Cabinet Office minister Darren Jones has said he plans to speed up the work of government by empowering civil servants to act on their own initiative and rely less on their political masters for approval.
Jones, who is chief secretary to prime minister Keir Starmer and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said officials are as frustrated as ministers by barriers to getting things done.
Speaking at the Institute for Government's annual conference, he said that officials sought permission to act from ministers too frequently and that a culture shift could speed up the work of government.
“One of the changes I’m making is the mandate we give to civil servants to resolve issues without it escalating too quickly up the senior rankings of politicians," he said. “I think that too often things have ended up in the prime minister’s box that really shouldn’t be there.”
Jones added that the same was the case in relation to permissions that were sought from him.
“My sense is that’s because we as politicians haven’t necessarily given some of our officials the authority themselves, or for the rest of Whitehall, to know that they have fully the authority to just fix a problem,” he said.
“We’ve just appointed a new director general for EDS – the Economic and Domestic Secretariat, that supports most of our domestic policy work in government, and my work with Juliette over this year is going to be how do we strengthen, empower and raise up their function at solving problems before it takes up lots of ministerial time.”
The Cabinet Office advertised for the DG role in November, but the successful candidate has yet to be formally announced.
Jones was chief secretary to the Treasury until September last year. He said he had started work on a programme called "Project Reset" at that department, which aims to streamline the number of permissions or assurance checks needed to get things done.
He said: “Already they’re starting to show a sign where if you just cut down a lot of the compliance and give people the authority to make decisions – and also say to them that we don’t just encourage you to take risks, I the minister will own the risk, I won’t push you under the bus if something goes wrong, that kind of culture is really important to speeding things up as well.”
Jones said the programme is starting to be implemented across Whitehall and that he is “quite hopeful” it will be “very helpful”.
Civil servants ‘want to be radical in delivering change’
Last month, the prime minister told members of parliament’s Liaison Committee of his frustration at the barriers that exist to delivery in government.
“Every time I go to pull a lever there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arm’s-length bodies that mean that the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be,” he said.
At yesterday’s event, Jones was asked for his thoughts on where the blame lies for the situation.
He refused to blame civil servants, and suggested that officials are also frustrated.
“Every civil servant I’ve met has wanted to be as radical in delivering change I want to be,” he said.
“But over the years we’ve ended up with a system that doesn’t enable them to do their work, in the same way that politicians might express their frustrations, as effectively as you might want it to be.”
Jones said he believed part of the problem was because the civil service had become “kind of bloated” over time.
“As a consequence, in terms of permission and mandates and risk-taking, we have a lot of internal discussion but not enough doing,” he said.
“I’m not going to criticise civil servants, and I’m not going to criticise departments, because ultimately it’s for ministers to reshape that in the way that we want to. I’m much more interested in owning the future as opposed to commenting on the past and I feel quite positive about that direction of travel.”
Four-day-week ‘not happening’
Towards the end of the IfG session, which was part of the think tank’s annual conference, Jones was asked for his thoughts on a recent report that civil servants and MPs are gearing up to join forces in a new push for four-day-week working.
“The answer to the four-day-week is ‘I’m afraid not, no’,” he said. “Not unless we have a radical improvement in productivity in the meantime. On the assumption that’s not going to happen in the next couple of months, [it’s the] five-day week I’m afraid. Or seven, in my case.”
Staff at the Forestry Commission have become the latest part of the civil service to express an interest in a shorter working week. Results of a survey of members of the PCS union who work at the commission found 93% in favour of reduced working hours in return for full pay.
Staff at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government have previously called for reduced hours with no impact on salary.