Leadership is a hurrah word. Like democracy and efficiency it attracts widespread support; however, again as with democracy and efficiency, it cannot easily be taught.
Its meaning can be different in different contexts and different circum-stances. It is a term capable of various definitions and can be used to justify a wide variety of actions. All these general comments apply in both public administration and in management in other contexts, but this article will consider its relevance in the public sector.
Richard A Chapman
In discussions about leadership in the British civil service there has been conti-nuity in the attitudes of politicians from the latter years of the Thatcher premiership into the years of the Blair premiership. This can be seen in the Next Steps report (Efficiency Unit, 1988). It said that many people had told the scrutiny that 'too few senior civil servants showed the qualities of leadership which would be expected from top managers in organisations outside the Civil Service'.
The report focused on some main problems which, it said, needed 'leadership, and commitment to change from ministers and the senior civil service if they are to be dealt with' Indeed, 'senior managers … must be prepared to show real qualities of leadership, the ability to back their judgment and to take and defend unpopular decisions' .
In more recent times the modernising government report said 'we must … move away from the risk-averse culture inherent in government' , and 'remove unnecessary bureaucracy which prevents public servants from experimenting, innovating and delivering a better product'.
Strong leadership from all public service managers
It stressed that 'all this requires strong leadership from the top and from all public service managers'. In fact, in the British political system, this requires much thought and preparation if the leadership expectations are to be accommodated and implemented. Public servants after all work in a political environment constrained by the requirements of democracy, primary amongst them being the need for accountability.
One of the consequences of this constitutional position, a position formalised in the statement on ministerial responsibility by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe in 1954, is that the executive arrangements in British government are bureaucratic – that is, consistent with the characteristics of an ideal bureaucracy as outlined by Max Weber.
Barry J O'Toole
There is a hierarchy of accountability from the most junior civil servants through their superiors up to, eventually, the permanent secretary and from the permanent secretary to ministers who are answerable to Parliament and its committees. Then, not less frequently than once every five years, the government is answerable to the people, at a general election. This is what is generally known as representative democracy.
The system is, however, more complex than at first appears and, particularly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, it has led to increasingly complex arrangements to ensure that the accountability of officials is clear when they are engaged in implementing government policies. In the past ministers were answerable to Parliament and its committees; officials did not personally defend their actions in Parliament, but they were defended there by ministers.
In committees (such as the estimates committee and the public accounts committee) ministers also defended the work of their departments, but often civil servants were called to account for their work.
In the second half of the 20th century the parliamentary system became increas-ingly complex, with the creation of specialist select committees. Progressively, it was recognised that officials should defend themselves when detailed matters of policy implementation were under consideration.
Officials, after all, filled out the details of policy and managed policies. Indeed, it was here that their expertise was in more demand; it was here that leadership opportunities were most evident; and ministers who held particular offices for only short periods were not normally as well informed about policy details as their permanent officials whose working lives were dedicated to public service.
Constitutional adjustments were therefore made in practice and reinterpretations were accommodated. The ultimate sanction available to the public accounts committee was to surcharge officials, but in practice this sanction was not used after 1919. This did not mean, however, that Parliament, its select committees and other inquiries were ineffective.
A fine line between policy and administration
Just as there is often a fine line between policy and administration, there may also be a fine line between the display of leadership in public administration and exceeding powers that should be constrained by the political environment.
There are constitutional, political and practical checks that restrain the abuse of powers, whether or not the motivation is to exercise leadership. In 1970, Sir William Armstrong, the head of the Home Civil Service, was questioned about his personal attitude to exercising the con-siderable power he had. In answer, he explained that for him being answerable to oneself was the greatest taskmaster. He added: "I am accountable to my own ideal of a civil servant".
A second example of a check on leadership by civil servants was given by RWL Wilding, when in charge of the management group in the Civil Service department. He gave his personal view of the professional ethic of the administrator. He said it was necessary to distinguish energy from commitment: "it is absolutely necessary to pursue today's policy with energy; it is almost equally necessary in order to survive, to withhold from it the last ounce of commitment" .
Nevertheless there has been considerable scope for leadership to be exercised by civil servants: it is a form of leadership, however, that is consistent with the constraints as well as with the opportunities of work in the civil service. One way in which civil servants have demonstrated leadership in the constitutional context is by the standards they set and by the quality of decisions they make.
The traditional approach to successful leadership in the British civil service looks in two directions. On the one hand, it relates to other civil servants who regard particular individuals as leaders because of their positions at the top of a hierarchy, combined with the esteem in which they are held by other officials.
On the other hand, it relates to the wider context, the political and constitutional context, in which senior civil servants work. It is in this context that civil servants and ministers inter-relate and develop criteria for recognising particular people as leaders. Ministers can recognize civil service leaders and civil servants can recognize ministerial leaders.
However, parliamentarians may ask questions or take other action in Parliament, querying or challenging any government department; therefore, 'proper records must be kept so that it might be ascertained what decision was reached, why, and by whom'.
Moreover, it is also desirable to have such records for departmental reasons: in case the Minister or his civil servants should forget what decision was reached; to encourage care and responsibility in reaching decisions; and so that everybody (including the minister) is committed and responsibility cannot well be shifted, which is only fair to everyone concerned.
'Sofa government'
The 2004 Butler Report into intelligence gathering prior to the Iraq War provides ample evidence of why such considerations are important Lord Butler referred to the approaches adopted by the Blair administration as 'sofa government'.
One of his main criticisms, indeed, was that the informal nature of decision-making in relation to the Iraq war 'made it much more difficult for members of the Cabinet outside the small circle directly involved to bring their political judgement and experience to bear on the major decisions for which the cabinet as a whole must carry responsibility'. This, he argued, had 'lessened the support of the machinery of government for the collective responsibility of the cabinet'.
These observations are, of course, directly related to the intelligence about the Iraq war; but Lord Butler was concerned with a more general situation in which decisions are confined to small groups of directly involved ministers and officials meeting informally and apparently without minute takers. He thought this inimical to collective decision making and to the effective coordination of government activities .
Such approaches seem to have evolved because the government believed that 'business practices' are more efficient for the dispatch of government activities. They sit easily with the 'can-do' approach adopted by Margaret Thatcher, a view of government as if it were indeed a business. The niceties of consultation, discussion, recording – all factors in the traditional style of public administration - and all necessary for the political leadership of ministers in British government – are apparently inimical to the efficiency of government. The relationship between ministers and civil servants has fundamentally changed.
Politicians, argued Herbert Morrison (1954) in his illuminating book, Government and Parliament, should be accountable, but 'sometimes we can be so frightened by the process of accountability, we opt for inertia'.
Nevertheless, the civil service and civil servants in the future should display the following characteristics, characteristics that had enabled many successful examples of policy initiatives: A sense of ambition, including crucially the belief that apparently intractable problems can be solved; a relentless focus on outcomes; clarity including the application of pro-gramme and project management techniques that have transformed business; urgency including finding out quickly what's working and what isn't and adapting accordingly; and finally seeing things through until change is irreversible.
In an accompanying document, published by the Cabinet Office, details emerged about how the Prime Minister's vision was to come about. In essence, it would depend on 'visible leadership' from the most senior officials in government.
As noted in the introduction to this article, leadership is a nebulous concept, which can mean different things to different people at different times. It is clear that what is meant by leadership now in the British civil service is not about traditional modes of encouragement, support and morale boosting – an almost military concept, befitting an institution that one of its great past leaders regarded as 'the fourth service of the Crown'.
It is rather about equipping civil servants for new roles, roles summarised in one word, 'delivery'. This is encapsulated both in the Senior Civil Service Top Leadership Programme and in the most recent civil service reform initiatives emanating from the Cabinet Office, or that part of it called the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, the so called 'Capability Reviews'.
Leadership, however, seems largely to be a matter of what might be called corporate governance. This can be seen in the various measures that have been taken to strengthen the leadership capacity throughout the civil service, including, for example: implementing a 'new leadership framework for the senior civil service', in which 'all senior civil service staff are assessed against common and challenging standards for leadership'.
There are superficial signs that the administration led by Gordon Brown might be inclined to a more traditional view of the relationship between minsters and their officials. For example, one of Brown's first acts as Prime Minister was to withdraw the 1997 Order in Council that gave management powers to a lim-ited number of special advisers.
This symbolic act seems to have been reinforced by the reluctance of new ministers to make important announcements except in Parliament. Gordon Brown himself devoted his first major speech in Parliament to constitutional reform, and emphasized in particular reinforcing the neutrality of the civil service and removing from the discretion of the executive the core values governing it.
These changes together could mark a shift in the way leadership is regarded under the new government. It may even be that the idea of ministerial responsibility might re-emerge as one of the fundamental mechanisms by which government is managed.
It is also the case, however, that the new prime minister has indicated his commitment to public service reform, continuing the processes begun by his pre-decessor.
Richard A Chapman is emeritus professor of politics, Durham University
Barry J O'Toole is Professor of Government at the University of Glasgow
This article is an edited extract from Leadership in the British Civil Service, an interpretation. Download a PDF version by clicking here
