| home articles blog letters retractions vacancies competitions about us contact _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
Accountability ashmountability
The Westminster Insider
Friday, November 23, 2007
It is ridiculous that ministers or civil service top brass should have their careers
tarnished by pimply office monkeys, or cowboy privateers such as the parcel
service company TNT, who are yet to be exonerated in the loss this week of the
personal data of 25 million UK citizens.
OK, so superior systems should have been in place. And someone must face the
music. But we are told that rules were broken and that the junior concerned was
acting way outside his pay grade. So, an idiot flunky breaks the rules – really
breaks them, like Saddam’s neck got broke – and then it’s not even his immediate
superiors who get it in the, well, neck. Amazing.
And then Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, who has had a ministerial
career characterised by steadiness, should be portrayed as incompetent?
Nonsense. Government is full of rakes and scoundrels – it’s just not the ministers.
Yes, folks, politicians of all stripes have it hard when compared to the cushy walk in
the park most civil servants get. At the elite end of things stand men like Paul
Gray, the Revenue and Customs chairman who has resigned – and that is where
things can get tricky, if extremely well-remunerated professional hari-kari can
indeed be considered tricky. But in middle and junior levels civil servants can swan
around without a care in the world: they know that obfuscation, inefficiency and
unaccountability can be their watchwords, and that MPs will ultimately pay the price.
(c.f. the Home Office, Deparment for Health etc.)
How different to the US, where new presidents happily sweep away levels of
bureaucrats form the old regime and replace them with campaign flunkies, who may
be short on experience but chock full of political nous. Further, they are
accountable in a manner that would have British Civil Servants calling out for their
nannies. Senate hearings, anyone?
And what exactly does British civil servants’ cherished ‘experience’ or for that
matter their quaint ‘independence’ bring government? Do we want civil servants
who are experienced when we also hold most government departments in relatively
low esteem? When will this accumulated administrative skill start to reap its
benefits? And do we really want an ‘independent’ civil service? Surely the HMRC
peaon with the clumsy fingers would have been more motivated if he really cared
about his ultimate boss’ reputation? Can they be excited about solving the great
issues of the day if they don’t care about them, or if they voted for the other lot?
It’s time to get real and start scrutinising civil servants. Performance related pay
options; visible sub-departmental sackings for the sort of inertia currently evident;
and more flexibility for managers to recruit bright young things form outside of the
service. It is absurd that we expect our departments of state to be run by well-
meaning graduates with no real expertise in their field and no prior experience.
Institutional laziness will of course develop we let employees spend their life
shuffling from one underperforming unit to another without check.
There have been calls for senior and mid-level civil servants to face select
committees. Fair enough. Let’s accompany that by treating failing civil servants
with more ruthlessness, so that Paul Gray’s career isn’t the only casualty in this
civil-servant engineered department.
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007
The Westminster Insider
Friday, November 23, 2007
It is ridiculous that ministers or civil service top brass should have their careers
tarnished by pimply office monkeys, or cowboy privateers such as the parcel
service company TNT, who are yet to be exonerated in the loss this week of the
personal data of 25 million UK citizens.
OK, so superior systems should have been in place. And someone must face the
music. But we are told that rules were broken and that the junior concerned was
acting way outside his pay grade. So, an idiot flunky breaks the rules – really
breaks them, like Saddam’s neck got broke – and then it’s not even his immediate
superiors who get it in the, well, neck. Amazing.
And then Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, who has had a ministerial
career characterised by steadiness, should be portrayed as incompetent?
Nonsense. Government is full of rakes and scoundrels – it’s just not the ministers.
Yes, folks, politicians of all stripes have it hard when compared to the cushy walk in
the park most civil servants get. At the elite end of things stand men like Paul
Gray, the Revenue and Customs chairman who has resigned – and that is where
things can get tricky, if extremely well-remunerated professional hari-kari can
indeed be considered tricky. But in middle and junior levels civil servants can swan
around without a care in the world: they know that obfuscation, inefficiency and
unaccountability can be their watchwords, and that MPs will ultimately pay the price.
(c.f. the Home Office, Deparment for Health etc.)
How different to the US, where new presidents happily sweep away levels of
bureaucrats form the old regime and replace them with campaign flunkies, who may
be short on experience but chock full of political nous. Further, they are
accountable in a manner that would have British Civil Servants calling out for their
nannies. Senate hearings, anyone?
And what exactly does British civil servants’ cherished ‘experience’ or for that
matter their quaint ‘independence’ bring government? Do we want civil servants
who are experienced when we also hold most government departments in relatively
low esteem? When will this accumulated administrative skill start to reap its
benefits? And do we really want an ‘independent’ civil service? Surely the HMRC
peaon with the clumsy fingers would have been more motivated if he really cared
about his ultimate boss’ reputation? Can they be excited about solving the great
issues of the day if they don’t care about them, or if they voted for the other lot?
It’s time to get real and start scrutinising civil servants. Performance related pay
options; visible sub-departmental sackings for the sort of inertia currently evident;
and more flexibility for managers to recruit bright young things form outside of the
service. It is absurd that we expect our departments of state to be run by well-
meaning graduates with no real expertise in their field and no prior experience.
Institutional laziness will of course develop we let employees spend their life
shuffling from one underperforming unit to another without check.
There have been calls for senior and mid-level civil servants to face select
committees. Fair enough. Let’s accompany that by treating failing civil servants
with more ruthlessness, so that Paul Gray’s career isn’t the only casualty in this
civil-servant engineered department.
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007