Behind the debate around constitutional reform and outsourcing policy work, another major change to policymaking has occurred almost unremarked. Ruth Levitt and William Solesbury take a look at the tsars phenomenon.
The Civil Service Reform Plan declares its support for ‘open policymaking’ and the outsourcing of policy advice. But it says nothing about another way in which the provision of policy advice has already been opened up to a whole new set of people.
Governments have always sought advice from outside Whitehall. Sometimes, ministers have asked people privately to report on a particular topic: when Adrian Beecroft was asked to examine employment law, for example, there was no public announcement. And sometimes they’ve appointed high-profile commissions or committees of inquiry to examine a subject at length before submitting a weighty report. But in recent years we’ve witnessed the rise of another way of bringing in external expertise and creating change: appointing ‘tsars’.
Having studied the tsars phenomenon, we at King’s College London have broadly defined them as public appointees charged with either representing particular interests within government (as with the statutory Children’s Commissioner) or reviewing and promoting certain government policies (as with David Boyle, recently appointed to review barriers to choice of public service providers). Unlike committees, they are expected to produce fast results.
Despite the popular label ‘tsar’, officially these people are called advisers, advocates, ambassadors, chairs, champions, commissioners, coordinators, envoys, representatives, reviewers (the most common by far), envoys, or even voices. The mass media report on only a handful of the more controversial tsars, such as Tom Winsor (police pay and conditions) and Emma Harrison (resigned as ‘troubled families tsar’ following concerns over the operations of her business A4E).
Coalition ministers show great enthusiasm for appointing tsars, naming more than 90 since 2010: that’s 43 per year. By comparison, between 2005 and 2010 Labour ministers appointed 130 tsars: 26 per year. Civil servants in 17 Whitehall departments now provide essential input and support to underpin tsars’ work.
Technically, tsars hold public office and are not employees of the government – so their appointment is rarely covered by the Code of Practice issued by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. This sets out the procedures required to protect the principles of merit, fairness and openness in recruitment, but it only applies to ministerial appointments to the boards of public bodies and to statutory office holders.
Since 1997, more than 230 people have become policy tsars – at least 25 of them more than once. The six departments making heaviest use of tsars (65 per cent of the total) are – in this order – the Treasury, the education department, the business department, the Cabinet Office, the Department of Health, and Number 10. And while not all have made an impact – Keith Hellawell, the ex-chief constable appointed as Tony Blair’s anti-drugs coordinator in 1997, ultimately fell out with the government and quit – many of them have influenced policy across a huge range of areas.
Despite this influence, the work of tsars – and civil servants’ roles in supporting that work – has barely been scrutinised. Having interviewed tsars, and the ministers and civil servants who’ve worked with them, we’ve profiled them and examined their working methods.
Our findings reveal that the demographics of tsars are highly skewed: 84 per cent are men, and 83 per cent are over 50; only two per cent have African or Asian backgrounds. Fewer than half (46 per cent) had professional expertise in the relevant policy domain; others applied their expertise in business, public management, research, politics or the media. A few have personal experience of an issue (such as Baroness Newlove, on troubled communities). Most commonly, they had experience in business (40 per cent), public services (28 per cent), academia and research (23 per cent), politics (18 per cent), the civil service (nine per cent), law (eight per cent) and the media (five per cent).
All the tsars were previously known to, or had been recommended to, the minister or department, and most were recruited via a discreet initial approach – usually a phone call from a senior official, a special adviser or even the minister. Civil servants then negotiated a broad remit, working methods, timetable and support arrangements, and remuneration: some were paid – particularly freelancers, or those whose employer required compensation – whilst others received expenses or nothing at all. However, such details are missing (or well hidden) from existing public domain sources for 75 per cent of tsars.
Why do ministers turn to tsars rather than civil servants or committees of experts? Independence, reputation and trustworthiness are often the reasons. Also, focused and agile tsars can cut through inertia or resistance: 70 per cent completed their work within 12 months, and more than 40 per cent catalysed a policy change. Sometimes, ministers want cover for their preferred policy direction from an acknowledged authority; and sometimes appointments look like blatant PR initiatives, or even ways to get celebrity endorsement. The PM and DPM’s choice of Mary Portas, retail consultant and TV presenter, to advise on high street regeneration appears to fall into this category.
Most tsars are solo appointments; and even where they chair a group or have an advisory panel of stakeholders as a sounding board, the tsar is always clearly in charge and their view prevails in the conduct of the work and reporting to ministers. How tsars go about their task methodologically varies greatly: some are open, others are secretive; some call for evidence, others rely on discussions with their contacts; conclusions may be assertions or based on thorough analysis. Tsars are free to go about their work in their own way, talk to whoever they like, and float ideas – and the savvier tsars recognise the need to develop a good rapport with their minister and department if their recommendations are to carry weight. Many seek regular meetings with departments, produce interim reports, and brief ministers (and shadow ministers, when an election looms) to test the water and secure support for their proposals. Where this has gone well, their reward is a prompt endorsement of their report.
Tsars almost always have a small team of civil servants with whom they work closely. On larger reviews, a grade six or seven will manage the process, including the evidence-gathering, analysis and administrative support. With only a couple of exceptions, our tsar interviewees were full of praise for the officials seconded to them, finding them capable, imaginative, enthusiastic, and not hamstrung by departmental perspectives or preferences. The officials also clearly enjoyed the break from departmental routine, though some found subsequent re-entry into the mainstream problematic; one or two even used the experience to move to roles outside the civil service, sometimes in fields related to their tsar’s work.
The Cabinet Manual says that public appointments must be documented in a formal letter, but this may not happen for all tsars; and we could find no formal cross-government guidelines on the responsibilities of tsars or their supporting officials. Every department seems to make it up as it goes along, so there’s no evaluation or accumulation of good practice. As tsars’ privileged access to ministers and their importance in shaping policies looks set to continue, these matters of accountability should surely be resolved. ?
Dr Ruth Levitt and William Solesbury are visiting senior research fellows in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London