‘Why is Civil Service reform so hard?’ 

In 1921, W. E. Mosher published ‘The next step in civil service reform’ calling for an administrative agency with power over work relations, conditions, and the environment. At our latest ACE and PCF seminar, members learnt how many of the challenges set out by Mosher over a century ago remain today.  

The Rt Hon Lord Maude of Horsham, former Conservative Minister, has been tasked with conducting a deep dive into how government works and decisions are enacted, leading an independent review on civil service governance and accountability structures.  

During his time in government, Lord Maude was responsible for the delivery of the 2010 ‘Public Bodies Reform Programme’ which sought to increase the efficiency, transparency and accountability of public bodies. In the official assessment of this programme in 2015, the Cabinet Office reported three main outcomes:  

1. A cumulative reduction in administrative spend of £3 billion. 
2. The reduction of the number of public bodies by over 290.  
3. Functions of over 75 bodies moved closer to democratically elected representatives.  

At this private seminar with ACE and PCF members, Lord Maude shared his experience of public body reform and early insight of the findings from his upcoming review. From the member discussion that ensued, three main challenges emerged to enabling public body success: bringing more structure to the public body landscape, applying greater consistency and coherence to public body sponsorship arrangements, and having more clearly defined roles and responsibilities between ministers, sponsoring departments, and public bodies.  

A structured public body landscape  

The taxonomy of the public body landscape is complex. Though there are three main categories for public bodies (executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, and non-departmental public bodies) in reality, governance structures vary significantly between the types of bodies and many agencies remain outside of the official classifications.  

The latest ‘Cabinet Office Review Programme’ addresses this discrepancy instructing departments to still apply the tools and guidance to ‘central government public bodies that have not been administratively classified but which share many of the characteristics of ALBs.’ 

Though a challenging task, a more simple and ordered landscape was considered be a helpful first step for setting up the conditions for public body success. In order to achieve this, members reflected on the importance of setting out clear expectations of the level of independence, or ‘length of the arm’, required by each type of public body.   

Consistency and coherence of sponsorship arrangements  

The majority of public bodies have a sponsoring department, unless they are directly accountable to Parliament. Sponsorship activities include providing financial oversight of the body, agreeing strategy and setting objectives, and management the public appointments process. The number of public bodies sponsored by each department varies, with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, responsible for the most. 

Members described an inconsistency in sponsorship arrangements between departments, some public body leaders meeting regularly with their sponsors, others having little engagement.   

Last year, the Cabinet Office published the ‘Arm’s length body sponsorship code of good practice’ to provide a view of effective sponsorship practice and a new self-assessment model to measure maturity.  

Members discussed that there may be greater opportunity for departmental teams to come together and share good practice.  

They also suggested that greater departmental board scrutiny over public bodies may help to bring public bodies and departments closer together in delivering on key government objectives.   

More clearly defined roles and responsibilities  

Oversight of public bodies is one of the many new responsibilities tasked to incoming ministers. Members considered it helpful that a single source of briefing information – outlining key personnel, objects, and powers – be provided to ministers, to help smooth the induction process. In turn, this would help improve ministerial understanding of the public body landscape.  

Similarly, members suggested that departments be given a single document outlining their sponsorship responsibilities, similar to the framework documents set out for public bodies.  

To ensure that ministers and departments are clearly sited on their roles and responsibilities regarding public bodies, may require greater discipline when deciding whether to set up a new agency. 

What’s next?  

Public body reform is a significant challenge, unlikely to be resolved in the near term. Seminar attendees all agreed on the importance of improving clarity to civil service governance and accountability structures, ensuring a priority focus is maintained on serving the public.   

Alongside Lord Maude’s review, expected for publication later this year, a number of other entities are examining effective public leadership. The latest inquiry announced by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) will explore the civil service leadership and reform.  

Later this year, ACE, PCF and Windsor Leadership will also release insight from recent research to into the future of public leadership.