The Institute for Government has warned that new internal government guidance banning officials from speaking at events with Q&A sessions, or where media are expected to attend, is "counter-productive".
The think tank said the new restrictions on civil and public servants will lead to worse policy and decision making – reducing public understanding of government policy and making it harder for officials themselves to understand external perspectives.
In a blog about the new private instruction for public and civil servants, it warned that the "strict nature" of the guidance "implies a very narrow view of what it is that officials do when they engage in public, and a failure to appreciate what the consequences might be of such restrictions".
The IfG said the document rightly notes that ministers should be the main public spokespeople for government activity, and that it is the the government itself that should be credited (or, presumably, blamed) for government activity". It said the guidance also includes some "defensible but heavy-handed central clearance requirements for officials participating in visits and events".
But it warned that the move to ban officials from speaking at events that include Q&A sessions, or where the media are expected to be in attendance, will "lead to a more closed government and less effective policy".
Blog co-authors Hannah White and Alex Thomas said ministers have packed schedules and cannot cover all the events that would benefit from a government voice, and that there are many times when detail is needed that an official would be best placed to contribute.
White is the director of the IfG and a former secretary to the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Thomas is a programme director at the think tank, leading its work on the civil service, and is a former senior civil servant.
They said the most senior officials “should be able to be frank in public about the areas in which [the civil service] needs to improve and things that have gone wrong, as well as its successes”.
“Ministers need, and should welcome, a more confident civil service that wants to step up to the mark in those areas for which it has responsibility,” they argue.
The think tank said the guidance “overreach” will “damage the quality of government and public discourse" and "create an unfortunate chilling effect at a time when we should be encouraging more debate and discussion to improve and explain policy”.
The blog points to recent comments from Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould that the government wants “a civil service that is connected to the British people”.
“Closing discussion down like this sends the opposite signal,” it argues.
The think tank notes that, taken literally, the guidance could prevent diplomats from properly representing the UK overseas.
It also warns about the impact on openness, one of the Seven Principles of Public Life.
The blog says the guidance will “in effect mean that the only place where senior public officials are seen publicly, or held to account for their areas of responsibility, is in parliamentary select committees… an essential forum, but often confrontational and not always illuminating”.
The guidance will shut down avenues for “open and reflective questioning and explanation of decisions made”, it adds.
The IfG also warns that restricting access could mean that those with private channels to senior officials know more than the rest of civil society.
The blog also contains a warning to the prime minister that the guidance change is “the wrong approach to rewiring the state, and will not create the emboldened civil service that Keir Starmer says he wants”.
It adds: “There may be a case for looking properly at the public role of senior officials. The position before this new guidance had largely been arrived at by accident. But this is a poor way to do it."
CSW has approached the Cabinet Office for comment and asked whether the guidance would limit the civil service's ability to trumpet its achievements and improve the public understanding of what government officials do.