We must allow ministers to be tough operators
LONG before I entered Government, a former minister gave me some words of advice I’ve never forgotten: “Just remember, deep in your department there will be an official, somewhere, working to destroy you. The irony is that they won’t even know that they are doing it.”
They were warning about the peculiar relationship between civil servants and political masters. Everything that goes on in the department, good or bad, becomes the responsibility of the minister.
I can vividly remember how we had to publish any external report undertaken at the request of the department.
These were almost always commissioned by someone deep in the building, often written by Leftwing academics and packed with criticisms of our key programmes.
Astonishingly, we were then forced to endure a House of Commons punishment beating over a report we hadn’t commissioned, signed-off or known about.
It is ministers, and not civil servants, who are dragged to the Despatch Box and plunged into the bear pit of screaming MPS when a programme goes wrong or soars over budget.
So it should come as no surprise that good ministers – racing against the clock to drive through reforms they were put in post by the PM to deliver – can get deeply frustrated.
I can’t help but observe that while there is no excuse for deliberately bullying or intimidating someone, it shouldn’t be confused with calling an official out when work is poor or when they haven’t done what they were told to do.
It would be to the detriment of the Government if the new “blame culture” makes it harder for ministers to make tough decisions for fear of facing bullying allegations.
At times of crisis, when swift executive action is required, the public has the right to expect that key decisions are made swiftly, no matter the sensitivities of those working around ministers.
The inquiry into and resignation of Dominic Raab as Justice Secretary raises serious questions.
How will the ability of ministers
to accelerate the pace of work – for example, during a crisis such as the conflict in Sudan – be affected?
With Government departments like the Foreign Office now half empty, how can the famous high standards of the civil service be sustained? Without face-to-face contact, how can a department operate efficiently as a team?
What will happen when the Government urgently has to find solutions? Will ministers be looking over their shoulders in a time of crisis, worried that they could be hit with a salvo of allegations?
Ironically, the recent report, which dismissed a group of spurious complaints made by civil servants some of whom hadn’t even met Dominic, said while he was abrasive he was not abusive, his behaviour was neither intended nor targeted. If he had to resign over such an ambivalent outcome, what hope is there for others?
Part of the problem is that too many people in the public sector seem to have embraced the Leftwing attack on our homogeneity as a nation through identity politics and the battle of the pronouns.
This ideology is dividing us all into distinct groups, such as race, nationality, religion, gender and sexual orientation. All a complainant needs to do is say they were made to feel intimidated, anxious or bullied to undermine a minister.
Unsurprisingly, Boris Johnson questions the impartiality of the report on him written by Sue Gray
who has now joined Labour. How impartial can she be?
Many of us who voted for Brexit ask whether the civil service is also capable of being impartial over that score as well. Government ministers say they have faced a series of “go-slows” from officials tasked with delivering on the Brexit vote.
Perhaps worse, many in Government see a pattern in these attacks on ministers with a reputation for being tough but who campaigned to leave the EU in 2016. First Priti Patel and Dominic Raab, and now there’s a growing whispering campaign against Steve Barclay.
At times of crisis, the public has the right to expect that key decisions are made swiftly
IT’S suggested Steve is too driven, too tough, too authoritative. Stand by for someone to start briefing next that he intimidates or bullies. The pattern is already set but we must remember he is an excellent minister. Yes, he is demanding. but he is focused and determined.
That quality should be rewarded not briefed against.
I was privileged as Secretary of State to have determined civil servants around me who worked hard to deliver for Britain and took pride in their work.
What we mustn’t do now, as we recall strong and impartial civil servants of the past, is allow this weak and divisive culture of identity politics to undermine a once strong institution upon which the Government relies.