by Peter Joyce
Thus the argument that civil servants conspire to dominate the policy-making process is not totally accurate. Apparent attempts by civil servants to thwart the objectives of their ministers may indicate the existence of multiple accountabilities, whereby civil servants acknowledge the authority of others within the machinery of government than their own minister. Additionally, although there may be occasions when ministers and their civil servants have clashed, the relationship between them is frequently harmonious. Each needs the other. The minister relies on the civil service for advice and the handling of routine business to ensure a manageable workload, but the civil service relies on the minister to promote the department’s interests. This may involve defending the department when its interests or activities are scrutinized by the cabinet or within parliament. It may also involve performing an ambassadorial role to convince the general public that the department fulfils a vital role in civil affairs.
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Ministerial advisers
Ministers may seek to offset domination exerted by civil servants by employing their own advisers. In 2007, 68 were employed at a cost of £5.9 million. Advisers are governed by a code of conduct that seeks to define their roles and set out their relationships with the permanent civil service. A separate ministerial code sets out rules for their appointment and their status in relation to ministers.
There are, however, a number of difficulties with this situation. Ministerial advisers are employed as temporary senior civil servants and have thus been accused of politicizing the civil service even though they are appointed only for the lifetime of the government. Civil servants may resent the role of these ‘outsiders’. Clashes between the Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, Sir Terence Burns, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s special adviser, Ed Balls, resulted in the former vacating his post in 1998.
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Question
Analyse arguments for and against the view that national policy making is dominated by civil servants rather than politicians.
Political control of the bureaucracy
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Insight
In liberal democratic political systems, the bureaucracy is not autonomous but is subject to a number of political controls wielded by the executive and legislative branches of government.
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There are various ways whereby the operations of the bureaucracy can be made susceptible to political control. Ministers may appoint their own advisers to offset the activities of civil servants. One problem is that if these advisers are outsiders they may effectively be ‘frozen out’ of the operations of a department by its permanent officials. In France, this difficulty is solved by ministers appointing existing civil servants to act as their advisers. These are located in the cabinet ministériel. They operate under the minister’s direct control and usually revert to their previous posts when their service to the minister has ended.
Chief executives may also seek to exert influence over civil service actions. They may do this through involvement in the appointment, promotion and removal of civil servants. A major difficulty with these activities is that the civil service might become politicized. This means it becomes so closely identified with the policies of a particular political party that its neutrality (which is essential if it is to serve governments of other political persuasions) is questioned.
The legislature may also exert influence over the conduct of the bureaucracy. (This function is termed ‘oversight’ in America.) In the United Kingdom, special investigations may be launched by bodies such as parliamentary select committees into the operations of particular departments or agencies.
In assessing the effectiveness of political control over the bureaucracy, however, we must be aware of a potential conflict between accountability and managerial freedom. Although those whose activities are financed by public money need to account for what they do, excessive accountability tends to stifle initiative and make civil servants operate in a cautious manner dominated by adherence to stipulated procedures. Ideally, therefore, agencies should be accountable for their results but given a degree of discretion as to how these are achieved.
We now go on to examine the manner in which the American bureaucracy is subject to political control.
CONTROL OF THE AMERICAN FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY
In America, political control of the federal bureaucracy involves both the president and Congress. Their involvement is sometimes prompted by a belief that inadequate control results in waste and inefficiency. The president may seek to exert control over the bureaucracy in a number of ways. Commissions may be appointed to scrutinize its workings. Additionally, the president may install a number of political appointees into the federal bureaucracy to advance policy initiatives and install advisers, especially within the White House staff. Executive orders may be issued to agencies. During the 1980s, President Reagan further sought to use the Office of Management and Budget to ensure that agency regulations conformed to administration policy.
There are, however, a number of problems which impede effective presidential control over the federal bureaucracy. These include its fragmented nature. It is composed of a variety of departments, agencies, bureaux and commissions which possess varying degrees of autonomy. Presidential control may also be hindered by the relationship which such bodies are able to establish with Congress. Congress is required to approve proposals put forward by the president to reorganize government departments. Its opposition prevented President Nixon from amalgamating seven departments into four ‘super-departments’ in 1971, and halted President Reagan’s plans to abolish the Departments of Education and Energy during the 1980s. Further, the ‘iron triangle’ relationships which may be constructed between agencies, congressional committees and clients or interest groups may also prove impenetrable to presidential control.
Congress, however, may have its own reasons for wishing to exert control over the operations of the federal bureaucracy. It may seek to ensure that its policy goals are fulfilled by the federal bureaucracy. This is especially important in a situation of ‘divided government’ when Congress and the president may differ on the objectives which they wish the bureaucracy to achieve. There are a number of ways whereby Congress may seek to assert its control over the federal civil service. Control over funds is a key aspect of Congressional oversight which is asserted during the annual appropriations procedure. Some agencies or programmes are also subject to annual renewal, which is based on an assessment by Congress as to whether their aims are being accomplished. Bodies such as the General Accounting Office help to procure information to aid the oversight function. Congress may also launch special investigations into particular government activities. An example of this was the examination of the Central Intelligence Agency conducted during the 1970s.
Congress and the bureaucracy
The main power possessed by Congress over the federal bureaucracy is the power of the purse. Congress may also exercise control in other ways that include setting limitations on appropriations to agencies, regulating and administering some agency programmes and passing legislation to control agencies or to change their decisions. Congress may also establish investigatory bodies to examine specific activities carried out by the federal bureaucracy.
The concern of Congress to secure efficiency and effectiveness within the civil service was displayed by the requirement in 1978 that all major agencies should appoint inspectors general, accountable to Congress (which was concerned with problems such as fraud and waste) and by the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act which introduced the practice of agencies (initially on a pilot basis) preparing annual development plans with measurable objectives to enable performance to be monitored.
Congress has involved itself in the working practices of the bureaucracy. The exercise of discretion is governed by the 1946 Administrative Procedures Act and the 1990 Negotiated Rule Making Act.
Reform of the civil service
The growth in the role of the
state in a number of countries after 1945 resulted in a large civil service (or bureaucracy) to administer the services associated with it. This was costly. Thus governments wishing to prune public spending cast a critical eye at the workings of the bureaucracy. The reform of the civil service has been advocated in many countries. In Ireland, the Devlin Report put forward reform proposals in 1969. In the United Kingdom, the Fulton Report in 1968 and the Ibbs Report in 1988 influenced significant changes within the civil service. In America this subject was considered by Vice President Al Gore’s National Performance Review published in 1993. This initiated reforms to the federal bureaucracy that sought to improve customer service, cut red tape and decrease the number of federal employees. It was estimated that when the Clinton administration left office in 2001, savings of around $136 million had been made arising from the review, including a reduction of around 377,000 federal employees.
Governments influenced by ‘new right’ ideology have been especially interested in civil service reform in recent years. While it would be impossible to chart the directions which civil service reform has taken in various countries, there are certain developments which have occurred widely. We consider some of these common themes in the following sections.
NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
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Insight
Initiatives such as new public management have been responsible for underpinning reforms of the working practices and performance culture of the civil service.
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New public management is the underpinning for a number of reforms which have sought to remodel the way in which public policy is implemented, and it has led to the fragmentation of government, with public policy being implemented by a range of agencies rather than being the preserve of bodies which are arms of the state. This approach is especially identified with the new right.
New public management embraces a number of key features. It is rooted in the new right’s support for the free market, one consequence of which is to question the desirability of service provision by the public sector: this may require those agencies implementing public policy being required to prove which aspects of their work must remain in the public sector with the remainder being transferred to the private sector. It has sought to reorganize the operations of public sector agencies through the use of management techniques associated with the private sector, such as performance indicators, business plans and a shift of emphasis towards the attainment of objectives at the expense of compliance with bureaucratic rules and procedures. It has emphasized the importance of value for money being provided by those who provide public services: this may be secured by a number of initiatives which include procedures to enable the private sector to compete for the right to deliver services that were formerly solely associated with the public sector, through the process of contracting out.
Efficiency, value for money and quality of service are integral aspects of new public management, which seeks to transform citizens into consumers whose power rests not upon the political sanction of accountability but, rather, upon their ability to shop around and go elsewhere if a public service is being provided inefficiently. New public management is also identified with the twin forces of centralization and decentralization: this entails organizational goals being set by central government (whose attainment may also be measured by centrally set performance targets) while leaving their attainment to agency heads who possess considerable operational freedom but who must operate within a budget which is also centrally determined. The delegation of power downwards within organizations is a key aspect of new public management in America.
In the UK, post-1997 Labour governments adopted and developed new public management. They retained many features of new public management (such as targets and performance indicators) but innovations included the introduction of best value to assess efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery and to enhance the quality of service.
Below we consider some of the key reforms that have been underpinned by new public management principles.
EFFICIENCY AND VALUE FOR MONEY
A key aim of new public management is to influence the performance culture of the public sector in order to promote efficiency and value for money. This has required the civil service to demonstrate efficiency and value for money and has been commonly implemented by drawing on a number of management techniques utilized in the world of business by which efficiency can be monitored. These include the specification of departmental objectives and the preparation of performance indicators against which the attainment of objectives can be judged.
In the UK the concern for the elimination of waste and promotion of efficiency resulted in initiatives designed to establish accountable management within departments. This suggestion was made in the Fulton Report in 1968 and was pursued more vigorously following the 1979 general election when emphasis was placed on identifying the activities performed by units within a department in order for ministers to be more fully aware of that body’s overall operations. Such an understanding paved the way for devolving managerial and budgetary responsibility to such units, which could then more easily be held accountable by the minister for the performance of their duties.
During the 1980s the scrutinies conducted by Lord Rayner’s Efficiency Unit, the introduction of the Management Information System for Ministers (MINIS) into the Department of the Environment and the Financial Management Initiative were all concerned with the promotion of efficiency and value for money within central government.
SEPARATION OF POLICY PLANNING AND SERVICE DELIVERY
A second direction which civil service reform has taken has been an attempt to redefine the role and organization of national bureaucracies. Typically, this involved the separation of policy planning from service delivery. There are two main advantages associated with this reform.
First, it gave key civil servants greater ability to engage in long-term planning by placing the day-to-day administration of services into the hands of bodies other than government departments. It has been argued that in the United Kingdom the senior civil service’s preoccupation with administration rather than planning resulted in a dislike of change and innovation. This reform would enhance the capacity of senior civil servants to plan. Second, those responsible for implementing services (usually in ‘agencies’) would exercise a considerable degree of discretion and operational freedom. This would improve the morale and motivation of the staff employed in such work. Within the confines of policy objectives and a budget set by a government department, those who delivered services would be delegated a wide degree of authority as to how they achieved their set goals.
We briefly consider the progress of this reform in the UK.
The ‘Next Steps’ Programme
In 1988, the Ibbs Report recommended that the national bureaucracy should be divided into a central civil service (which would advise ministers and be responsible for strategic planning within a department) and agencies (which would deliver the services within the framework devised by the department’s central civil service). The rationale of this reform was to secure efficiency by freeing service delivery from what was perceived as the stultifying influence of traditional civil service working practices. Those who performed services were to be given a wide degree of discretion as to how they secured the results which were allotted to them. This recommendation was adopted by the government and became known as the ‘Next Steps’ Programme. The objective was for the executive functions of central government to be performed by agencies. These would be headed by a chief executive and staffed by civil servants.
Before an agency is set up, ministers have to agree that the activity needs to be discharged by government. The alternatives of contracting out or privatization must first be considered. The relationship between departments and agencies is defined in a framework agreement. Innovations which were introduced included flexibility in recruitment, the development of pay and grading structures specific to agencies and the req
uirement that such bodies produce business plans and performance targets. Agency chief executives are appointed on fixed-term contracts and are paid bonuses to meet targets.
Agencies exercise an important role within the central machinery of government. In 2000, 60 per cent of civil servants worked in 126 executive agencies, although by 2004 this percentage had fallen to around 53 per cent.
A number of criticisms have been made of the operation of agencies. It has been argued that they are insufficiently accountable for their actions. The convention of individual ministerial responsibility is harder to enforce when a wide range of operational decisions are made by civil servants who operate at arm’s length from effective ministerial control. Further, such reforms tend to undermine the tradition of a unified civil service. The essence of this principle is that civil servants are able to move across departments and work anywhere within the bureaucracy. Such movement is less likely as the innovations referred promote the view that workers are agency rather than government employees.