The Complete Yes Minister

by Jonathan Lynn

  ‘What do they do?’ I asked.

  Humphrey was obviously expecting this question. He promptly handed me a list. A list comprising all the administrative departments and what they do — with or without patients. Extraordinary.

  1. Contingency Planning Department

  For strikes, air raids, nuclear war, fire epidemics, food or water poisoning, etc. In such a crisis your local general hospital will become a key centre for survival.

  2. Data and Research Department

  Currently this department is conducting a full-scale demographic survey of the catchment area. This is to enable the hospital to anticipate future requirements for maternity, paediatrics, geriatrics and the male/female balance.

  3. Finance

  Projected accounts, balance sheets, cash flow estimates depending on such variables as admission levels, inflation rate, local and national funding etc.

  4. Purchasing Department

  To purchase medical and other supplies, obtain estimates, review current and future catalogues and price lists.

  5. Technical Department

  For evaluating all proposed equipment purchases and comparing cost-effectiveness.

  6. Building Department

  To deal with the Phase Three building plans, the costing, the architectural liaison, and all other work necessary to complete the final phase of the hospital by 1994.

  7. Maintenance

  Maintenance of both the hospital structure itself, and the highly complex and expensive medical and technical equipment contained therein.

  As an economy measure, this department also includes the Cleaning Department.

  8. Catering

  This department is self-explanatory.

  9. Personnel

  A very busy department, dealing with leave, National Health Insurance, and salaries. Naturally this department contains a number of staff welfare officers, who are needed to look after over 500 employees.

  10. Administration

  The typing pool, desks, stationery, office furniture and equipment, liaison between departments, agreeing on routine procedures.

  I couldn’t tell as I read this (and tonight I still can’t) if Humphrey was playing a practical joke. Department 10 contains administrators to administrate other administrators.

  I read it carefully, then I studied his face. He appeared to be serious.

  ‘Humphrey,’ I said, very slowly and carefully. ‘There-are-no-patients! That-is-what-a-hospital-is-for! Patients! Ill-people! Healing-the-sick!’

  Sir Humphrey was unmoved. ‘I agree, Minister,’ he said, ‘but nonetheless all of these vital tasks listed here must be carried on with or without patients.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  He looked blank. ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’ I repeated.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  I tried to rack my brains, to see how else I could put it. I finally gave up.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Minister,’ he said, ‘would you get rid of the Army just because there’s no war?’

  A completely specious argument, and I told him so. He asked me how I would define specious. I dodged the question, and hurriedly pointed out that hospitals are different. Hospitals must get results!

  At last I appeared to have shocked him. He was completely shaken out of his complacency.

  ‘Minister,’ he said earnestly, ‘we don’t measure our success by results, but by activity. And the activity is considerable. And productive. These 500 people are seriously overworked — the full establishment should be 650.’ He opened his briefcase. ‘May I show you some of the paperwork emanating from St Edward’s Hospital?’

  That was the last thing I wanted to see.

  ‘No you may not,’ I replied firmly. ‘Enough is enough. Sack them all.’

  He refused point-blank. He said it was impossible. He repeated that if we lost our administrators the hospital would never open. So I told him just to sack the ancillary workers. He said the unions wouldn’t wear it.

  I compromised. I instructed him to sack half the administrators and half the ancillary workers. I told him to replace them with medical staff and open a couple of wards. I also told him that it was my last word on the subject.

  He tried to keep the discussion going. I wouldn’t let him. But he seemed worryingly complacent about the whole situation, and as he left he said he would have a word with the Health Service unions. He held out little hope that such a solution were possible.

  I’m beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland.

  [Later that week Sir Humphrey Appleby had a meeting with Brian Baker, the General Secretary of the Confederation of Administrative Unions. It seems to have taken place privately, over a glass of sherry, after another meeting in Sir Humphrey’s office. Most unusually, Sir Humphrey appears to have made no notes, memos or references to the meeting, not even in his private diary. This suggests that he regarded the discussion as potentially highly embarrassing. Fortunately, however, Brian Baker referred to this secret discussion at the next meeting of his Union’s National Executive, and his account of it appears in the minutes — Ed.]

  Any Other Business:

  Mr Baker reported a highly confidential meeting to the Executive Committee. He had had a talk with Sir Humphrey Appleby, Permanent Secretary of the DAA, which they had both agreed should remain completely confidential and just between themselves. Sir Humphrey had raised the matter of St Edward’s Hospital. Mr Baker had indicated that he was prepared to take a soft line in these negotiations; he felt that we had not much of a case. It could be hard to argue that the government should keep ancillary staff on indefinitely in an empty hospital.

  Sir Humphrey accused Mr Baker of defeatism, and ordered him to stick up for his members. Mr Baker reported that he was initially surprised by this suggestion, until Sir Humphrey pointed out that the 342 administrators must have some workers to administer — or they too would be on the dole.

  Mr Baker was surprised at this indication that Sir Humphrey might be forced to lay off some civil servants. But as Sir Humphrey had said to him ‘we live now in strange and disturbing times’.

  Mr Baker asked if Sir Humphrey would support the union if we took industrial action. Sir Humphrey pointed out that he is charged with keeping the wheels of government in motion, and could not possibly countenance a show of solidarity.

  Nevertheless, he hinted that he would not come down heavy on a widespread and effective show of opposition from our members.

  Mr Baker wanted to know where the Minister stood on this matter. Sir Humphrey explained that the Minister does not know his ACAS from his NALGO.

  Mr Baker then indicated that, if he was to cause effective disruption, he needed some active help and support from Sir Humphrey. What with the hospital empty for fifteen months and no hope of opening any wards for another year or more, he informed Sir Humphrey that our members were resigned and apathetic.

  Sir Humphrey asked if Billy Fraser was resigned or apathetic. At first Mr Baker thought Sir Humphrey did not realise that Fraser is at Southwark Hospital. But Sir Humphrey indicated that he could soon be transferred to St Edward’s.

  The Assistant General Secretary commented that this is good news. We can do much to improve our members’ pay and conditions at St Edward’s if there is some real shop-floor militancy to build on.

  Finally, Mr Baker reported that Sir Humphrey escorted him out of the door, offering good wishes to his fraternal comrades and singing ‘we shall overcome’.

  The Executive Commitee urged Mr Baker to keep a close eye on Sir Humphrey Appleby in all future negotiations because of the possibility either that he’s a traitor to his class or that he’s going round the twist.

  Brian Baker, General Secretary of the Confederation of Administrative Unions, relaxing after a successful meeting of his National Executive Committee (Reproduced by kind permission of his grandson)

  [Hacker’s diary continues — Ed.]

  March 25th


  Today I paid an official visit to St Edward’s Hospital. It was a real eye-opener.

  The Welcoming Committee — I use the term in the very broadest sense, because I can hardly imagine a group of people who were less welcoming — were lined up on the steps.

  I met Mrs Rogers, the Chief Administrator, and an appalling Glaswegian called Billy Fraser who rejoices in the title of Chairman of the Joint Shop Stewards Negotiating Committee. Mrs Rogers was about forty-five. Very slim, dark hair with a grey streak — a very handsome Hampstead lady who speaks with marbles in her mouth.

  ‘How very nice to meet you,’ I said to Fraser, offering to shake his hand.

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ he snarled.

  I was shown several empty wards, several administrative offices that were veritable hives of activity, and finally a huge deserted dusty operating theatre suite. I enquired about the cost of it. Mrs Rogers informed me that, together with Radiotherapy and Intensive Care, it cost two and a quarter million pounds.

  I asked her if she was not horrified that the place was not in use.

  ‘No,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Very good thing in some ways. Prolongs its life. Cuts down running costs.’

  ‘But there are no patients,’ I reminded her.

  She agreed. ‘Nonetheless,’ she added, ‘the essential work of the hospital has to go on.’

  ‘I thought the patients were the essential work of the hospital.’

  ‘Running an organisation of five hundred people is a big job, Minister,’ said Mrs Rogers, beginning to sound impatient with me.

  ‘Yes,’ I spluttered, ‘but if they weren’t here they wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘What?’

  Obviously she wasn’t getting my drift. She has a completely closed mind.

  I decided that it was time to be decisive. I told her that this situation could not continue. Either she got patients into the hospital, or I closed it.

  She started wittering. ‘Yes, well, Minister, in the course of time I’m sure…’

  ‘Not in the course of time,’ I said. ‘Now. We will get rid of three hundred of your people and use the savings to pay for some doctors and nurses so that we can get some patients in.’

  Billy Fraser then started to put in his two penn’orth.

  ‘Look here,’ he began, ‘without those two hundred people this hospital just wouldn’t function.’

  ‘Do you think it’s functioning now?’ I enquired.

  Mrs Rogers was unshakeable in her self-righteousness. ‘It is one of the best-run hospitals in the country,’ she said. ‘It’s up for the Florence Nightingale award.’

  I asked what that was, pray.

  ‘It’s won,’ she told me proudly, ‘by the most hygienic hospital in the Region.’

  I asked God silently to give me strength. Then I told her that I’d said my last word and that three hundred staff must go, doctors and nurses hired, and patients admitted.

  ‘You mean, three hundred jobs lost?’ Billy Fraser’s razor-sharp brain had finally got the point.

  Mrs Rogers had already got the point. But Mrs Rogers clearly felt that this hospital had no need of patients. She said that in any case they couldn’t do any serious surgery with just a skeleton medical staff. I told her that I didn’t care whether or not she did serious surgery — she could do nothing but varicose veins, hernias and piles for all I cared. But something must be done.

  ‘Do you mean three hundred jobs lost,’ said Billy Fraser angrily, still apparently seeking elucidation of the simple point everybody else had grasped ten minutes ago.

  I spelt it out to him. ‘Yes I do, Mr Fraser,’ I replied. ‘A hospital is not a source of employment, it is a place to heal the sick.’

  He was livid. His horrible wispy beard was covered in spittle as he started to shout abuse at me, his little pink eyes blazing with class hatred and alcohol. ‘It’s a source of employment for my members,’ he yelled. ‘You want to put them out of work, do you, you bastard?’ he screamed. ‘Is that what you call a compassionate society?’

  I was proud of myself. I stayed calm. ‘Yes,’ I answered coolly. ‘I’d rather be compassionate to the patients than to your members.’

  ‘We’ll come out on strike,’ he yelled.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears. I was utterly delighted with that threat. I laughed in his face.

  ‘Fine,’ I said happily. ‘Do that. What does it matter? Who can you harm? Please, do go on strike, the sooner the better. And take all those administrators with you,’ I added, waving in the direction of the good Mrs Rogers. ‘Then we won’t have to pay you.’

  Bernard and I left the battlefield of St Edward’s Hospital, I felt, as the undisputed victors of the day.

  It’s very rare in politics that one has the pleasure of completely wiping the floor with one’s opponents. It’s a good feeling.

  March 26th

  It seems I didn’t quite wipe the floor after all. The whole picture changed in a most surprising fashion.

  Bernard and I were sitting in the office late this afternoon congratulating ourselves on yesterday’s successes. I was saying, rather smugly I fear, that Billy Fraser’s strike threat had played right into my hands.

  We turned on the television news. First there was an item saying that the British Government is again being pressured by the US Government to take some more Cuban refugees. And then — the bombshell! Billy Fraser came on, and threatened that the whole of the NHS in London would be going on strike tonight at midnight if we laid off workers at St Edward’s. I was shattered.

  [We have been fortunate to obtain the transcript of the television news programme in question, and it is reproduced below — Ed.]

  Humphrey came in at that moment.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you’re watching it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said through clenched teeth. ‘Humphrey, you told me you were going to have a word with the unions.’

  ‘I did,’ he replied. ‘But well, what can I do?’ He shrugged helplessly. I’m sure he did his best with the unions. But where has it got us?

  I asked him what we were supposed to do now.

  But Humphrey had come, apparently, on a different matter — of equal urgency. Another bombshell, in fact!

  ‘It looks as if Sir Maurice Williams’ independent enquiry is going to be unfavourable to us,’ he began.

  I was appalled. Humphrey had promised me that Williams was sound. He had told me that the man wanted a peerage.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ murmured Sir Humphrey, embarrassed, looking at his shoes, ‘he’s also trying to work his peerage in his capacity as Chairman of the Joint Committee for the Resettlement of Refugees.’

  I enquired if there were more Brownie points in refugees than in government enquiries.

  He nodded.

  I pointed out that we simply haven’t got the money to house any more refugees.

  Then came bombshell number three! The phone rang. It was Number Ten.

  I got on the line. I was told rather sharply by a senior policy adviser that Number Ten had seen Billy Fraser on the six o’clock news. By ‘Number Ten’ he meant the PM. Number Ten hoped a peace formula could be found very soon.

  As I was contemplating this euphemistic but heavy threat from Downing Street, Humphrey was still rattling on about the boring old Cuban refugees. Sir Maurice would be satisfied if we just housed a thousand of them, he said.

  As I was about to explain, yet again, that we haven’t the time or the money to open a thousand-bed hostel… the penny dropped!

  A most beautiful solution had occurred to me.

  A thousand refugees with nowhere to go. A thousand-bed hospital, fully staffed. Luck was on our side after all. The symmetry was indescribably lovely.

  Humphrey saw what I was thinking, of course, and seemed all set to resist. ‘Minister,’ he began, ‘that hospital has millions of pounds’ worth of high-technology equipment. It was built for sick British, not healthy foreigners. There is a huge Health Service waiting
list. It would be an act of the most appalling financial irresponsibility to waste all that investment on…’

  I interrupted this flow of hypocritical jingoistic nonsense.

  ‘But…’ I said carefully, ‘what about the independent enquiry? Into our Department? Didn’t you say that Sir Maurice’s enquiry was going to come down against us? Is that what you want?’

  He paused. ‘I see your point, Minister,’ he replied thoughtfully.

  I told Bernard to reinstate, immediately, all the staff at St Edward’s, to tell Sir Maurice we are making a brand-new hospital available to accommodate a thousand refugees, and to tell the press it was my decision. Everyone was going to be happy!

  Bernard asked me for a quote for the press release. A good notion.

  ‘Tell them,’ I said, ‘that Mr Hacker said that this was a tough decision but a necessary one, if we in Britain aim to be worthy of the name of… the compassionate society.’

  I asked Humphrey if he was agreeable to all this.

  ‘Yes Minister,’ he said. And I thought I detected a touch of admiration in his tone.

  9 The Death List

  March 28th

  It’s become clear to me, as I sit here for my usual Sunday evening period of contemplation and reflection, that Roy (my driver) knows a great deal more than I realised about what is going on in Whitehall.

  Whitehall is the most secretive square mile in the world. The great emphasis on avoidance of error (which is what the Civil Service is really about, since that is their only real incentive) also means that avoidance of publication is equally necessary.

  As Sir Arnold is reported to have said some months ago, ‘If no one knows what you’re doing, then no one knows what you’re doing wrong.’

  [Perhaps this explains why government forms are always so hard to understand. Forms are written to protect the person who is in charge of the form — Ed.]

  And so the way information is provided — or withheld — is the key to running the government smoothly.