Latest news with #civilservice
Irish Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Stormont is slow, afraid of new thinking and costly, says report
Reading the latest report by the Belfast-based Pivotal think tank into the operations of the Stormont Executive, Assembly and Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) is like watching an episode of the much-loved 1980s TV series Yes, Minister, but minus the jokes. Throughout, the fruits of months of conversations with 30 former ministers, senior civil servants, special advisers and some of those who deal frequently with Stormont on policy questions reveals a litany of failures, blockages and short-sightedness. As always in organisations, the principal issues centre on culture. 'Civil servants are broadly committed and enthusiastic, but they are held back by a burdensome system. Risk aversion acts as a brake on progress at every stage,' the report says. 'This seems to have got worse in recent years. Innovation is not always encouraged, and change is often resisted. While delivery is a priority in principle, it doesn't always translate into practice.' READ MORE Too often, Pivotal says, officials make decisions out of fear of a subsequent Northern Ireland Audit Office report, or a grilling before Stormont's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), or being the subject of a judicial review. The PAC uses its time and profile to go through departments' 'bad holiday snaps' in search of a 'gotcha' moment that will dominate the evening TV headlines, it says. Even here, it frequently falls short of the mark as a spending watchdog, with one retired civil servant witheringly saying officials 'wouldn't be afraid' of appearing before it given its 'poor questioning and scrutiny skills'. While they are not afraid of audits, or the PAC, they are afraid of the press, something that has got worse since news reporting exposed the 'cash for ash' scandal, which has cost NI taxpayers £500 million that they know about, but probably more. [ Cash for ash scandal: Everybody is to blame, nobody is to blame Opens in new window ] In an effort to avoid taking responsibility, officials are overly willing to hire consultants and, as a consequence, fail to build up the skills of their staff, the report says. The sums being spent are now causing 'alarm' among those interviewed. A business leader, speaking anonymously, as every interviewee does in the report, believes Stormont is 'creating middle-class industries'. Consultants have become 'an ordinary part of working' in Stormont's hard wiring, according to most of those who contributed. Too often, however, as one retired senior official put it acidly, they 'borrow your watch and tell you the time'. Inside the bureaucracy, things move at 'a glacial pace', according to a former minister, with officials unwilling to quickly change their ways of working or move into new roles. 'Pace is not what civil servants do well. They do process well,' said a business leader. If it does process well, Stormont does not do outcomes. Interviewees were, Pivotal reports, shocked at the lack of attention given to whether a programme's aims are achieved, with the focus instead on ensuring all the money allocated is spent. 'The system needs to be turned on its head and see the reason for doing this is not just the pound notes, it's actually about changing the place,' said one business representative experienced in Stormont's ways. Bureaucracy 'can thwart change easily', said one former minister, while a former special adviser believed the system often thought more about 'finding their people something to do' than having them do something productive. Too often, life inside the Stormont bureaucracy is about management rather than change. 'Every day a business will ask 'How do I make my business better – quicker, stronger, better?' There is very little of this in the NICS,' said one business leader. If officials like talking to consultants, they do not like talking to anyone else, the Pivotal report states. They are 'not inclined to engage in difficult conversation' with outsiders, said a former minister. The voluntary sector was scathing of the way it feels it is treated by Stormont. Often, according to the report, the sector gets little more than 'lip service', while consultations that do take place are regarded as box-ticking exercises rather than meetings where they are listened to. Stormont departments operate in silos, the report notes, unwilling to co-operate with colleagues in other departments. Jayne Brady, the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, enjoys no formal authority over departmental permanent secretaries, the report notes, who are instead accountable only to their ministers for policy, to the NI Department of Finance for spending, and to the Stormont Assembly. Ministers are said to get bogged down in day-to-day matters rather than the bigger issues, and they are seen as having a preference for making announcements rather than the drudgery of reaching long-term goals. Their behaviour can delay or even halt delivery, particularly when matters political, or local, get in the way. One former official delivered a backhanded compliment, saying: 'I have never worked with anybody who didn't really care'. Stormont's political structures – where the Executive does not operate by collective responsibility and where ministers are appointed by their parties – does not help, the report finds. 'Many interviewees pointed to political disagreements that slowed down delivery of important policies, whether those disagreements were about policy design, who would benefit, or local impacts.'
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
ONS chief under fire for wearing trans badge
Britain's under-fire chief statistician has been condemned for wearing the 'flag of transgender activism' during her first address to staff. Emma Rourke wore a badge depicting the trans-inclusive Pride banner as she spoke to workers at the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In 2023, the ONS was humiliated after it was forced to withdraw official statistics which massively inflated the number of trans people in the country. The survey had found that one in 200 people over the age of 16 self-identified as a different gender, but it emerged that many people who did not speak fluent English had misunderstood the question. The office has also been accused of producing misleading data on worklessness, which has made it harder for the Bank of England to control inflation. Ms Rourke took over as acting national statistician earlier this year, after her predecessor retired through ill health. Critics said her decision to wear the flag, which indicates a belief that there are more than two biological sexes and that transwomen are women, was an 'ostentatiously political move'. Civil servants are expected to be impartial under the civil service code and uphold the Nolan Principles of public life, while earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled that transwomen were not legally women. Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns at women's rights charity Sex Matters, said: 'Wearing the flag of transgender activism during her first address to staff as acting national statistician is an ostentatiously political move by Emma Rourke. 'The civil service code tells civil servants to be impartial. Rourke's actions signal that when it comes to the clash between biological sex and self-defined 'gender identity', she has picked a side. 'Rourke also oversaw the disastrous question on gender identity in the 2021 census, which was worded to appeal to transgender activists and so incomprehensible to many respondents that the results have been classified as unreliable. 'Rourke's appointment as acting National Statistician suggests that the ONS has learnt little or nothing from the census debacle. It will also dishearten the many ONS employees who know that sex is a material fact, and that it matters in official statistics.' The Progress Pride flag, updated to include intersex people in 2021, is based on the rainbow flag but adds other colours - pink, light blue and white - to specifically reference trans people. Ms Rourke took over from Sir Ian Diamond who stepped down last month due to health issues. Before that, she was deputy national statistician for health, population and methods, which meant she oversaw the ONS debacle on sex and gender identity. At her first 'ONS Live' event for all ONS staff, Rourke said she had an 'uncomfortable message' for staff about Sir Robert Devereaux's forthcoming review into ONS culture, expected to be released imminently. She said: 'It is likely to continue to be difficult for us as an organisation – we are experiencing ongoing challenges in being able to stabilise our suite of core statistics.' A spokesman for the ONS said: 'ONS strives to be an inclusive organisation where everyone feels respected. 'We are proud to visibly support all our colleagues, who are delivering ONS statistics with utmost professionalism and impartiality.'
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Orwellian new banking surveillance powers offer huge potential for abuse
To what extent do you trust this, or any previous, government? It's a relevant question, given the sweeping new powers that parliament is seemingly being asked to hand over to our elected – and unelected – masters on a weekly basis. The point of the question, however, is in the fact of its being asked at all: while there has always been a healthy degree of suspicion between the governed and the government, it is hard to imagine a time when that disconnect has been greater than it is today. A civil service obsessed with identity politics of all varieties, which threatens strike action if its members are not allowed to remain at home most of the week while suffering no loss in pay, which reserves the right to complain publicly about policies being pursued by the elected government, cannot hope to retain the good will and support of the public. Yet now the government has chosen to give middle-ranking civil servants with unprecedented powers to spy on ordinary citizens' financial affairs. As revealed by The Telegraph today, a new fraud Bill will allow civil servants to demand that banks provide personal information about an individual's account without a court order, and extract funds if they 'reasonably believe' that money is owed to the taxpayer. They will also be given the power to ask for a search and entry warrant and to freeze bank accounts. We may assume the new measures can be filed under 'seemed a good idea at the time', since they were initially proposed under the previous Conservative government in response to the eye-watering levels of fraud that took place during that weird period of history defined by the Covid pandemic and lockdown. So much public money disappeared under relatively little public scrutiny or oversight that the new government feels emboldened to clamp down on potential ongoing fraud, secure in the knowledge that the public would tolerate never-before-seen investigative powers wielded by relatively junior civil servants on behalf of the public purse. And if those powers could be guaranteed to be used only against the fraudsters, there would be very little opposition to the new measures. The question is whether those powers, once granted, will not be used more and more against ordinary citizens who are merely suspected, perhaps with little evidence, of not paying enough tax or claiming too many benefits without justification. Do we really want to live in a country where citizens' bank accounts can be examined, frozen or have cash withdrawn – all without the account holder being told what is happening or why? As the legislation currently stands, sign-off by a minister, which would offer at least the appearance of some democratic accountability, would not be required before an individual's bank account is accessed and further action proposed. The powers could be wielded by any anti-fraud official with a civil service rank above 'higher executive officer' – a Whitehall middle manager – and will apply to members of the Public Sector Fraud Authority, a new government body designed to crack down on criminal fraud against public bodies. Naturally, civil liberties groups have raised concerns about the legislation. Big Brother Watch, the civil liberties campaign group, told The Telegraph that the 'dangerous new bank spying powers' would 'effectively turn banks into agents of the state, tasked with spying on everyone's bank accounts and reporting back to the Government'. There's an ugly element of arrogance in all of this, a touch of 'We are the masters now' sort of philosophy from a party that won a 170-seat Commons majority on barely a third of the popular vote. The question posed earlier as to whether you trust this or previous governments can be reframed and put to current ministers: would you trust these powers to be used fairly by ministers of another party, after the next election? In the event of a Reform-led coalition government, are you content for such unprecedented executive power over individuals' livelihoods to be in the hands of your political opponents? Fraud must be challenged and detected and its perpetrators held to account. But in doing so, the government needs to take citizens with them. At the start of this century, the Proceeds of Crime Act was opposed by many in the legal establishment who felt it would result in miscarriages of justice in the legitimate fight against organised crime. Those concerns were proved groundless thanks to the legal safeguards in the legislation. Unless similarly robust safeguards are inserted into this new legislation, ministers risk damaging further, perhaps irretrievably, the delicate and essential political contract that exists between them and their voters.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Trump accelerates push to reward loyalty in federal workforce
President Donald Trump is accelerating efforts to transform the federal workforce from a nonpartisan, merit-based civil service to a system that values loyalty to the president and to push policies that allow the administration to more easily dismiss career employees, according to federal workers, public service experts and employment attorneys.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Civil service is ‘too remote' from people's lives across UK, says minister
The Whitehall civil service is too remote from people's lives and needs to be 'turned inside out' as part of plans to drive three of Keir Starmer's missions from outside London, a Cabinet Office minister has said. Georgia Gould, a former leader of Camden council who had a meteoric rise after her election as a Labour MP last year, said the government's plan to move thousands more civil service jobs out of London was not about just 'having offices in places' – and Whitehall civil servants needed to be more familiar with the day-to-day problems in frontline services from health centres to family hubs. She said her job was to help close the 'big gap between those doing the frontline operational roles and those who are making policies' by helping them to work together, share data and come up with new ideas about how to improve people's lives – especially those who 'fall through the cracks' of different public services. Gould told the Guardian that Whitehall working would be 'turned inside out', as the Cabinet Office announced Starmer's health mission would be based in Leeds, its opportunity mission in Sheffield and its growth mission in Darlington, with civil servants working with local government and frontline workers to pioneer new approaches. The Cabinet Office announced in May that major Whitehall government buildings were to be shut by ministers as they seek to shed 12,000 civil servant jobs in London, while moving thousands of roles to cities across the UK. It set a target of 50% of all senior civil servants being based outside London within five years, with the aim of policy being made closer to the communities affected. Gould said the speed of change needed to rise, as some regional campuses of civil servants were still too divorced from where their work had an impact. 'I've gone to visit a lot of the hubs and it's great that people are coming from those places and working there, but sometimes they still have their departmental corners and they're not really working any differently with the places that they're situated in,' she said. 'So I think there's a massive opportunity to bring the civil servants together with … communities to design public services from the bottom up, work out what's going on on the frontline and change things.' Gould said her approach to the job of public service reform was informed by her time at Camden, where the council transformed children's services on her watch. 'Camden is really not that far but Whitehall felt very, very far away and it often felt that the kind of experience of the frontline just wasn't taken into account when decisions were being made,' she said. 'There's one way of making policy – doing submissions, thinking about things in a room, about what works best – and there's another way, which is getting alongside those on the frontline, whether that's housing staff or jobcentre staff.' She added: 'They know the problems, they know what doesn't work, and testing new approaches and then scaling them up … I think that is incredibly energising for civil servants to work in that way. They don't always feel like they have permission, they don't know how to start.' Gould said civil servants she had spoken to were excited by her plans but also made clear that 'that's not how we've done things' traditionally. 'It's really a new approach,' she said. 'It is about giving people actively the space to test new approaches and they identify on the frontline barriers that we're creating at the centre.' Gould was elected in Queen's Park and Maida Vale last year and became a minister immediately. She is the daughter of one the architects of New Labour, Philip Gould, and has previously described a childhood out delivering Labour leaflets before she could speak. Her portfolio in the Cabinet Office, under Pat McFadden, spans from public service reform to public sector procurement. Asked about the US 'department for government efficiency' and Reform UK's attempts to emulate it in Britain, Gould said the government was onboard with cutting waste through better procurement, but that innovating based on frontline experience could also save money. 'Everyone takes their own approach, and I think there is absolutely a role for looking at value for money through contracts. Basic efficiency should just be the baseline of doing good government … but I think when we're talking about people-based services, I think we have to design things differently, because often we have people costing millions of pounds who are using multiple services and we're not really supporting them. If we were much more focused on prevention or working with them at an earlier point we'd save a huge amount of money.' She cited her experience working with someone who lacked the confidence to go to job interviews partly because of self-consciousness about his teeth. The human-centred approach that worked to help him had been enabling him to see a dentist. On artificial intelligence, which is being embedded in the civil service as a way of speeding up processes, Gould said she did not see a conflict with a drive to provide human-based services and that AI could cut time spent on paperwork. She said: 'If frontline officers are spending all their time on laborious processes, that is really, really frustrating, so I think they can free up their time so those processes are much easier through AI.'
