The Institute for Government has published a “draft civil service bill”, setting out its vision for a civil service placed on a formal statutory footing.
The think tanks's new paper puts the IfG’s view on how to improve the management, functioning and oversight of the civil service into draft bill format.
The bill sets out the IfG take on what the responsibilities of the civil service should be and aims to improve the accountability mechanisms that apply to the civil service by setting them out in statute.
This includes giving the cabinet secretary the authority to give orders to permanent secretaries; the creation of a Civil Service Board that can appoint and dismiss the cab sec; and introducing a new type of ministerial direction for when a policy puts civil service capability under threat.
Draft bills are usually issued for consultation by government departments before being formally introduced to parliament. The IfG says its version – which aims to add to the debate on civil service capability and effectiveness – is designed to build on, and be inserted into, the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.
The 2010 act sets out in statute some of the core principles underpinning the organisation of the civil service, including the need for a civil service code that requires civil servants to act with integrity and honesty, and with objectivity and impartiality. But the IfG says it "leaves many ambiguities unresolved".
The IfG draft bill sets out explicitly that the civil service exists as an entity within the state and that its primary function is to serve the government by offering advice, implementing decisions, and carrying out activities assigned to it.
The bill, if it became a reality, would set out that cabinet secretary is responsible for maintaining the capability of the civil service to deliver this primary function. It would give the cab sec the power to appoint perm secs, determine their terms and conditions, evaluate their performance, direct their activity in matters relating to the capability of the civil service, and dismiss them.
It would also allow the cab sec to delegate some of their functions to a separate head of the civil service.
The draft bill also proposes the creation of a new Civil Service Board, which would sit outside management structures and hold the cab sec to account for maintaining the capability of the civil service to fulfil its core function.
Launching the draft bill at an event yesterday, Alex Thomas, the IfG’s programme director for the civil service, said the proposed board would be “a powerful one”, defining what it means for the civil service to serve the government of the day by setting an oversight framework of its core responsibilities.
The board's main responsibility would be to appoint the cab sec and appraise their performance, and it would have the power to “effectively direct the activity of the cabinet secretary towards the fulfilment of his or her duties” and to dismiss them.
It would also report annually to parliament on how the civil service is performing.
The board would be made up of:
- A chair appointed by the prime minister
- The first civil service commissioner
- The government lead non-executive director
- A person appointed by the first minister of Scotland
- A person appointed by the first minister of Wales
- And between two and five other persons
Through a new type of ministerial direction, the bill also seeks to address tensions that may arise from perm secs taking instruction from both the cab sec as their civil service manager and from the secretary of state who sets policy direction for their department.
If a perm sec, with the agreement of the cab sec, considered that an instruction from a minister would undermine the capability of the civil service, they would be able to record it publicly by requesting a ministerial direction, clarifying where the accountability for the decision lies.
Thomas said this would give perm secs the ability to “formally, critically and publicly raise the alarm about capability more rapidly”, helping in crisis situations.
“The civil service board in our model would be holding the cabinet secretary to account for maintaining capability and if ministerial decisions to incarcerate more people or to cut budgets were creating a capacity crisis, the cabinet secretary and permanent secretary would be required to formally and publicly set out the consequences,” he added.
Thomas said the bill would mean “the quality of capability would be the responsibility of the civil service, and if it wasn’t being done, the cabinet secretary and head of the civil service would feel the consequences”.
‘Price worth paying’: Ex-perm sec backs statute
In a panel discussion held by the IfG yesterday following the bill’s publication, Sir Jonathan Jones, a former perm sec at the Government Legal Department, expressed his support for putting the civil service on a statutory footing.
“As a legal professional who has worked on bills, normally I would say that legislation is a last resort and there is much too much of it,” he said.
But he said in this case, legislation would allow civil servants to “get on with their jobs with a degree of certainty about what they are responsible for” and, in the event of a row, give, “to an extent, an answer in the statute to which the players and the public and parliament can be pointed”.
“We can discuss in more detail exactly what the statute might say, but that’s why I favour in this specific instance statute as a way of providing certainty and stability in answering those questions,” he said.
Jones said ambiguity and uncertainty “might suit some people some of the time”, but it is “not a sustainable way to run the state”.
“Even if it means you’re removing some flexibility, I think what we’re really saying is that’s a price worth paying,” he said.