Labour entered government promising to improve relations with the civil service, but two years on, the ministerial-civil service relationship has deteriorated further. From the prime minister’s accusations in December 2024 of too many officials wallowing in the “tepid bath of decline” to the recent fallout from the Mandelson scandal and subsequent sacking of the foreign office permanent secretary Sir Olly Robbins, tensions have risen to the point of becoming unsustainable.
The Institute for Government’s new report, Ministers Reflect on the Civil Service, combines insights from our Ministers Reflect archive – containing nearly 200 interviews with former ministers – with our own analysis of the state of the civil service. In it we identify what is working well, what is not, and what steps both sides should take to begin repairing the relationship. With the new cabinet secretary marking her hundredth day in the role this month, this should be seen as an opportunity to begin this work.
Ministers are positive about the civil service once they have left office
Many of the ministers we spoke to reflected fondly on their experience of working with the civil service. They found officials have a strong ‘antenna’ for ministerial priorities and are responsive to different ministers’ preferences for ways of working.
Others told us they value civil servants’ impartiality and willingness to serve the government of the day. Former Labour minister Hazel Blears found that “civil servants want you to do well, irrespective of your politics”. That impartiality, combined with rich institutional knowledge, empowers the civil service to give advice to ministers based on a deeper understanding of how the system works. As former transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin put it, it is the officials, not the ministers, that are the “experts in the department”.
But ministers have their fair share of frustrations too
The picture is not all rosy, however, and ministers can lose confidence in the civil service. Slow pace of change and inbuilt risk aversion were among ministers’ most common complaints when it comes to the civil service’s ability to implement and deliver policies. Alistair Burt told us that trying to achieve change was like “turning around a tanker” while former Cabinet Office minister Lord Frost described a culture where officials are “frightened of getting things wrong”.
Others expressed frustration about the variable quality of support and advice they received from the department. They felt that officials mistook impartiality requirements as a licence to avoid taking a stance on a policy – or, as Baroness Stowell, former leader of the House of Lords, put it: “some civil servants confuse impartiality with not giving a view on something”.
Likewise, former chancellor Jeremy Hunt recalled struggling with “civil servants not having the confidence to speak out when they thought that one of [his] ideas was barmy”. They are unlikely to be the last to voice such frustrations, although we argue that ministers, too, have a responsibility here: if they want to encourage frank advice from their officials they must help create an environment where honesty is welcomed, rather than assuming that the civil service is there to obstruct ministerial priorities.
Both ministers and civil servants have a part to play to improve relations
To rebuild this relationship, and ensure that the civil service is operating at its best, both ministers and the civil service need to step up to the challenge.
As leaders of the system, ministers need to set the conditions for success by communicating their priorities and preferences clearly to officials and by providing a well-defined vision for the department. Also, they are much more likely to get the best out of their officials by treating them with respect and decency.
“If you had talked to officials the way I’ve seen some ministers talk to officials, if you’d have talked to people like that in the army, you would have got punched in the mouth” – Johnny Mercer, minister for defence people and veterans (2022-24), speaking to the IfG for its Ministers Reflect series
For its part, there is more that the civil service can do around performance management, building expertise and addressing systemic issues that stymie delivery capability, such as high staff turnover.
The government’s commitment in the King’s Speech to bring forward proposals that strengthen the delivery, accountability, innovation and productivity of the civil service are welcome and echo many of the Institute’s long-standing recommendations for civil service reform. The cabinet secretary, Antonia Romeo, has also been providing more visible leadership by publishing her performance objectives and signalling that civil service reform is on the agenda.
With the Labour government less than halfway through its term and with a new cabinet secretary in post, there is plenty of time to deliver the reset of relations promised in 2024. But the work, for both ministers and the civil service, must start now.
Megan Bryer is a research assistant on the Institute of Government’s ministers team