Inquiry into Scottish civil service offers opportunity for real reform with real benefits

There are few parts of Scotland’s public sector which are as maligned by politicians as those advising and supporting SNP/Green ministers within the civil service.

While the criticism is not yet at the level of the attacks on the so-called ‘blob’ in Whitehall, accused of deliberately and surreptitiously standing in the way of Conservative reform and policy, Scottish civil servants working for the Scottish Government face accusations of being politicised.

The SNP, critics claim, have been in power for so long it is inevitable and patently obvious the civil service – those Sir Humphrey-style career mandarins – would become inured to Scottish nationalism. That they would allow the years of working towards nationalist policies to impact their advice, develop a bias and become incapable of stopping the SNP behemoth in its tracks at the right points.

Such criticism is often exaggerated for rhetorical effect, but there are times when genuine controversy and political scandal arise from failures of the civil service and, often, how it records the decisions of Scottish ministers.

Take the investigation into the harassment complaints made against former first minister Alex Salmond. The court case that arose – embarrassing and expensive, both politically and financially – and the subsequent Holyrood inquiry laid out in painful detail the result of a civil service mistake. A detail of process, a cock-up that snowballed into a political crisis that threatened the career of the First Minister.

The ferries fiasco, a damaging scandal that has dragged on for years due to delays and concerns over governance, has also had some of its most dramatic moments around record keeping and civil service advice. The lack of a sufficient explanation as to why former transport secretary Derek Mackay signed off the contract to Ferguson Marine despite the concerns of the ferry procurement body CMAL was the central criticism of Audit Scotland around the ferries.

But Jenny Gilruth, the current transport minister, also found herself in the spotlight when she brandished a piece of paper containing the email signing off on the decision. This, a ministerial confirmation of a significant Government contract, had gone missing, close to impossible to source. That, surely, is not how things should work.

This background sits behind the latest parliamentary inquiry to be launched, this time by the finance and public administration committee. The body plans to look at effective decision-making within government, with a particular focus on the civil service.

A Holyrood committee has launched a new inquiry into the civil service and how it supports government decision-making.

It is understood this has been driven by the committee on a cross-party basis and is not intended to be a hostile attempt to undermine the Scottish Government or those working in it. Instead, it is aiming to understand why certain aspects of governance and decision-making has followed a particular pattern.

One focus will be on whether civil servants are following robust enough procedures around record keeping, asking the question whether the civil service has appropriately modernised to keep up with changing technology and different ways of working. The example of the Ferguson’s agreement is viewed as a good example of a major infrastructure contract, with major political consequences, which lacked decent recording.

The question will be whether modernisation has see a “gradual dilution” of the key basic duties of civil servants in relation to minute taking. This is not only a problem for future politicians when attempting to understand the logic of why decisions were made, but it fundamentally undermines accountability and transparency. The inquiry will seek to answer what effective decision making looks like within the Scottish Government.

There are also questions about the comparative lack of what is known as ministerial directions, when ministers are asking formally for their approval of a policy against civil service advice. These are used regularly elsewhere in Government, but rarely in Scotland.

It will also ask whether there is an acceptable and robust process of “critical challenge” within the civil service. Opposition parties have suggested the civil service has become politicised, lacking the ability to push back on Government policy where appropriate and instead simply saying ‘yes’. Others argue the civil service prefer a clear political direction, sitting otherwise in neutral, getting nothing done given the lack of a clear aim or goal.

The question is on the quality of the advice, in terms of the evidence it was based on, the due diligence surrounding it, and whether too many junior civil servants are doing the work previously expected of wiser, more experienced colleagues.

Kenny Gibson, the finance committee convener, said public administration is at the “heart” of the committee’s remit. He said: “It will be the first time a Holyrood committee has looked at the inner workings of the Government in this way. We’ll seek to identify the skills and key principles necessary to support an effective Government decision-making process.”

Sarah Davidson, chief executive at Carnegie UK and former director-general for Organisational Development and Operations at the Scottish Government, said the role of public administration is “fundamentally important” to ensure “good government and good outcomes for citizens”.

She said: “Civil servants have a critical role to play in analysing evidence and presenting it to ministers in ways that support good decision-making. More transparency and clarity about this process will be good for the democratic wellbeing of Scotland.

"There’s a widely recognised implementation gap between policy and practice in Scotland. And if this parliamentary inquiry closes the distance between what is promised and what is delivered, then it will be worth the time and effort committed by MSPs many times over.”

Davidson raised issues around the National Performance Framework, the Government’s overriding guiding principles to help decision-making and budget setting, saying it was often misunderstood or unknown, something that should be improved.

A key aspect of this inquiry will also ask whether the Government is learning the lessons of mistakes adequately to ensure improvement, and whether there are appropriate roles and structures in place on a corporate level to ensure advice and decision-making, particularly delegated decision-making, is robust.

Reforming these aspects of Scottish public life could have significant benefits in the long run. If recommendations come out of this inquiry telling the Government to formalise and modernise record keeping to an extent where the mistakes of the Ferguson’s contract don’t get lost to time again, there are only benefits for wider politics.

Understanding whether the civil service is up to scratch or whether it is also a victim of a squeeze on staffing levels and on expertise will also be telling. It is right the Government should receive the best advice possible from the best and brightest. After all, it is politicians whose careers rely on it.

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