Forged in the struggle between pragmatic reformers and small-state radicals, the Civil Service Reform Plan has now emerged. Matt Ross sets out the key goals, and gathers explanations from the plan’s three main architects
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “Ministers and civil servants continue to work well together to deliver reforms across a wide range of issues. The plan we published last Tuesday sets out how we will reform the civil service to make it more agile and able to deliver better for less. As Francis Maude set out in the House this is the first step of a continuing programme of reform.”
A plan, not a vision: The Civil Service Reform Plan doesn’t envisage a radical reshaping of the Whitehall landscape, but a revamp of existing regeneration schemes
Ever since CSW covered then-shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude’s plans for civil service reform in December 2009, we’ve been examining the progress of his drive to bring change to Whitehall. That drive reached a key moment last Tuesday when, along with the cabinet secretary and civil service chief, he launched the Civil Service Reform Plan.
The Whitehall wrangles that preceded its publication have received press coverage as exhaustive as our own examination of the thinking and aims behind the agenda – so, given our limited space, CSW here focuses narrowly on setting out clearly the targets and recommendations within the plan. Divided into five chapters and 18 ‘action points’, it is best seen as the crystalising of existing reform plans rather than a statement of new ambitions: its actions aren’t “in themselves dramatic or massively controversial,” said Maude at a press briefing, “but together when implemented – and implementation is absolutely key to this – they will amount to real change”.
Maude also hinted at the logic behind his favouring steady progress rather than revolutionary change. “Civil service reform will never work, never has worked, when it’s seen as something which is being imposed by ministers on the civil service,” he said. “Neither has it ever worked when the idea has been: ‘Let’s just leave the civil service to reform itself.’ It has to feel completely collaborative, completely joint, and this process has been very much in this spirit.”
That collaborative approach runs through the crucial arrangements for policing delivery: Maude will chair a monthly Reform Board manned by the government’s lead non-executive director and some of his peers, while the permanent secretaries will be accountable for delivery via the Civil Service Board. A director-general for civil service reform will be appointed, and the plan’s action points will appear on the Cabinet Office website along with regular progress updates.
Here, then, is our summary of the plan, presented with key quotes from each of the chapters, a summary of each set of actions, some explanation of the changes by the triumvirate who’ve led its development, and a light dose of analysis. Over the weeks to come, CSW will be asking the plan’s authors to set out more details and argue their case, and examining elements of the plan in detail. In the meantime, let’s start with the basics: this is what the plan attempts to do.
Ch1. Future size and shape of the civil service
“The civil service will need a much stronger corporate leadership model, and much more sharing of services and expertise, if it is to deliver the step change in efficiency needed”
By October 2012, the Cabinet Office to publish a review of the potential to use new delivery models – such as commissioning mutuals and private providers, and offering digital and devolved services – by 2015.
By the end of 2012, departments to publish strategies to move all informational and transactional services online by 2015. Meanwhile, the Government Digital Service to publish an interim cross-government digital strategy this autumn.
The seven shared communications hubs to be operational by the end of 2012, and the five transactional shared services centres by 2014. Publish a detailed delivery plan “in a few weeks”.
By October, the Cabinet Office to publish a plan to execute (by October 2013) shared services in fields such as commercial procurement, internal audit and policymaking. Even chief executives could be shared.
The government is moving to create “a much more unified civil service,” says civil service head Sir Bob Kerslake. “The civil service has thrived on its federal nature. The reality is that with a smaller civil service we need to do much more as a single organisation, whether that’s talent management, tackling areas of skills gaps, or sharing support services.”
“The assumption in the future is that we’ll be sharing rather than doing our own thing in each department,” he adds – and action points 3 and 4 offer a hard push on the shared services agenda, revealing impatience with what the plan calls the “limited progress” made to date. “Remaining differences about location and accountability can no longer be allowed to delay” shared services schemes, it adds, while Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude last week said that he’s determined to “crunch through the difficulties that stand in the way of the big savings” on offer.
Cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, the civil servant with the most heft in policymaking, notes that “we’ll be looking specifically at whether there are areas where policy advice can be shared between departments.” The Behavioural Insights Unit already serves the whole of government, he adds, so “how far can we take those principles and apply them across the piece?”
Ch2. Improving policymaking capability
“The quality of policymaking is not always consistent or designed with implementation in mind”
Establish a clear model of “open policymaking”. By July establish a central fund, worth £1m a year over three years, available to ministers for the commissioning of policy advice outside government.
Conduct “snapshot reviews” of the communities and work & pensions departments “on how departmental working time is spent”, plus a “zero-based budget review to identify the resources required to carry out the Department for Education’s statutory and other functions” and set out a “range of options for the department’s future shape, size and role.”
Develop policymakers’ skills. Consider establishing “an institute that can test and trial approaches and assess what works in major social policy areas”. Review the government’s “horizon scanning” capability.
Greater clarity over the nature of ‘open policymaking’ is certainly required: the plan makes a start on defining it, and praises ‘crowd-sourcing’, cross-departmental teams and the early involvement of delivery professionals. The headline-grabber, of course, is what Heywood calls “the very small experiment on contestable policymaking”: the creation of a fund enabling ministers to commission policy advice from academics, think tanks and – though the plan doesn’t quite say it – private consultants. This is presented in the plan as a “way to incentivise the development of high-quality, creative policy” by exposing civil service policymakers to “competition from external sources”.
Just as important, though, is the mooted ‘NICE for social policy’: although the plan only promises that the Cabinet Office will “review the value” of creating such an institution, Heywood clearly sees it as something of a pet project. He wants to “be much more forensic about which policies actually work in practice, and make sure that government departments can’t spend money on those that don’t,” he says.
Meanwhile, education secretary Michael Gove – said to have pushed for much more ambitious reforms – has been given a free hand to rethink his department’s structure and operations from first principles. His review will “see whether, if you look very radically at how a department functions, that leads you to a more radical set of conclusions than we’ve got in this document”, says Heywood. Gove’s school reforms and the appointment of new permanent secretary Chris Wormald offer an opportunity for wholesale reform of the DfE if, says Maude, the review finds that “the work done there has expanded to fill the number of people available”.
Ch3. Implementing policy and sharpening accountability
“Successful outcomes depend on designing policy with clear objectives, creating realistic timescales and professional project planning”
In July, publish the first annual report on major projects. Strengthen Major Project Authority’s roles in training all major project leaders (by 2014) and working with departmental boards on areas of risk. Reduce the ‘churn’ rate among major project senior responsible owners (SROs) by linking roles to “milestones or key deliverables, and retaining key staff during critical phases of project delivery.”
By October, create a management information system that establishes “consistent and comparable quarterly reporting” by departments. Conduct Red Tape Challenge of “unnecessary data requirements”, and improve departmental data on value for money in spending.
Require accounting officers to sign off implementation plans, major gateway reviews and cabinet committee papers; and former accounting officers to “return to give evidence to select committees” where there’s a “clear rationale” for doing so. Consider introducing contracts committing permanent secretaries to realising ministerial aims.
Give ministers more influence over the appointment of permanent secretaries, and reinforce their ability to appoint civil servants on fixed-term contracts without open competition.
Ministers are accountable to Parliament for their department’s work, says Maude, so to deprive them of “a choice over who is the principal instrument of how your department delivers seems unreasonable”. Currently, in internal competitions for permanent secretary roles the civil service commissioners offer secretaries of state a choice of suitable candidates. Maude doesn’t see “why that shouldn’t apply when there’s an external competition” rather than, as now, ministers being offered a single name and a veto.
Meanwhile, adds Kerslake, permanent secretaries already agree their annual objectives with ministers: in future they’ll be published, with performance reviewed by secretaries of state every six months. However, the government is reluctant to extend formal accountability to Parliament to lower grades: while Maude says that he doesn’t want to pre-empt an ongoing review by the House of Lords’ Constitution Committee, Kerslake notes that “the focus of where we sharpen accountability is at the top, particularly around permanent secretaries.”
Asked whether tightening accountability might suppress the civil service’s readiness to take risks, Kerslake replies that the problem in the past has often been that “ministers weren’t aware of the scale of the issues involved, so I think you can reconcile the two by having much greater clarity about the project and what’s involved in delivering it in terms of risks, and then letting ministers make the decision.”
On policymaking, Heywood argues that the process is slowed by “too many impact assessments, and I would argue too much Freedom of Information” – though Maude demurs at the latter point. Some of these hurdles are “just routine pushing paper up the line,” Heywood complains. “We’re very keen to look at how we can speed that up.”
Ch4. Strengthening and deploying skills, and improving organisational performance
“There are significant gaps in capability and skills which need to be filled”
By autumn, publish a five-year Capabilities Plan identifying and plugging skills gaps. Boost the professions’ role in “raising standards, departmental appointments, succession planning and talent management”. By April, replace Professional Skills for Government with a Civil Service Competency Framework. Establish a Commissioning Academy.
“Actively manage” the Fast Stream, senior civil servants and other high performers by standardising requirements for SCS promotion, centralising management of the Fast Stream, expanding accelerated development programmes (by December), and creating schemes for promising middle managers and deputy directors.
Create new arrangements for secondments and interchange with the private sector by 2013, and ensure that secondees have “interesting and demanding jobs to return to”.
Establish the expectation that permanent secretaries in the main delivery departments will have at least two years’ experience in commercial or delivery jobs, and strengthen the value of diverse experience – in more than one department and role, and outside government – in deciding senior appointments.
By autumn, replace capability reviews with departmental improvement plans, assessed and led by departmental boards and piloted in two departments.
“Theoretically, the senior civil service is centrally managed now,” says Maude. “In practice, it isn’t – and that needs to change.” The Fast Stream will also be managed from the centre – as graduate trainee schemes are in the private sector – and he wants to introduce ways of developing deputy directors and “deploying them more directly than we currently do”.
On interchange with the private sector, the government understands that departments are often reluctant to release high-flyers for secondments “for fear that they will not return,” as the plan puts it. It hopes to tackle this by giving them greater confidence that they’ll have an interesting job on their return, and that their careers will be enhanced by the experience. Currently, secondments are arranged by individuals themselves, but the plan calls for “new arrangements” by 2013.
Finally, the plan aims to ensure that permanent secretaries have experience in various roles and departments, and “over time” to boost the number with backgrounds in delivery or management rather than policymaking. There are few hard targets here, though the new cross-government standards for senior promotions will slowly change the profile of candidates for top jobs.
Ch5. Creating a modern employment offer
“The culture needs to become pacier and less hierarchical, more focussed on outcomes than processes”
Consult on changing civil service terms and conditions to bring them into line with “good, modern practice in the wider public and private sector”. Work towards a “voluntary earn-back” scheme linking senior civil servants’ performance and pay – and creating the potential for additional rewards – for delivery in 2013. Implement a common ‘performance framework’ for all staff during 2012-13; an SCS appraisal system that identifies the top 25 and bottom 10 per cent of performers; and the new streamlined policy on managing poor performers. Provide at least five days of training per year for all staff. Support flexible working, improve staff IT – using the Olympics as a pilot phase and catalyst for change – and streamline departmental security procedures. Improve workforce planning and open jobs to all candidates, regardless of grade. Reduce management/staff tiers to a maximum of eight.
Use the new competence framework to “drive the culture and behaviours being sought”, including a “focus on results, continuous improvement, and breaking down hierarchies and silos.”
The government clearly hasn’t ended its drive to save money on civil service personnel costs, and is signalling a new squeeze on terms and conditions. Its move to tighten up performance management is likely to receive a warmer welcome in the civil service – despite its aggressive presentation in the right-leaning press – and the plan does discreetly signal ongoing support for civil service bonuses where appropriate. Meanwhile, the Treasury’s plan to regionalise pay settlements receives short shrift: “There will be no change unless there is strong evidence to support it and a rational case for proceeding,” the plan says.
A civil service-wide performance framework will help inform decisions in voluntary redundancy schemes and give managers the confidence to lean on poor performers, explains Kerslake. “The challenge has been that it’s not been done consistently, and managers are reluctant to have the conversations,” he says. “In DCLG we didn’t have sufficiently robust performance information to tell us where the strengths and weaknesses were [during its voluntary redundancy scheme], so we’re trying to get this done consistently and robustly across the whole of the civil service.”
Meanwhile, the ‘Buggins’ turn’ system of promotion is under attack. “In future jobs will be filled with the right person for the job, regardless of what grade they start from,” says Heywood. “We want to move away from a slavish adherence to grades as part of an overall drive towards a flatter, less hierarchical civil service.”