CHURN BABY CHURN

The news that MPs on parliament’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee are preparing to scrutinise the issue of high turnover in the civil service prompted some thoughtful reflections.

Robert Jackson wrote: “Institutional memory is important. But that is partly what strong record keeping is for.

“My bigger worry in the civil service is the prevalence of closed-loop teams: archaic, inefficient, and parochial hierarchies that are often (sometimes for good reasons!) skeptical of change and innovation. These are not the norm but they still exist. They are generally filled with well-meaning, competent people who just happen to have never worked anywhere else, and thus lack a sense of perspective. Having new people with broader experience join such areas can breathe new life into them.”

Geoff Eales also said there was a silver lining to civil service churn. “Looked at another way, the transfer of experience and gaining different experience in different departments contributes to the vibrancy of the civil service and cross fertilisation between departments,” he said.

“In comparison, the military operate on rolling two-year postings which facilitate gaining a wide range of experience but impact even more so on institutional memory than relatively much less frequent churning in the civil service. I experienced a small civil service department where senior staff had been in post for 15 to 40 years and it encouraged staleness of thinking and lack of acceptance to new ideas and challenge from more broadly experienced staff.”