May 2015 UK General Election Campaign.

[garbon]

The Evening Standard has become even incredibly more dull (if that was possible ) with all their not very exciting election articles.

[crazy canuck]

The idea of more appointees is that implementation of government policy is improved.

It would depend on the quality of the political appointee.  But who would be appointed.  Probably the most likely candidates are politicos who's main skill set was getting their Minister elected and to keep them elected.  Not so much strength on the administrative side of things.

[Sheilbh]

It would depend on the quality of the political appointee.  But who would be appointed.  Probably the most likely candidates are politicos who's main skill set was getting their Minister elected and to keep them elected.  Not so much strength on the administrative side of things.

What sort of skills do you mean? I ask because I can't think of an example of a Spad along those lines (here's the rules on them: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/special-advisers-code-of-conduct).

[crazy canuck]

It would depend on the quality of the political appointee.  But who would be appointed.  Probably the most likely candidates are politicos who's main skill set was getting their Minister elected and to keep them elected.  Not so much strength on the administrative side of things.

What sort of skills do you mean? I ask because I can't think of an example of a Spad along those lines (here's the rules on them: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/special-advisers-code-of-conduct).

As with all codes of conduct that one has a lot of discretion.  For example when would there not be "overlap" particularly when an appointee can be called upon to provide "expert advice as a specialist in a particular field" even if the appointee has no particular expertise other than being a political appointee.

In my experience career civil servants are generally well educated people who know how to navigate the bureaucracy.   They know all the relevant legislative requirements (or at least have a good understanding of them) and are generally a professional group.  A political appointee is someone who is in it for the short term.  Generally they are in this position because they haven't yet found a better job than being a politico and are looking to leverage their time as an appointee into some better position.  Their main experience is of being a politico.  They generally have no other meaningful expertise.

There are likely exceptions to these generalities.  But exceptions that prove the rule.

I think the biggest danger of relying on political appointees is because of their purpose.  They are not there to give good prudent advice.  They are not there to speak truth to power -  a cornerstone of the Canadian civil service.  They are there merely to carry out the wishes of their political masters whether those wishes are flawed or not.  At least with a senior civil servant the political master will be provided with good advice regarding all the ramifications of a particular policy decision.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I'm with Sir Humphrey on this, we can't have political appointees sticking their oars in and implementing government policy................it is a recipe for chaos!

[Gups]

The Evening Standard has become even incredibly more dull

You get what you pay for.

[Monoriu]

I had a vegetarian dinner last night.  I gave up meat for once to pray for a Conservative victory 

[garbon]

The Evening Standard has become even incredibly more dull

You get what you pay for.

[crazy canuck]

I'm with Sir Humphrey on this, we can't have political appointees sticking their oars in and implementing government policy................it is a recipe for chaos!

I was picturing the scenes where the political appointee was being abused as I wrote that.

[Josquius]

Shit that audience was hostile to miliband last night

[Sheilbh]

As with all codes of conduct that one has a lot of discretion.  For example when would there not be "overlap" particularly when an appointee can be called upon to provide "expert advice as a specialist in a particular field" even if the appointee has no particular expertise other than being a political appointee.

Sure. But none of it seems likely to apply to someone whose main role is electoral.

In my experience career civil servants are generally well educated people who know how to navigate the bureaucracy.   They know all the relevant legislative requirements (or at least have a good understanding of them) and are generally a professional group.  A political appointee is someone who is in it for the short term.  Generally they are in this position because they haven't yet found a better job than being a politico and are looking to leverage their time as an appointee into some better position.  Their main experience is of being a politico.  They generally have no other meaningful expertise.

There are likely exceptions to these generalities.  But exceptions that prove the rule.

Civil servants don't know how to navigate the bureaucracy, they are the bureaucracy. It's like praising Cameron for doing so well navigating the class system.

And I've no doubt most civil servants are conscientious, intelligent, well-meaning people. But as an institution they, like any other institution, are jealous of their privileges and power and inherently conservative. They are very difficult to reform, especially if your reform is something that many civil servants either ideologically disagree with them, or an institution it diminishes their power. There is not a post-war administration that has not ended up saying their biggest problem was the civil service - and there isn't really one who went into office with low expectations (possibly Labour '97).

The best, successful, example of this is probably Tony Blair's education reforms. The (politically appointed) head of his policy unit Andrew (now Lord) Adonis had come up with an idea for Academies which were schools that would be state funded and not-for-profit, but largely independent of central (and more importantly) local government. They would have more freedom over things like teacher pay and contracts, the length of the school day, the holidays, the delivery of the curriculum etc. Initially the plan was that they would largely have sponsors - universities, religious groups, philanthropists - who would help establish the polices and ethos of the school and that they'd focus on converting under-performing urban schools. It was hugely resisted by the education establishment and the Department of Education barely implemented it because a lot of the goal of the policy was to devolve power that they currently had. It actually took the appointment of Adonis as a Lord and as an Education Minister - with his own SpAds and brief to deliver academies (he was retained by Blair under 3-4 Secretaries of State) - to really get them going.

Since then they've been praised by the National Audit Office and LSE studies, generally the rate of improvement in GCSEs is double that in an academy than a comprehensive and the policy has largely been adopted by the Tories and Lib Dems (though Labour's stepped back a bit) but still faces massive challenges within the civil service.

There's plenty of other examples from both parties of the biggest difficulty being getting a law from Royal Assent to actual implementation and with a civil service of almost half a million I think only 100 political appointees is perhaps a little understaffed to help ministers operate effectively.

In terms of background it's more varied than you'd think and they don't always end up in politics. One of the thing that's striking when you read any autobiography or memoir is how few go into becoming MPs. It was something I really noticed when you read, say, the Mandelson, Blair or Campbell books is that most of the backroom staff they're dealing with stayed as backroom staff or left when their boss did. But even with, say, Miliband who started in journalism then became an advisor for Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and was then poached by Brown - I don't think there's any reason to believe that Gordon Brown, with 20 years experience behind him, wanted Miliband for his advice on how to win either the internicine battles of Scottish Labour or the hearts of the people of Kirkcudbright.

Which is the point. Each Secretary of State is allowed 2 SpAds (and can plead for more), but on taking office they're the only people they appoint who are personally loyal to them which I think matters. One, David Willets', who's since written a paper on SpAds said a lot of his job was actually just putting information in front of his Minister that the civil service had decided was 'non-action' so on the refuse pile. Many others are particular policy experts picked up after a Minister's just been reshuffled from Health to Defence, or have been writing the think tank proposals that shaped their thinking on a subject.

Though there's undoubtedly a political element - and there needs to be - if you're an out of favour spending department the Minister needs people who can fight and win with other departments for the Treasury's attention, and now we've had coalition Ministers within departments and across government may have wildly different priorities. These are hugely political topics which it'd be wholly inappropriate for the civil service to be involved in. Similarly we don't have a Department of the Prime Minister (there's often talk of setting one up) so the PM has very few civil servants working for them. They need SpAds to try and keep coordination have an eye on what everyone's doing.

The civil service is important and has a role. It should stay independent and permanent. But I think, as unpopular as it is, that we need far more political appointees and of the ones we've had there are many more who've been doing good, important work who haven't subsequently become MPs and weren't famous/notorious at the time like Campbell or McBride (who was, anyway, originally a civil servant and only joined the Labour Party in 2005 to become a SpAd).

I think the biggest danger of relying on political appointees is because of their purpose.  They are not there to give good prudent advice.  They are not there to speak truth to power -  a cornerstone of the Canadian civil service.  They are there merely to carry out the wishes of their political masters whether those wishes are flawed or not.  At least with a senior civil servant the political master will be provided with good advice regarding all the ramifications of a particular policy decision.

I think the biggest danger of relying on the civil service for all of that is Stockholm syndrome

[Sheilbh]

Shit that audience was hostile to miliband last night

By the sounds of it they were hostile to all of them. Someone asked Clegg what his plans were after he lost his job  

[Sheilbh]

What the actual fuck:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/03/ed-miliband-sets-promises-in-stone

Are we really back at the political level of Ashoka?

Edit: Seriously this is the weirdest idea I've ever seen. I think about something else for a few minutes and return to this, like

Is there no-one at the top of Labour high command able to say 'this won't win any votes and will see the nation laugh scornfully at us?'

[Admiral Yi]

I noticed that the campaign promises, at least the ones mentioned in the article, are suitably vague.

[Sheilbh]

I noticed that the campaign promises, at least the ones mentioned in the article, are suitably vague.

Well of course. Right now an 8 ft block of stone is having this carved:


Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.