The Civil Service and the return to the office - a non-member of the Blob reflects…

I don’t like to refer to the Daily Mail or the Mail on Sunday as a rule, especially as we don’t often share a world view. But this morning’s headline does give me a sense that I ought to respond.

I’ll start with the obvious stuff. Most civil servants don’t work in Whitehall, indeed, increasingly those that did don’t any more. The greater proportion of the Civil Service has always been based in towns and cities across the United Kingdom because that’s where we interact with customers. You can’t, for example, readily interview a self-employed trader and look at their records without being where they are, or at least modestly near it.

So, for example, HMRC has, or will shortly have, thirteen principle offices - Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Croydon, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Stratford. There will be a few additional specialist outposts, and a small presence in Whitehall. We’re talking less than 1% of our staff. And most of the big Government departments are like that - we’re operations and not mandarins.

The idea that a bunch of us have bought nice houses in the country and intend to stay in them regardless of what Ministers want is absurd. Many of us could now barely afford to buy the houses we currently live in, let alone “nicer” ones, in the same way that we aren’t spending our days on our Pelatons. And, we have a tendency to follow orders. If Ministers want us in the office five days a week, all that they need to do is give the order and we’ll be there. Or resign, possibly, in some cases, but that’s hardly a concern to the Mail headline writers who hate civil servants anyway.

Ironically, if we do all turn up though, the chances are that there aren’t desks for us. And that’s because, as part of the drive to cut the costs of the bureaucracy, we’ve reduced the size of the estate. New offices have a set ratio of desks to staff, and it isn’t 1:1, it’s perhaps 3:5, based on the theory that we won’t all be there at any one time. We don’t have a fixed workspace either, no desk that we go to every day. No, instead, we turn up and hunt for a free desk. If there isn’t one, there are collaborative spaces with armchairs. Not, perhaps, terribly suitable for working on a laptop or a tablet, and certainly not ergonomically appropriate. Oh yes, we don’t work from fixed computers with phones on desks any more. Everything is portable.

No, the system is designed on the basis that some of us will be working elsewhere for at least some of the time. In some cases, we’ll be on the road, in others, at home. And that works pretty well, actually. Much of my work is contemplative in nature. Evidence is submitted to me, I examine it, test it, ask questions, seek an understanding of the formulae and assumptions that underpin records and accounts. I can contact my manager, or a technical expert, or a support officer by e-mail or video call, and never actually meet with them in person.

Does it therefore matter where I perform my duties, or is it more important that they simply get performed, and performed effectively and efficiently? I would argue that, in a modern bureaucracy, you want to encourage every individual civil servant to perform their duties in the way and in the location that maximises their performance. For some, that will mean an office and there are a slew of reasons why they might choose that. You might not have a suitable work space at home, or you may be inexperienced and benefit from being surrounded by colleagues. You may find working from home stressful, and the office offers an escape from an unhappy relationship or a noisy environment. Some people even enjoy the company of colleagues.

Others will be more productive without the wearying effect of a long commute, might be happier for having the extra hours to live the non-work elements of their lives, or might carry out volunteer work in their new found free time. Their lives might, whisper it gently, be better and their willingness to accept the relatively low pay scales in various sectors that bit greater.

So, a good employer will see this as an opportunity to improve both performance and recruitment and retention. Unless of course, Ministerial decision making is performative, designed to send a message to those you seek to persuade, rather than rooted in good governance.

Attempting not to yield to despair...

There is a bargain to be had in public service. In return for my loyalty and faith that what I do has value, the Government runs things with a degree of competence. I may not agree with what they choose to do, or to prioritise, but they are the elected ones, and what they get through Parliament goes, at least until someone else comes along and changes it.

This is not complex, although I accept that, for those of you who haven’t given more than three decades to professional public service, it might smack of “following orders” - and we know where that can lead.

But, assuming that the Government adheres to a set of democratic rules, and obeys the law, the Civil Service, and thus individual civil servants, carry out the tasks assigned by Ministers without obstruction or dispute. And, if you can’t do that, you quit.

Ministers need to be able to presume upon that compact, for they rely on civil servants for accurate, dispassionate information, for their best judgement on how any particular aspect of public policy might be delivered, and for honest appraisal of the available options given the resources available. And, despite whatever personal doubts they may have, our public servants deliver that.

But I sense that, as events and, increasingly, social media, expose lack of knowledge, false assumptions and, occasionally, outright untruths, the question of competence becomes more challenging to presume. The ability to fact check politicians means that, if what they say is demonstrably contrary to the facts, you wonder if they are lying or ignorant of the truth. Either brings questions of competence and good faith into stark relief.

And, regardless of which side of any debate you find yourself, for decision making to be optimal, you need either to understand the consequences of particular decisions, or be willing to accept the risks incurred by a lack of that understanding. More important, for an informed democracy, the wider polis requires access to accurate facts and data.

Now, as a public servant, you cannot fall into the trap of thinking that your political lords and masters are malicious liars, for such an acceptance makes it difficult for you to serve with a clear conscience. But is it worse to believe that they actually don’t know enough to make good decisions and, when confronted with facts, deny them credence?

I admit, I worry about such things. Professionally, I crave competence over flair, understanding over ideology, empathy over bombast. I like to think that, where difficult decisions are to be taken, the impacts of each option are carefully assessed.

But Brexit seems to be immune to that sort of quiet reason, and increasingly the debate within our body politic is fractious, angry, unthinking. The space for people to have honest doubts about the issues we face as a nation appears to be shrinking by the day, and there are good grounds for doubt or, at the very least, some serious philosophical musing on the direction our country should take.

Parliament must accept some responsibility here. The debate has been tactical, rather than strategic, designed to get the players to the end of the week still part of the game. Opposing things, rather than actually calling for a specific, detailed course of action, unpopular though that might be.

Meanwhile, I’ll be at my desk, possibly under it, but doing my job with a slightly unsettling sense of dread. But it will be alright, won’t it?...

A polite reminder about the role of the Civil Service

https://twitter.com/jonathanfryer/status/948345286992322563

I see that my colleague on Federal International Relations Committee is somewhere rather warmer than I am. Unfortunately, his passionate opposition to Brexit has led him into dangerous waters.

An explanation is in order.

One of the jewels in the crown of our system of checks and balances is the concept of a neutral Civil Service. Its role is to deliver the business of government, enforcing the law of the land in as accurate a manner as is possible, drawing up plans for the introduction of Government legislation, advising ministers in terms of the potential consequences of a particular course of action. What it does not do is obstruct the Government of the day in its chosen path, unless that path is known to be illegal, or impossible due to other regulatory barriers.

So, the idea that the mandarins might cause Brexit to be halted is not only absurd but positively dangerous. Yes, it might deliver something you want, but what if the position was reversed, and the Civil Service was preventing the delivery of something you wanted to happen?

As a democrat, one should be horrified by the prospect of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats subverting our legitimately elected Government. Democracy itself relies on the people holding their tribunes to account in free and fair elections, and if bureaucrats were to believe that they were somehow above that, where would we be?

I am a civil servant, I serve the Government of the day, and thus the public. If I don’t like that idea, the door is that way. In return, politicians should not seek to interfere in individual decisions unless required to do so by legislation. They set the legal framework, we deliver upon it, the judiciary rule where the law requires interpretation or where arguments need to be determined. It’s a fairly simple division of responsibilities and one that has worked pretty well thus far.

Mess with it at your peril...

Matthew Hancock calls upon the Civil Service to show some empathy. Does he understand the concept of irony?

Matthew Hancock MP

I am not a huge fan of Matthew Hancock, the MP for West Suffolk. He gives every impression of being lucky that George Osborne is his sponsor.

It is probably a sign of his closeness to George that he has become a Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, and it was in that capacity that he gave a speech to the Institute for Government on Monday, as part of a series entitled "Where next for Public Sector Markets?" (one might argue that the first problem is in the title).

In his speech, he set out three principles for harnessing ingenuity - empathy, curiosity and openness. So, let's see...

Empathy

Civil servants are expected to show empathy with those they serve. Frankly, most of the best public servants I have encountered show empathy in spades, But, when your pay is being cut year on year, your workload is increasingly process-driven and tickbox directed, and your colleagues increasingly noticeable by their absence whilst you chase targets seemingly designed to draw you away from the desired goals in pursuit of things that can be measured rather than outcomes, there is little reward for demonstrating such a personality facet.

Curiosity

I am indeed curious. My job requires me to be extremely curious, in a way that makes my customers somewhat nervous. Most Civil Service managers would probably like to be curious too, but given that they appear to spend most of their time gathering in, and reporting statistics that add little to the sum of human knowledge and distract them from the perhaps more useful task of enabling staff to achieve the desired outcomes, there is little time for that.

And, given that our overlords don't want too many questions to be asked - and I mean Government, not the mandarins - about the workings of government, it does seem that they offer us a contradiction.

Openness

I am intrigued that, whilst wanting the Civil Service to operate in an open and transparent manner, moves to limit the right of the public to pry into the workings of government through restrictions on freedom of information are being considered, courtesy of a packed committee tasked with looking into 'reforms'.

In truth, I'm relaxed about openness in government. It is, after all, your government, and if government is being done to you, you should at least understand why I'm doing it, as well as the context within which I am operating. I've always been happy to explain - it makes for a more honest relationship between governing and governed.

So, Matthew Hancock might be advised to go away and read the speech that, I suspect, someone else wrote for him. He might learn something about empathy, curiosity and openness, and how they might be best applied in seeking to reform public services.

I am not holding my breath though...

Budget 2015 - the sequel: George Osborne screws the Civil Service...

It might have been easy to miss amidst the torrent of announcements that George Osborne finally made it clear that, whilst Britain deserves a pay rise, his largesse does not extend as far as the civil servants who are expected to deliver his reforms.

The announcement that pay restraint would be extended for another four years will have come as a body blow to many who have seen their pay go backwards relative to the wider economy over the past five years, by as much as 15% in some cases.

As the Budget Report says;

1.85 In the last Parliament, the government exercised firm restraint over public sector pay to deliver reductions to departmental spending, saving approximately £8 billion. As set out by the Chancellor at Autumn Statement 2014, the government will need to continue to take tough decisions on public sector pay in order to deliver reductions to departmental spending and protect the quality of public services. 

1.86 Overall, levels of pay in the public sector are now, on average, comparable to those in the private sector. However, public sector workers continue to benefit from a significant premium once employer pension contributions are taken into account, as shown in Chart 1.10. 

1.87 In light of this and continued low inflation, the government will therefore fund public sector workforces for a pay award of 1% for 4 years from 2016-17 onwards. This will save approximately £5 billion by 2019-20. The government expects pay awards to be applied in a targeted manner within workforces to support the delivery of public services.

In other words, £13 billion worth of cuts have been, and are to be, borne by public servants who have seen their job security taken from them, their pension contributions trebled and quadrupled, and their workloads increased - 'doing more with less' has become the ever-present buzzphrase in central government.

But, we were all in it together, weren't we? And the country was in a hole, right?

Well, if you look at the OBR projections for the next four years, average earnings growth is expected to be 3.8% over the next four years, compared to the 1% increase permitted for the public sector. And inflation? Approximately 1.7%, which means that public sector workers will fall far behind their private sector counterparts and see real terms cuts for good measure.

Now, it should be noted that a 1% increase in the paybill does not equate to a 1% increase across the board. Public sector jobs come with a payscale, whereby you enter at the lowest level (usually) and reach the maximum for the grade by means of increases over a period of years. Thus, those at the top of the payscale get less. The more numerate amongst my readers will see where the issue is here. Experienced staff will be even worse off, as has been the case for the past five years.

One side effect of the reduction in public sector jobs over the past five years is a significant fall in recruitment, and a resultant greying of the workforce that remains. Indeed, Lin Homer, Chief Executive of HM Revenue & Customs, noted that very concern a few years ago, and the National Audit Office repeated the message last month.

And, when the greybeards go, as they undoubtedly will, many sooner rather than later, the promise that pay will fall behind inflation from the day a new recruit walks through the door is hardly likely to act as an incentive to join. And, for those who have marketable skills, the decision as to whether they stay or go just got a whole lot easier.

You might almost think that the Conservatives wanted to destroy the public sector. But who would administer the country then?...

Apparently, most highflyers in the private sector don’t think of themselves as monkeys…

On Tuesday, I wrote here about the issue of public sector pay in the light of George Osborne’s announcement inflicting further pay restraint in the sector. And so, it was with interest that I read in The Times of the appointment of a Chief Executive for the Civil Service, John Manzoni, described as a Whitehall insider. Manzoni is the Head of the Major Projects Authority, having taken up that role nine months ago following a spell as Chief Executive of a Canadian oil company, Talisman Energy Inc. Hardly an insider, I would suggest.

In July, following the decision to separate Sir Bob Kerslake from his job, David Cameron announced that he wanted someone with substantial experience of running a big private-sector organisation but, as the summer progressed, it became clear that very few business leaders were interested in the job.

Might the salary, a relatively meagre £190,000 per annum, have been a factor in their disinterest?...

Political appointees: did Northcote and Trevelyan die in vain?

The news in yesterday's Times that Ministers are "likely to hire hundreds more political appointees" (£) is, for anyone who cares about the concept of a non-political bureaucracy, deeply depressing.

I'm a rather old-fashioned soul, I admit, and rather proud that we live in a country where civil servants are appointed on merit through a process of open competition. It means, in theory, that an incoming administration can call on a corps of senior officials who understand how their departments work and are grounded in the process and legislation that determines what should and should not be done, as well as what might be possible.

The Northcote-Trevelyan report, commissioned by Gladstone and published in 1854, made the following recommendations;

1. Recruitment should be entirely on the basis of merit by open, competitive examinations
2. Entrants should have a good ‘generalist’ education and should be recruited to a unified Civil Service and not a specific department, to allow inter-departmental transfers.
3. Recruits should be placed into a hierarchical structure of classes and grades.
4. Promotion would be on the basis of merit not on the grounds of ‘preferment, patronage or purchase’.

On the face of it, the new proposals breach all four of the recommendations, which does not commend them to me.

I also worry about the impact that such an influx would have on the Senior Civil Service. The idea that these new recruits will be able to give orders to civil servants is a troubling one, and is likely to make the task of recruiting talented individuals to the Civil Service even harder than it is already becoming - bear in mind that one-fifth of senior civil servants would like to leave.

It also means that, if there is a change of government, then a whole tranche of the higher echelons of central government will need to be replaced overnight, with a significant destabilising effect on our governance.

No, I can't say that this is one of the Coalition's best ideas...

In amongst all the sunshine about cutting taxes for hard working people...

If you're campaigning this week, spreading the good news about the increase in the personal allowance, you might be surprised to find the odd person that isn't quite so enthusiastic.

That may well be because they're a civil servant, and have discovered that the increase in the personal allowance is almost exactly cancelled out by the increase in their pension contributions...

Nonetheless, in the round, it's a very good policy, and one that Liberal Democrats should be proud of.

West Coast rail franchise: signs that the wheels are falling off of the Civil Service?

The suspension of three, presumably senior, civil servants as part of the fallout from the competition for the new West Coast Mainline rail franchise is worrying from the perspective of anyone who cares about good governance. And boy, has this one cost. £40 million is, given the fact that nothing has actually been purchased, an awful lot of money to pay for what, it is alleged, are pretty serious errors.

Naturally, elements of the media, egged on by Labour politicians, are looking for the head of a minister, and doubtless that will continue over the coming days. And, as usual, they're missing the big picture in search of a cheap headline.

There are three possibilities in terms of what has happened;

1. The process of comparing bids, and the criteria to be applied, are just too complex. This is entirely possible but, when this was reviewed, one must presume that somebody thought that they were workable. Admittedly, just because someone thinks that they're workable, doesn't mean that they are, but then the blame probably lies with the drafters.
2. The civil servants responsible for carrying out the evaluation of the bids got something wrong. This seems like the most likely possibility but begs the question, who was checking their work?
3. The civil servants were, in some way, corrupt. I have to admit that this is extremely unlikely, although not completely impossible. In any process where profit might be made, the incentive to find an edge is obvious. However, public companies are very unlikely to find do something so risky, especially here (as opposed to certain less, how should I put it, ethically conscious jurisdictions), and the incidence of corruption amongst civil servants in this country is low by anyone's standards.

My money is on the second of the three.

For some time, I have been concerned that, as consecutive governments have undermined the Civil Service, with real-term and comparative pay cuts, attacks on the ethos of public service, significant job losses and a lack of recruitment, the quality of public servants has declined.

Once upon a time, public service attracted the brightest and the best. No longer. Why work in Whitehall and take grief from the public and politicians, when you could doubtless earn more as a lawyer, banker or entrepreneur? So, people don't. Compounding this is the lack of recruitment in Government Departments that are shedding jobs. Naturally, sacking a bunch of people only to recruit new ones isn't likely to be attractive to potential newcomers anyway, nor is it cheap, but a recruitment freeze inevitably means that you miss out on cohorts of potential mandarins twenty years hence.

What that means is that, when you're filling vacancies, whether internally or externally, the quality of the pool in which you fish is that bit lower, and the likelihood of catching, and keeping, the very sort of people capable of managing complex processes effectively is reduced. The result? Calamities such as rail franchise bid management.

Politicians, you have been warned...

Lobbying Reform: sorry Eirian, but sorry doesn't cut it...

Today, it emerges that Eirian Walsh Atkins has resigned. For those of you who don't know her, until Friday, she was the head of constitutional policy at the Cabinet Office. Why was she important? Perhaps because she has been preparing the government's consultation proposal on a statutory register for lobbyists... a key part of the political reform package promoted by Liberal Democrats.

Interestingly, she resigned because of a message on her Twitter feed, wishing "that Unlock Democracy would die". Now you might think that such an attitude is, to put it mildly, unhelpful. You might also wonder if her attitude had led to potential bias in terms of her handling of the issue. I know that I do.

And, there is a suggestion that she has displayed such bias. We do know that she has refused to meet with the Director of Unlock Democracy, Peter Facey, to discuss the proposals. We also know that she has refused to meet with Spinwatch, an independent non-profit making organisation which monitors the role of public relations and spin in contemporary society. On the other hand, she is understood to have met with representatives of the UK Public Affairs Council four times since September 2010. Equitable treatment? I don't think so.

She also led the Cabinet Office's rejection of a freedom of information request to disclose details of its contacts with the lobbying industry since 2010. On the basis of what we do know, it might appear that she was covering up her own behaviour.

But before I continue, time for a declaration of interest. I am a member of the Council and Management Board of Unlock Democracy, and a civil servant, so I have multiple perspectives on her behaviour.

The Government has talked big about cleaning up British politics, and whilst I wonder if everyone is entirely committed to doing anything more than talking about it, the commitment to cleaning up the lobbying industry is a key step towards improving the transparency and integrity of our body politic.

And part of that body politic is the Civil Service, a body supposed to be beyond reproach in its dealings with the public and with those that govern us. As a reminder for Eirian, here are our core values, as placed on a statutory footing by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010;

• Integrity – putting the obligations of public service above personal interests
• Honesty – being truthful and open 
• Objectivity – basing advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence
• Impartiality – acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving governments of different political parties equally well

So, let's see how Eirian got on...

Integrity

That would be a fail. She had a duty to serve the public interest, and publicly declared her view towards a leading campaigner on the question under discussion. She has given a clear impression of favouring one side of the debate over the other.

Honesty

In one sense, she has passed. After all, her view of Unlock Democracy is refreshingly direct, even if unwise. On the other hand, if her refusal of a seemingly legitimate Freedom of Information request was intended to prevent scrutiny of her conduct, she has failed.

Objectivity

Article 11 of the Code states;

11. You must not:

• ignore inconvenient facts or relevant considerations when providing advice or making decisions

Is it possible to imagine that she could now be, or has ever been, objective? Can you credibly suggest that she has taken into account all of the facts? I really can't see that one standing up.

Impartiality

Oh dear, another fail. The merits of the case? She clearly doesn't believe in taking them seriously, and has evidently failed to serve this government well. Of course, she could have been equally useless under the previous Labour administration, but given her rank, it seems somewhat unlikely.

Article 13 of the Code reads;

13. You must not:

• act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests

So, not a good score, methinks. I'm pleased that she has resigned as head of constitutional policy, but might I suggest that this civil service thing isn't really her forte? After all, if you were a Cabinet Office minister, could you really trust her work? I couldn't.

Time to go and get a job as a lobbyist, Eirian. Don't worry, I'm sure that they'll look after you...

Theresa May - how likely is it that a senior civil servant takes a critical decision on their own initiative?

I am, I must confess, intrigued by the whole UK Border Force controversy. It is, in my view, a classic example of what happens when you set goals which contradict each other.

I've spent enough time at enough airports to have become a bit of a connoisseur of 'good' border controls. What I want, as a traveller, is an efficient and speedy transit through immigration, so that I can pick up my luggage and get to my final destination. If I'm in transit, it's even more essential. As a citizen, however, I want the border to be sufficiently well-policed to exclude as many 'undesirables' as possible. Quick isn't important. Thorough is.

One thing that is emphasised more and more when entering the United Kingdom is the 'customer experience' (please add the rant against the use of the word 'customer' of your choice). The key measure of this is throughput - how many people can be processed per hour. After all, do you care if the immigration officer smiles at you?

And so the news that, at times of peak flows through airports, the scale of examinations was reduced, comes as no surprise. Managers would probably be evaluated on the queues, or lack thereof, and would have an incentive to find ways to improve the statistics. On the other hand, you can't set targets for the number of people prevented from entering the country, so the stringency of checks might be degraded without risk of penalty... unless the Press find out, of course.

But it is a gamble, and civil servants aren't prone to gambling as a rule. Indeed, it seems to this state-sponsored bureaucrat that the trend is towards having your opinion validated by a senior officer just in case.

And now that Brodie Clark, the senior official at the heart of this controversy, has announced that he will be suing for constructive dismissal, one finds oneself wondering, "who did he seek authority to act from?". He will know that any such claim will have no chance unless he can prove that this was discussed further up the food chain.

So, it seems reasonable to assume that somewhere, in someone's inbox, there is a smoking e-mail. Whose that is, I suspect, is going to be a source of much discomfort in the coming days...

David Cameron and the Civil Service - it's bound to end in tears...

No, they don't look like that any more

And so, rather earlier than I might have predicted, David Cameron has lost patience with the bureaucracy. And like Tony Blair, it is clear that he doesn't really get it.

What do I mean by that? Simple, if you really want to overcome years of administrative inertia, you need to bring the Civil Service with you. By attacking the senior ranks, the very people who will give the instructions to the likes of me, you make it all the more likely that they will be unenthusiastic. And to change, you really need enthusiasm.

But it's about much more than being nice to bureaucrats. Firstly, the Civil Service implements all of that legislation that you, and your predecessors, want to introduce. There's an awful lot of it out there, some good, some bad, much of it complex or obscure. As the Coalition have discovered, taking an axe to the red tape risks discovering that you've lost something important or, perhaps more salient, something that the Daily Mail won't like.

Morale is an issue too. Pay freezes, job losses, office closures, none of these are likely to earn an administration any friends. There is no new blood, because you aren't recruiting any, and your senior civil servants are increasingly politicised. Worst of all, on the frontline, there is a sense that junior staff are being stifled by 'this week's initiative', whatever programme has been devised to make it look as though things are getting better. If you're interested, Dave, it won't.

And yet, you could make it all so much better. Work out what government is for, what you want it to do, then look at the relevant legislation. Do we need to do this any more? Is the cost of monitoring, regulation and supervision worth the price tag, or would we be better off trusting to a little common sense? No, that isn't an excuse to slash health and safety legislation, by the way.

Now I come to mention it, is the production of all of those statistics that nobody believes worth the candle? It's all very well saying that 76% of this believes that, or that 82% of something is dealt with within 32 days, but if the general response is "Oh, really? Pull the other one...", you've wasted your effort. Actually, public perception is a reasonably good judge of performance.

Finally, a word to the wise. Long after you're gone, Dave, we'll still be here, dealing with the consequences of your actions, and those of your Government. We know that, and some of my more cynical, senior colleagues know it only too well. If you like, we're part of your legacy. And you want one of those, don't you...

Thoughts from the Train: please do not feed, taunt or abuse the Civil Servant...

It is a tough time to be a civil servant right now. A two-year pay freeze for many of us, pensions under threat, redundancy terms to be slashed, tens of thousands of jobs to be axed, who'd want to join an organisation under such circumstances? Making a case for civil servants is, I admit, a bit like trying to defend anthrax, but perhaps one should explain why some of my colleagues are so unhappy.

On pensions, there was a covenant of sorts. The benefit that the pension represented was factored into our rates of pay, a point made during every pay negotiation by management. Now, all of a sudden, the pension is a burden on the State. Yes, it probably is, but you can understand the level of disgruntlement this might generate. Besides, it wasn't civil servants who reduced the retirement age to sixty, it was politicians trying to reduce payroll numbers in the late-eighties.

As far as redundancy terms are concerned, there is no doubt that their generosity has acted as a disincentive to weeding out the lazy, the inefficient and the downright disruptive. Instead, enhanced retirement packages, natural wastage and the non-filling of vacancies have been the preferred tools used to cut numbers. For an increasingly twitchy Civil Service, who have already struck for three days this year in opposition to proposed changes to the redundancy terms, and are bracing themselves for job losses, such proposals look like provocation.

The hope, of course, is that the private sector will create enough new jobs to more than offset those lost in the public one. However, many Civil Service jobs have, over four decades, been transferred to areas of relatively high unemployment, away from London and the South East. If you're working in Scotland or the North East, for example, the promise of private sector opportunities might not be as convincing as it might be in, say, South London.

And because we're emerging tentatively from recession, levels of natural wastage are likely, in historic terms, to be relatively low. Enhanced pension incentives don't really stack up, whilst leaving vacancies unfilled is not going to do the trick. All of which makes redundancy a looming cloud on the horizon for civil servants.

So, when you read of threats of industrial unrest in the public sector, remember what the average civil servant is thinking. You probably know at least one. You're probably even related to one. And like animals in a zoo, civil servants have feelings too...

Christopher Galley - possibly a bit of an idiot

We await the whole story of Damien Green's adventures in information gathering and, whilst I fear that it may not be as tidy as our Conservative friends would like us to believe, my concerns at this time are with the young man really at the centre of events, Christopher Galley. If, as accused, he wilfully leaked documents with the intention of embarassing his employer and, moreover, did so to achieve political advantage for one or other of the political parties, he is entirely reprehensible.

Civil servants, in their working lives, must be relied upon to give advice in an unbiased and neutral way, both by politicians and the public that they serve. If they find themselves unable to do so, resignation is the only acceptable course of action. This is not to say that they should not have political views, nor that they should be prevented from playing a full role in the society and communities in which they operate.

What Christopher Galley has done, if guilty, is to undermine that sense of trust which engenders good governance. Politicians must be able to trust those who work to them and, in eturn, politicians must respect the independence of the Civil Service. Otherwise, politicians work in isolation from those who must carry out their orders or, perhaps worse still, surround themselves with people that they trust, leading inevitably to a further politicisation of the bureaucracy.

If he is guilty, the book must be thrown at him, both to discourage others from behaving similarly and to restore confidence in the ability of the Civil Service to serve politicians of all parties and none. There is, as Mrs Thatcher once said, no alternative...

When satire becomes reality... or does it?

Last month, in one of my vitriolic moments, I wrote a piece suggesting some of the things that Cameron's shiny new Conservative party could apologise for. I was only joking... at least, I thought so until I read my Guardian this morning and found this article..

As a piece of politics, it's actually pretty clever. In 1997, a significant number of civil servants were enthused by Labour's promises to improve the civil service and government in general. In the years since then, disillusion has rather set in as it has become apparent that Tony Blair doesn't really like us that much. Many such individuals are looking for a political party that they can put their faith in, and I occasionally wish that my gallant Liberal Democrats were rather more considerate of the feelings of my fellow bureaucrats (if only Party spokesperson were half as considerate towards civil servants as they are towards nurses, doctors, policeman etc... deep sigh...).

Unfortunately, many of us have reasonably sharp memories of the beggars auction that took place not so long ago about the number of civil service jobs. My recollection is of an unedifying rush to promise more job losses than the number offered by Her Majesty's loyal opposition. There is a paper, apparently, although I could only find this report on the Conservative Party's website. As you can see, it seems to focus entirely on the 'touchy-feely' bits of the public sector yet avoids the fundamental question, "What sort of public sector do we want and how do we manage and fund it?" I'm not expecting to get an answer that I'll like...

What about my human rights?

For liberal civil servants, it's been a pretty ghastly weekend.

First, the Government start to float the idea that the Human Rights Act is causing problems in terms of their crime and community safety goals. If that wasn't bad enough, this morning's newspapers are full of claims that our Prime Minister is proposing to 'rescue' public services.

The Human Rights Act was one of the key things that led me to believe in 1997 that a Labour government would be, on balance, not unbearable (it didn't lead me to vote for them but...). The concept that citizens might have certain inalienable rights was long overdue and it was, after all, Liberal Democrat policy.

Recent events have conspired to create an atmosphere whereby it is possible to link any instance where the criminal justice system has failed to a 'complication brought about by the Human Rights Act'. The fact that in every instance, the problem could more validly be connected to an administrative failure, is not mentioned. Why? Bureaucracy is hated even more than 'liberal lawyers'. If politicians (and I don't spare Liberal Democrats from this charge - are you reading this, Vince Cable?) insist on slagging off the civil service at every opportunity, you hardly encourage the best and the brightest to join, do you? Most errors are committed, quite innocently, by junior members of staff trying to keep the system operating with judicious use of string and sealing wax. Training is poor, procedural changes too frequent, reforms ever ongoing.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Pay your bureaucrats properly, get the best, and you could make real savings by cutting the number of staff needed to fix problems caused by not having the ability to do things properly in the first place. A lot of what we do is process driven and there are usually only limited options. The secret is to know what those options are and, most important of all, why each is relevant and what impact it might have.

And so we are to be rescued... by a man who, quite frankly, appears to hate us and all that we stand for. Earth to Leader, Earth to Leader, you've been in charge for nine years now, so it must be your fault, mustn't it? How long can you blame previous administrations before your credibility runs out? The public sector doesn't need rescuing, it needs some certainty and a little tender loving care. That doesn't mean throwing a shedload of money at it, nor does it mean increasing staffing numbers. What it means is coming up with a clear concept of what government does, what it can do and what it should do?

Here's an outline draft for you to play with...

• government protects the citizenry from external and internal threats to its safety, defines a framework within which society interacts and provides core public services to enable equality of opportunity
• government can enable people to take control of their own lives, create a level playing field of opportunity, not of outcome, and protect those less able to protect themselves
• government should support freedom of the individual within the context of a free society, accept that its actions should be justified and, equally important, accountable and act as a force for good in a multilateral world

The concepts aren't difficult, the practice is, but it comes down to building a partnership with all of the stakeholders (to steal some classic New Labour jargon). I'm a stakeholder too, both as a civil servant and as a taxpayer. So at least look as though you care, can't you?...

Faceless bureaucrats: a faceless bureaucrat salutes you!

It's been an odd day.

I started by setting off for the Indian High Commission to get my visa for the forthcoming family wedding in Mumbai. Just as I was leaving Peckham, I realised that I had left my passport at home (duh...). So I went home, collected the passport and headed for India House, at Aldwych. I get to the window, form completed, money and photographs ready, only to be told that my passport, good for another five years, cannot be used as there are no blank pages left (that'll teach me to travel, won't it...).

What to do? No choice but to head to the Passport Agency at Victoria, with dread in my heart. It's three days before Christmas, millions of people are leaving the country, I'm bound to be there all day, aren't I? To my immense surprise, I turn up, am given a form to complete, which takes about two minutes, given an appointment within five minutes, hand over the forms and am told that my passport will be ready in four hours. Oh and yes, I don't have to hang around, just pay for it and come and collect it any time between 4.30 and 8.45. I hand over my credit card to give them £104.50 and off to my office. At 8.30 I return. The passport is ready, there's no queue and I'm on my way.

Haven't these people heard of making life difficult for the public? Why is the building well-maintained, efficient and comfortable? Why are the staff pleasant and helpful? I bet that there hasn't been a prominent article to say how good they are, yet there were plenty when the new computer systems went sour a few years back. But I forget, the public sector is horribly inefficient (as the Daily Mail keeps reminding us) and the whole thing should be contracted out to an Turks and Caicos Islands registered company owned by former Tory Ministers and 'employing' young children in a sweat shop somewhere in Burma...

Anyway, many thanks from a faceless bureaucrat to my fellow inmates in the UK Passport Agency...

My pension or my life?

Will this government please make up its mind about my pension?

Naturally, I work in government (where else did you expect to find a liberal bureaucrat?) and I've been watching the public debate about my financial future with some interest. First the government proposes that I work until I'm 65, which I have no problem with, if truth be told. Then I'm told that nice Mr Johnson has agreed that, after all, I can collect my pension at 60. All hell breaks loose, led by those nice caring people from the Daily Mail (who, were they to be found burning in hell, would be lowering the tone of the neighbourhood...).

So the government gets wobbly (and that's a surprise, isn't it?), and our next Prime Minister, sorry, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announces that he isn't so sure. The Minister for Work and Pensions announces that the government has no plans to revisit the position (shorthand for, if we can break our word and get away with it, you bet we will). Pressure builds, as the CBI attack the government for backing down from a fight with the big, bad civil service unions (you are joking, Digby, aren't you?).

Alright then, I'll cut you a deal... I'll stay on until 65, longer if I'm fit and still enjoying it, you amend my pension to compensate me for the extra years. You'll probably still make money on the deal, I won't be roaming the streets mugging young people in hoodies and stealing their sweets money, and by spending my time in a nice, heated government office, I won't be using valuable fossil fuels heating my home. Just treat me with a little respect, as without me, you wouldn't be able to raise the funds for those nice little nuclear submarines you'd set your heart on...