Whitehall is coded safety-first – fixing the UK’s problems must start with incentivising civil servants to be bolder
Cabinet Secretary, Dame Antonia Romeo (Lee Thomas/Alamy)
4 min read
Anyone glancing at headlines over the past few weeks could be forgiven for despairing at the state of politics.
The Prime Minister’s job security is in doubt following disastrous local election results, Wes Streeting’s resignation, and the scandal surrounding his decision to pick Peter Mandelson to be the UK’s ambassador to the United States. Amid the party-political dramas, millions of people across the UK continue to ask why so many public services fail to deliver.
Politicians are responsible for their actions, and many deserve to be blamed for poor policy decisions, unfinished projects and broken promises. But another feature of government deserves its own share of the blame. It is not as easy to point to as a politician, a budget, or a taskforce. But its influence is significant. It is the Civil Service’s culture.
The Civil Service has lots of hard-working and dedicated public servants who join up to serve their country by helping the government of the day deliver its programme. Unfortunately, they are stuck in storm of cultural expectations, practices, process and sacred cows that too often hamper innovation and dynamism and discourage bold decisions.
Organisational cultures don’t emerge out of thin air. The way the Civil Service works is a response to the codes, guidelines, and laws which govern it. The Civil Service Code, which applies to all officials, outlines four values which will be familiar to many readers: honesty, integrity, impartiality and objectivity. The question is – does this code contribute to the failings of the Civil Service? And if it isn’t part of the problem, is it playing any role in the solution?
Within parts of the Civil Service, the code has achieved something of religious status. Sir Olly Robbins, the former Foreign and Commonwealth Office permanent secretary sacked by Keir Starmer amid the Mandelson fiasco, told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that that the Civil Service Code meant as much to him as the Book of Common Prayer.
But the code offers little beyond common-sense ethical and legal guidelines. It does not present an obligation to adopt a particular entrepreneurial or bold mindset, nor does it encourage civil servants to take calculated risks. As my colleagues and I conducted research as part of Re:State’s new Plan for Government programme, we heard that Robbins’ reverence for the code is hardly ubiquitous. One former civil servant I spoke to mentioned having never seen the code. Others thought it was not fit for purpose.
Civil servants are stuck in storm of cultural expectations, process, and sacred cows that too often hamper innovation
Reforming the Civil Service’s culture is an ambitious project that will take years, but a revised code is a good place for the reform agenda to start. A new code would send a clear message to the Civil Service and lay the groundwork for radical and overdue reform of Whitehall.
So, we wrote a new version of the code that the current government (or any future government) can take off the shelf and use tomorrow. It introduces four new pillars: excellence, ownership, openness and courage.
We have also proposed that new civil servants be required to sign the code as part of their onboarding and that Civil Service management consider adherence to the revised code while conducting performance reviews.
The Prime Minister himself signalled that he is open to Civil Service reform, and the new Cabinet Secretary Dame Antonia Romeo included an update to the code on her list of objectives for the year. At a time of such intense political dysfunction, an update to the Civil Service Code would provide a welcome signal that – regardless of who occupies No 10 – the Civil Service requires, supports and develops a culture that embraces not only ethical and legal mandates but also a commitment to being a high-performing institution prepared to deliver for the public.
Matthew Feeney is research manager at Re:State
