Status ranking is ubiquitous and nowhere is it more
ubiquitous than in the British Civil Service and no doubt many other
similar public services elsewhere. It is a perfect example of the
institution of rank order on a huge scale, involving at least 24 grades
and a quarter of the total working population. And, what's more, it
works. At least it works to the satisfaction of most public servants for
most of the time, except for strikes which break out in the lowest ranks
periodically, usually on matters of pay rather than conditions.
Why does it work so well? Because those who started it -- whether they
were fully aware of it or not -- were carrying out a formalised system of
rank ordering which is deeply engrained in all primate species and
particularly in us. Originally, the Civil Service as we know it today in
the UK was brought in because, by the 1850s, what then passed for public
servants were simply not professional enough to do their job properly,
particularly in a rapidly industrialising and increasingly complex
society. By and large their jobs were highly paid sinecures sought after
those in the 'genteel' class with good political connections, for their
young relatives who were generally fit for nothing else. In the classic
Northcote-Trevelyan Report on the problem, Trevelyan wrote of parents and
others foisting 'sickly youths' on government departments whose salaries
and, after retirement, high pensions, were a lifetime burden on the
taxpayers.
So they instituted an examination system of entry. As it happened there
were more than enough candidates due to the extraordinarily high birth
rates of the preceding decades. In particular, England at that time had a
surfeit of extremely talented graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, the sons
of successful merchants, industrialists and the professions who did not
want to follow into their parents' occupations, who had what passed for a
well-rounded education in those days (philosophy, literature, history,
classical languages and similar), and who did not want to enter the
church either (previously a career path for such). For them the new
British Civil Service was a Godsend -- either as administrators at home
or in the colonial civil service where, very often, individuals could
hold sway over African or Indian territories the size of Wales or
Switzerland.
Those administrators who went abroad tended to be neglected by those at
home and were often left for years at a time without much guidance, or
else they died of malaria or diseases spread by the testse fly or
similar. (If they survived and came back home they'd be given a cracking
good pension, of course.) But for those at home, it was a beanfeast
of power and status. From about 1870, these able administrators, able to
recruit lower ranks in large numbers due to the growing tax-base of a
prosperous country, were able to insert themselves (with the help of
legislation) into all sorts of home affairs, such as education, pensions,
factory regulation, food and health matters, agriculture and so on and so
on, multiplhying not only the numbers of their underlings but also
offering finer and finer gradations of rank. And what's more, they were
able to convince everybody else in the civil service of the excitement of
all this by instituting plenty of opportunities for further promotions
(after all, there were creating so many extra ranks), thus holding out
carrots to almost everybody however ambitious they were for a higher
rank.
So, to cut a long story short, a century of all this has produced superb
administrative machines which have effective inputs, if not control, over
almost every social and economic activity in the country. Not only this,
but the British Civil service (together with the French and the German
equivalents in particular) were also able to set an example to the rest
of the civilised world as to how countries should be run. And, of course,
it is the top civil servants (Permanent Secretaries in the case of the
UK) who usually do control everything. New governments mandated by
a popular vote to bring about new policies which threaten to affect the
civil service too radically have a very hard time bringing new practices
about.
Because of its size (smallish) and communications (goodish) England is
probably the most highly centralised civil service in the world, except
for perhaps Russia. However, after that paeon of praise for the
efficiency and effectiveness of the British Civil Service in the way it
runs its own affairs, it must be said that it isn't anywhere near as
efficient and effective in the outside world. Increasingly in the last
two or three decades, the British Civil Service has started to fail
rather badly. Great departments concerned with education, agriculture,
industry, state pensions, health, police, prisons, social services and so
on are finding that the policies that they are handing down from on high
are becoming increasingly unworkable and sometimes, such as the
foot-and-mouth crisis fairly recently and which should not have been a
crisis, the mistakes have enormous consequences in terms of livelihoods
and penalties paid by the taxpayers.
It is, in fact, in the field of agriculture (excuse the pun!) that Lord
Haskins, formerly the chairman of Northern Foods, a very large
corporation, was asked to report on the Department for Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs (Defra) which consists of scores of thousands of civil
servants, at least forty grant-making sub-agencies -- often overlapping
on one another -- and of mind-boggling complexity impinging on every
aspect of countryside life yet rigidly controlled from the top in London
by civil servants, some of whom probably never see the countryside from
one month to another. His task was to suggest remedies to this. As
expected, he proposed as much devolution as possible and here is his
short account of all this.
However, in an organisation which meets the status aspirations of so many
people so very satisfactorily it is doubteful whether more than a few
token gestures will be made no matter how strenuously politicians (and
the rest of us) may desire it.
Keith Hudson
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GIVE POLICY BACK TO THE PEOPLE
Christopher Haskins
Britain suffers from an over-centralised form of government that is
inefficient, lacks accountability and is insufficiently responsive to
individual and local needs.
That is the message of two studies with which I have been involved
recently: my report, published yesterday, reviewing the delivery
arrangements of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Defra); and the King's Fund's recently issued paper on the National
Health Service, to which I made a small contribution.
The reports suggest that the lack of transparency between the
policy-making and the policy implementation process is the fundamental
cause of poor accountability. The dominance of policymakers over those
who carry out policy means that regional and local interests are
neglected in favour of top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions.
The two studies take a similar approach to the problem: separate, as much
as possible, policy development from policy implementation and, to
reinforce that separation and increase public credibility, devolve the
delivery of policy to regional and local networks. The King's Fund
suggests the NHS should be an arm's-length agency from the Department of
Health, responsible for arranging implementation of government policy for
its 60 million clients, and the Defra review recommends that delivery of
agricultural, environmental and other rural policy be regionalised and
localised.
Despite the welcome introduction of devolution, Britain is unique among
large democracies in maintaining a highly centralised form of government,
though this was not always the case. The remarkable progress made in
raising the quality of public services in the 19th century was entirely
due to the imagination and commitment of local authorities, backed by
local business. Corporate responsibility was in a much healthier state in
1880 than it is today.
Since the second world war, however, provision of public services has
been increasingly centralised. The creation of the NHS set the trend.
Extensive nationalisation of railways, mines and various utilities
further weakened local accountability and Westminster reduced the power
of local authorities.
It is now generally recognised that centralisation must be reversed. The
case for national provision of services is that it achieves consistency
across the country. This was a matter of great importance to Aneurin
Bevan when he created the NHS in 1948 and it remains an essential
priority for today's health service. Other departments, with less
justification, pursue the same objective. However, it is a mistake to
believe that huge departments such as Health, Education, Defra and Trade
and Industry can carry out policy effectively via a stream of targets and
e-mails emanating from Whitehall.
The bureaucracies set up for this purpose have become remote and
inflexible. There is also plenty of evidence to suggest that taxpayers'
money is being frittered away on well-meaning initiatives and funding
programmes whose outcomes are inadequately scrutinised.
The case for devolving provision to local authorities and other local
networks and partnerships is that local and individual needs will be
better understood and dealt with. It is much easier to identify
accountability in small, local organisations than it is in vast national
bureaucracies. Consistency of provision is very important in the health
service, but accountability for the service is even more important; if
there is no accountability there cannot possibly be any
consistency.
Much needs to be done to restore the high standards of local government
that existed 50 years ago and to ensure that they have the competence and
capacity to do the work. The same challenge can be directed at the
recently created Regional Development Agencies. Our structures of local
democracy have been neglected and we must find ways of revitalising
them.
Successful large businesses have learnt that, while policy and the
funding needed to carry out policy must be the responsibility of the
board, at the centre, it is impossible to implement policy through a
centralised bureaucracy. Much better to go to the operating subsidiaries,
get them to take ownership of the central strategy and give them plenty
of discretion as to how they plan to carry it out. Instead of targets
being set from the centre, they should be proposed by the subsidiaries
and, if acceptable, agreed by the board.
The government machine is now held in generally low regard because it is
unable to make convincing contact with the citizens it is meant to serve.
The best way to restore credibility is to bring service networks closer
to regional and local interests. By encouraging engagement between
citizens and the public services we shall improve service quality,
economic performance and productivity, and strengthen community
solidarity. These are the criteria by which public service departments
must be judged.
Lord Haskins is adviser to the government on rural affairs.
Financial Times -- 12 November 2003
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