Better Nation

Another guest post today from Stuart Winton, of the late lamented Planet Politics.

While their actions and thoughts are less subject to public scrutiny than those of their (ostensible) political masters, our local government officials and national civil servants occasionally hit the headlines, inevitably accompanied by attempts to exploit them with a view to making political capital.

Hence recent news articles concerning the Edinburgh trams shambles have seen a senior councillor admit that he was “out of his depth”, an official concede that the council had “dug itself into a hole” over contractual arrangements, while at the Scottish Government level a presumably credulous John Swinney alleges he was “fundamentally misled” by the city council’s company set up to manage the project.

While similar issues regarding public sector competence and accountability are probably more common than people realise, most such instances are of significantly less prominence than Edinburgh’s trams, and hence are probably only ever highlighted in the likes of the local press, specialist publications and with particular interest groups, not to mention the odd anorak and other obsessives.

But the point here is perhaps that the trams issue sheds some light on what might be termed the political-bureaucratic complex, which alludes to the fact that the theory of impartial and competent public servants providing expert advice to elected representatives and implementing the programme for government proffered to voters in a democratic election is slightly wide of the mark. As, of course, the better known military-industrial complex ably demonstrates in its portrayal of the power and influence of commercial interests on the political and bureaucratic process.

But ignoring the influence of commercial, producer and various other interest groups ostensibly outside the public sector (or one aspect of the so-called ‘iron triangle‘), the political-bureaucratic complex essentially encompasses the idea that the ideal of paid officials slavishly and without fear or favour doing what the public demand via the ballot box is to a greater or lesser extent not wholly accurate.

Hence in the good/bad old days before devolved government, the oft-heard complaint of idealistic and wet behind the ears politicians was that Whitehall civil servants often did their best to obstruct the implementation of policy. Of course, this could be entirely consistent with the basic theory of democratic government, in that a politician’s chosen course of action could be impractical, ill-thought out and hence effectively undeliverable. More insidiously, of course, this could also reflect ideological hostility from civil servants – no doubt dressed up as something else – or, for example, that officials did not want to jeopardise their cosy and harmonious relationships with those in the commercial sector benefiting from public contracts or regulation, or that with vested interest groups more generally.

Equally, civil servants may be ideologically aligned with the elected government, and will thus be more amenable to the delivery of policy. On the other hand, it’s surely not beyond reason to suggest that self-advancement and self-aggrandisement may be motivating factors for the bureaucrats. Either way, the public interest may play second fiddle to that of personal ideology and/or self-interest. And if political and bureaucratic imperatives do coincide then the chances of anyone outside any such dominant narrative making an impression with any kind of contrary view are remote indeed, despite the often phony devices of accountability and democratic participation such as public consultations and parliamentary scrutiny committees.

Of course, in the contemporary Scottish context the issue of civil service impartiality was recently brought into focus by news articles concerning top Edinburgh mandarin Sir Peter Houdsen’s rather effusive messages to staff concerning the SNP’s programme for government, and indeed the whole idea of greater Scottish autonomy.

Hardly surprising, nonetheless, that Sir Gus O’Donnell, the head of the UK civil service, has exonerated Sir Peter following complaints from opposition politicians, but whatever his motives the tone of the latter’s utterances has surely demonstrated a degree of misjudgement at the very least.

But from the political perspective it’s perhaps instructive to read the words of SNP policy and strategy guru Stephen Noon in a recent blogpost on issues of this kind. In it he cites a recent report written by former Scottish Government Permanent Secretary Sir John Elvidge, who writes enthusiastically about changes to Scotland’s civil service, and Mr Noon quotes him thus: “Alongside a group of politicians who have embraced the challenge of forms of government unfamiliar to them, the Civil Service has also played a central role. As well as providing essential continuity of understanding about the processes of government, it has displayed agility and energy in assisting the adaptation of that understanding to fresh challenges.”

Mr Noon contrasts this with a recent critical report on the Whitehall civil service by MPs, and concludes: “When Scotland’s civil service is being described as agile and energetic, while the Whitehall system is characterised with words and phrases like ‘exasperated’ and ‘lack of progress’, is that not something that should make papers and politicians up here pause, and perhaps praise, rather than try to criticise?”
Maybes aye, maybes naw. But is it really plausible and compelling to compare the words of Sir John – who can hardly be expected to be impartial regarding his own legacy – with that of a process of scrutiny which if it had produced an appraisal of Whitehall akin to Sir John’s would have been roundly criticised, and rightly so.

And surely this couldn’t be the same Sir John Elvidge who earlier this year was reported as claiming that devolution was still “in nappies”, politicians were “not normal” and increasingly “disconnected” from voters, and that civil servants were scared to give robust advice to politicians lest their career was jeopardised?

Which of course Mr Noon conveniently failed to mention, but which arguably underlines that the bureaucrats are hardly the objective and selfless automatons of political theory and instead have their own axes to grind, whether they be ideological or purely personal. And indeed as a politically motivated but unelected spin doctor, special adviser, or whatever, Mr Noon himself must enjoy something of a complex relationship with the mandarins that no doubt makes his opinions on the topic particularly opaque.

Also, it’s perhaps instructive that while he writes in rather gushing terms about the retired Sir John’s paper, the more recent controversy is merely alluded to in his blogpost. Nevertheless, that Mr Noon so emphasises Sir John’s more positive recent stance on Scottish governance surely underlines the self-evident difficulty regarding the theory of civil service independence, perhaps indicating that the public servant/special adviser/politician nexus represents something of a continuum rather than a relationship subject to a more concrete divide.

All of which places question marks over the day-to-day issues of Scottish governance. For example, the claim that Sir Brian Souter’s nomination for a knighthood emanated from a committee of independent civil servants – “led by the Permanent Secretary [Sir Peter Houdsen]”- rather than being in any way related to the ruling SNP administration, which of course has benefited from substantial election campaign donations from the Stagecoach bus mogul.

But even without really considering the relevance of third parties to the political-bureaucratic complex, it’s self-evident that in terms of both impartiality and competence the ideal of disinterested civil servants and local government officials proffering expert advice and administrative competence to elected politicians is very often found wanting. Paid officials cannot necessarily be relied upon to be wholly impartial, administratively competent or indeed always acting in good faith.

Following the admission by Edinburgh transport convener Councillor Gordon Mackenzie that he and his colleagues were ill-equipped to scrutinise the trams project, an excoriating letter to the Scotsman contrasted this “tragic indictment” of our elected representatives with this canonisation of officialdom: “The executive teams in our councils across Scotland are immensely well qualified, experienced and rewarded to continue the improvements in service delivery we need to see in the tough spending environment we are currently facing.”

But unfortunately for the letter writer this was neatly juxtaposed with the article about a senior official admitting to a “big mistake” and “digging ourselves into a hole”.

Which in turn means that the correspondent has dug a bit of a hole for himself, but unfortunately there seems to be many such holes in government and public discourse, and the chances of them all being filled in anytime soon seem remote indeed.