this failure as a centre of government which is ‘unwieldy, with confusion about where responsibilities lie and a lack of clear lines of accountability.’
On some aspects of reform, Maude and the Commission for Smart Government argue along very similar lines, and he has kindly acknowledged our thinking in his report. Departmental boards need to be reformed and strengthened to provide proper governance and accountability, as we argued in our report about them. We also proposed independent assurance and scrutiny of how well government departments are run (an ‘Ofsted for government departments’), drawing on US and New Zealand models. We suggested a new body, but Maude proposes instead to assign it to a strengthened Civil Service Commission, along the lines of GovernUp’s 2015 proposals. We also agree strongly with proposals, similar to ours, to boost external recruitment at senior levels to provide a stronger mix of skills and experience, including through a strong in-house head-hunting function, again located in the Civil Service Commission.
Maude supports, broadly, the calls our Commission and others have made to modernise the UK’s approach to planning and managing public spending, which no longer stands up to the strongest internationally comparators. He calls for government budgeting to be separated from the Treasury and located in a new Office of Budget and Management (OBM). The government’s £13bn administration budget, in particular, would benefit from closer alignment with digital, HR and other professional leadership functions which would also be located there. However, we would argue for further reflection about whether it is even more important that the planning and management of the remaining 99 per cent of public spending needs to be aligned with the strategic policy-making function currently located, to the extent there is one, in the Cabinet secretariats, by locating them in the OBM too.
The report argues powerfully that the role of Head of the Civil Service needs to be full-time, not combined with the role of Cabinet Secretary, and demands a different skillset. It is also surely right that the Head of the Civil Service should have the much clearer authority and accountability needed to drive change and improvement. The logic is correct, but past separations of the two roles have led to bumpy rides and ended unhappily. If implemented by a future government, the new Head of the Civil Service role will need to be unambiguously the premier role, its first occupant carefully chosen, and supported strongly by the Prime Minister.
The Institute for Government, Reform and former senior civil servant and commentator Martin Stanley have provided interesting commentaries which, like ours, echo Maude on fundamentals but differ on some specific points. Such relatively minor arguments matter far less, however, than the fundamentals. The current Government is, unfortunately, probably right, in its immediate response, that that the end of a Parliament is not the time to embark on the fundamental reform Maude proposes. However, we would argue that, alongside forming a new government after an election, whoever is Prime Minister really must address the issues Maude explores, and the starting point his report proposes is right, on fundamentals. The next government will suffer the consequences if it yet again leaves these vital issues to one side.
Martin Wheatley was Research Director of GovernUp 2014-15 and of the Commission for Smart Government 2021-22