SIR GUS O’DONNELL, the Cabinet Secretary, is to Whitehall what David Cameron is to the Conservative Party. They each epitomise the spirit of modernisation.
The subtitle of Sir Gus’s recent speech, “The Fusion of Historic Values with 21st-Century Dynamism”, could easily have been used by Mr Cameron for his Demos lecture yesterday. The Cabinet Secretary’s main themes, diversity, leadership, skills, capability and governance, could be echoed by the Tory leader.
This is not to suggest any bias on the part of Sir Gus. Far from it. What Sir Gus said at the Guardian Public Services summit was non-partisan. He is trying to combine traditional Civil Service values of objectivity, integrity and impartiality, with a more flexible structure focused on delivery of services.
His three predecessors as Cabinet Secretary, Lords Butler, Wilson and Turnbull, also tried to achieve this balance. But they found it hard both to satisfy the impatience of Tony Blair and his inner circle for change in Whitehall and to provide reassurance that traditional values are being maintained.
Sir Gus has played his hand shrewdly over the past five months since he took over. Like Mr Cameron, he has sought to reposition himself as head of the Civil Service. He has been not only Mr Delivery like Lord Turnbull, launching reviews of capabilities and skills in key departments, but also Mr Reassurance.
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Hence, the new draft Civil Service Code, which he has unveiled. This includes additional protection to make it easier for civil servants to raise concerns if they are asked to act in a way that conflicts with the Code, or they are aware of such actions by others. This includes whistleblowing and going directly to the Civil Service Commissioners. The Code goes some way towards a Civil Service Act, but there is still a case for legislation to provide statutory backing.
But the key question is less about possible breaches of the Code, or exaggerated claims about politicisation, but about the creation of a more flexible in-and-out career structure. Lord Tunrbull talked of “a permanent Civil Service, but not permanent civil servants”. It is desirable to recruit more people from other parts of the public sector or the private sector, as Sir Gus says in an interview in the new issue of Whitehall and Westminster World.
David Bell had the advantage of being a former head teacher and head of the Ofsted inspectorate in handling the sex offenders row in his first two weeks as permanent secretary at the Education Department. Similarly, Peter Housden, the permanent secretary of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, had been the chief executive of a local authority before entering Whitehall, initially to run schools.
But too much interchange with the outside, particularly of officials near the top on short-term, two-to-three-year contracts, could threaten the historic institutional values, and memories, which Sir Gus is trying to preserve.
The admirable goal of objectivity in the Code can be hard to reconcile with either a conviction style of ministers or a relentless focus on delivery. The phrase “Yes, Minister” can lose its ironic ambiguity unless ministers are willing to listen to detached and impartial Civil Service advice.