Cabinet secretary Dame Antonia Romeo has praised the “remarkable contribution to public life” made by predecessor Richard Wilson, following his valedictory speech in the House of Lords.
Wilson – now Lord Wilson of Dinton – is due to retire from the Lords on 6 September, which is exactly 60 years since he joined the civil service as a 23-year-old.
After starting as an assistant principal in the Board of Trade, on a salary of £900 a year, Wilson rose to hold a series of high-profile jobs. He was permanent secretary at the Home Office immediately before being promoted to the role of cabinet secretary, which he held from 1998 to 2002, when Tony Blair was prime minister.
Writing on social media yesterday, Romeo shared a recent picture of her with Wilson and thanked him for his support.
“Former cab sec Lord Wilson of Dinton will retire from the UK House of Lords on 6th September, exactly 60 years after he joined the UK civil service,” Romeo wrote on LinkedIn. “A remarkable contribution to public life.
“In his valedictory speech at the House of Lords he highlighted the crucial role the civil service plays in providing corporate memory, experience, and the ability to deliver results to successive governments.”
Romeo added: “I’m grateful for his support for our work to review the civil service’s performance, organisation and transformation. Through our Future Civil Service programme we will build a service famous for excellence in delivery, adapting to the modern world while maintaining our core values.”
Although he is not due to retire from the House of Lords until after it returns from the summer recess, Wilson made his valedictory speech earlier this month during a debate on the railways bill.
‘Ministers' jobs are almost impossible’
In addition to reflecting on the advice he had given on railway privatisation to successive administrations, including that of Margaret Thatcher, Wilson also covered the burdens carried by ministers in high office and the constitutional footing of the civil service in his final Lords speech.
“The change we have seen in the last 60 years is nothing compared with the change and the turmoil that will face ministers in the next decade or two,” Wilson told peers. “Not only do we have war in Europe and war in the Middle East but we have the end of NATO as we knew it as the alliance is weakening.”
The former cab sec also added climate change and the challenge of workplace-changing technology to the list.
“Ministers’ jobs are almost impossible,” he said. “I think the learning curve for a minister in ministerial office is at least a year and sometimes more than that, while for a prime minister, if I may say so, I think it is two to three years. It is hard from outside to understand what the pressures and the range of issues are and the permanence of the problems that you have to deal with and try to solve.”
Civil service model is ‘a winning formula’
In relation to the civil service, Wilson said he believed that the current model “is the best model we could find”, praising its institutional memory but also acknowledging “tension”.
“The Northcote-Trevelyan reforms have stood the test of time and been a success,” he said. “There is always a tension with patronage. Even at the time when the reforms were introduced, people wanted the ability to bring in their political friends, their allies or their stooges. Disraeli invented the post of first civil service commissioner for a friend of his who needed a job, and that says it all. So it has always been tense, and there have been many changes in the way that we operate, and rightly so, but the basic model has proved itself over and over and must be safeguarded.”
Wilson said the civil service model of impartiality and selection of staff on merit through fair and open competition “is a winning formula”.
“I am very proud of the civil service we have and proud to have been its head,” he said. “It has an outstanding new leader in the new cabinet secretary, Antonia Romeo, and I support her decision to conduct a review of performance and organisation to fit it for the future.
“I wish the civil service every success in going from strength to strength under her leadership in accordance with its best traditions of continuity and change.”
Peer-to-peer pleasantries
Elsewhere in his speech, Wilson said that after spending “much of the swinging sixties” in the House of Lords as private secretary to two peers, it had been a “great pleasure” be a member of it for the past 23 years.
During that time, Wilson has sat alongside former civil service colleagues and ministers he worked under as an official.
“My cross-bench colleagues are an impressive group, rich in talent, and I thank them warmly for their comradeship, particularly of course my former colleagues from the civil service and the diplomatic service,” he said.
“I have also much enjoyed seeing my former ministerial bosses sitting quietly glittering on their benches on both sides of the House. I occasionally see a complete bench of people who I have worked for, and I call it a ‘full house’.”