TOM SASSE NET ZERO A TEST FOR CIVIL SERVICE REFORM
A STRONGER CENTRE, MORE ENGINEERING CAPABILITY, AND
cross-cutting problem cannot be left to an underpowered department. Climate change should instead be run from the Cabinet Office, with more ministerial heft and official capacity. It cries out for a senior minister with a Oliver Letwin-like ability to “knock heads together”. They should oversee a net-zero unit that can develop shared analysis, coordinate a plan that sets out, sector by sector, how the UK will meet its target – then hold departments to account for implementing it.
The next problem the government has alighted on is patchy skills and capabilities, made worse by excessive turnover. Cummings has long complained of the dominance of arts and humanities graduates. Michael Gove, in his much-lauded Ditchley Lecture, spoke of a “whirligig of transfers and promotions” and a lack of “deep, domain-specific, knowledge”.
Again, many of these complaints are well founded. And again, net zero should add to the urgency in tackling them. Meeting the target in an cost-effective way will require a deep understanding of complex physical systems and uncertain technologies – from the way electric vehicles, heat pumps, and new options for energy storage and demandside management should be integrated into the energy system, to the possibilities of unproven technologies such as direct air capture.
Most officials we spoke to felt disciplines such as engineering remain a weakness, while staff are not encouraged to develop deep expertise in key areas of climate policy.
The government should recruit more experts from industry, particularly engineers, and a create a climate-change cadre in the Fast Stream to develop a talent pipeline.
A further priority that Gove identified was “delivery on the ground”. Whitehall has historically had a poor reputation for managing large projects on time and on budget, while policies dreamed up in SW1 have too often flopped on contact with reality.
Net zero will be the ultimate test of a sharper focus on implementation. It requires the biggest infrastructure transformations the UK has managed in over fifty years and policies which create incentives that encourage businesses and consumers to act.
Next year, the UK will host COP26 in Glasgow. It will be
Global Britain’s first major outing on the world stage; the UK’s credibility will depend on it having not just ambitious targets, but a plan and the capability in place to meet them. If a “hard rain” is about the fall on the civil service, it should start by better equipping government to tackle climate change.
Tom Sasse is a senior researcher at the Institute for Government
One of the advantages of sitting in the spare bedroom for most of the day is the ability to daydream without getting caught, which I did in the spare few minutes I had before the latest Public Administration and Constitutional A airs Select Committee hearing. Up before the Alpacas were the new cabinet secretary Simon Case and Alex Chisholm, the chief operating officer. With the greatest respect to the COO, the cheap seats were being filled with the first appearance from Simon Case, only a few weeks in the job and with the bruise from the PM’s rubber stamp still sensitive to the touch.
Indeed, as I daydreamt, I realised I’d never heard his voice. Given how improbably young he is, I did wonder if it would be like a York Minster chorister’s, just at breaking point, and he’d squeak away in uncontrollable pitch changes. I was, I have to say, more than a little disappointed. He sounded more like a senior civil servant from the 1950s on the commute home to East Cheam. Indeed, this double act could not sound more archetypal civil servant, and of course why shouldn’t they?
It’s just that we were spoiled over the last three years in these sessions with Bulldog and
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS SELECT COMMITTEE MEANT THE NATION HEARD
HIS VOICE FOR THE FIRST TIME. AND HE HAD A LOT TO SAY
Swiss Tony. Bulldog’s menacing lean across the table as his super skinny fit M&S shirt struggled to contain the guns he honed in Camp Bastion’s gyms, when he’d snarl at the breathtakingly naïve/stupid questions of previous Alpaca members (though thankfully that has definitely improved). Swiss
Tony, so laid back he’d put his foot on the edge of the desk and rock his chair back as he pondered aloud how best not to answer the question. TBF I’ve seen him do that in a meeting once and he still had the price sticker on the bottom of his shoe.
A few minutes in and William Wragg, chair
Dave Penman is the general secretary of the FDA