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Key Text How to be a Civil Servant: Civil Service Reform since 1997

Author: M Stanley
Date: 2007
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Summary

To what extent has the Labour government reformed the Civil Service in the United Kingdom (UK)? This note from Civilservant.org.uk reports on a series of civil service reviews and reforms since 1997. Whilst the Labour Government has concentrated on improving the efficiency and capability of the civil service, it has made no attempt to make fundamental changes to its structure, culture or motivation.

Labour's Civil Service Reform Programme originally supported its wider Modernising Government Initiative from 1997. The civil service part of the initiative concentrated on stronger leadership, better business planning, sharper performance management, greater diversity, becoming more open and offering a better deal to staff.

Despite commitment to reform in the 2001 election manifesto, there were no major developments following the election. In June 2002, Sir Andrew Turnbull published a reform note explaining that Permanent Secretaries were henceforth to be responsible for bringing about reform in their departments and improving service delivery. In 2004, the Civil Service Reform document announced major changes in the way the civil service would be managed and organised, without giving details that might create opposition. The speech by the Prime Minister in the same year was a more substantial document, although it also avoided controversy.

In July 2004, Sir Peter Gershon’s efficiency programme was published. It recommended that 84,000 civil service jobs be cut and GBP 20 billion saved each year from 2007-8. Gordon Brown's 2004 Budget announced 40,500 job losses in the Department of Work and Pensions, the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. The Chancellor also announced that he intended to require departments to achieve a 5 per cent cut in their administrative costs over the following two years. The entire public sector was to be set a target of 2.5 per cent efficiency savings per year, by cutting back office functions and making more productive use of the time of front line staff. Further savings, especially in the Department for Work and Pensions and the HM Revenue and Customs, were announced in the 2006 Budget.

The results of the first four Civil Service reviews were announced in July 2006, and further reviews have been completed since then. The Government's summary of the findings identified four common themes:

Improving leadership from the centre of each department
Improving the way the department delivers its services
Responding more effectively to the demands of the public
Improving skills, capacity and capability.

In August 2006, the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) published a powerful and persuasive report suggesting that the constitutional conventions governing the civil service were anachronistic and inadequate. They argued that UK government would be more effective if lines of accountability were less confused, and civil servants made more responsible for clearly defined operational decisions. In a subsequent report they specifically recommended:

the creation of a strong, Civil Service Executive, headed by a civil service Head
the establishment of a new governing body for the civil service, appointed by Parliament
the enhancement of Parliament’s powers to hold Ministers to account and new powers to do the same for civil servants
the introduction of external assessment for all Whitehall departments
a new Department for Prime Minister and Cabinet with a responsibility for coordinating government policy and policy development
the enshrinement of these reforms in a new Civil Service Act.

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Source: Stanley, M., 2007, 'How to be a Civil Servant: Civil Service Reform since 1997', Retrieved 12 November 2007, from http://www.civilservant.org.uk/csreform.shtml
Author: Martin Stanley , martin.stanley@civilservant.org.uk