When I was a civil servant friends sometimes asked how it was possible to work for governments of different political persuasions
I sometimes struggled to answer at first. In fact I sometimes wondered if there was something wrong with me, that I did not have any overriding conviction about which side was Right in all respects
A blog is not the place for a detailed discussion but the answer I think falls into 2 main parts
First, there is something called good administration. Which overlaps with what people these days call management, but is different in subtle ways. Not least because, in the world of commercial business, there is always the bottom line to judge whether you ultimately stand or fail. It is much harder to judge whether administrators are doing a good job. We have learned that the size of your budget is not a good guide – though politicians still like to boast about theirs. And performance indicators & targets have turned out to be not at all uncomplicated either
The second reason why a civil servant can have great respect for their political masters is that they are the ones who have stood for election, who have gone out & said to the people, Here is what I want to do, vote for me
We all hope that in sometimes cooperating with a policy which we may well think unwise, or wrong headed, we will not in retrospect find ourselves saying I was only obeying orders
We can all resign if asked to go too far. The problem is that things usually build up by gradual degrees
I once heard an ex-Permanent Secretary being interviewed on this point. He said for him it would be if a government tried to suspend habeas corpus in peace time. My reaction was Its a bit late then
The other part that seems to be misunderstood, particularly by outsiders but also sometimes by ministers themselves, is the duty to advise & to warn, to consider possible ways in which the proposed course of action may not produce the intended results, or may conflict with another of the governments stated aims
And then - when all the arguments which show that this is obviously the best of all possible policies in the best of all possible worlds have been honed & polished, to consider Yes, but what is the opposition - Treasury, Parliament or media - going to say?
Far better to work out the answers inside the department than to face them for the first time in the heat of the Newsnight studio
