The Blair-Brown administrations have had 13 years of personal in-fighting. I recall a conversation with a senior civil servant in 1997, shortly after Labour came to power. He said that he did not know how Labour would work out “because they hate each other so much”. We then had ten years of Tony Blair’s sofa Government, in which the Prime Minister governed with the advice and support of his cronies, of whom Alastair Campbell was the most powerful.
In those days Gordon Brown was a constant threat to Mr Blair, a hostile force as Chancellor who blocked the Prime Minister’s proposals for new Labour reforms. The two men hated each other, but Mr Blair was a brilliant electoral campaigner, which Mr Brown is not. Despite an ill-organised administration, Mr Blair was able to win three successive elections.
Throughout this period the personal relations between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor were abysmal, but the departmental relations between Downing Street and the Treasury were more or less held together by the loyalty of senior civil servants. They hoped the situation would improve when Mr Blair retired. They expected a return to business-like government, in which the papers would be circulated, the appropriate people would be consulted and normal government would be resumed.
In this period of optimism, a new body was founded to study the system of government. The founder was Lord Sainsbury of Turville, who had been a long-serving and successful Labour minister and Labour’s largest donor. The Institute for Government recruited advisers with great experience in the Civil Service and has an academic rather than a political view of the issues of administration.
At the time of its founding I had the opportunity of discussing its functions with Lord Sainsbury, and I went to the first public meeting. I came to the conclusion that the institute would be a very useful forum for public and private discussions of government, rather along the lines of Chatham House. I did not expect the institute to provide any great shocks for governments.
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In that I was mistaken. Today the institute is publishing a report, “Shaping Up: A Whitehall for the Future”. This report is based on the evidence of 60 senior civil servants. Its conclusions are all the more devastating for being carefully worded in the Civil Service tradition. The report was overseen by Sir Michael Bichard, a former permanent secretary. An advance copy was published in yesterday’s Sunday Times.
The central criticism of the present structure of administration in Britain is that there is a “conspicuous lack of a single coherent strategy for government”. The administration is described as “weak”, “dysfunctional”, and as having “a strategic gap at its heart”. Some of the detail, derived from the evidence of the 60, is even more biting.
“Downing Street,” it is said, “lacks a coherent strategy, and is reduced to issuing ‘barmy ideas’ as it squabbles with the Treasury. The Treasury has given up on its duty to control public spending because it has been ‘hi-jacked and turned in to a social policy department, a welfare department, a reducing international debt department and everything under the sun’.”
One of the witnesses, who is said to have worked for every prime minister since Margaret Thatcher, said that the “bunker mentality” was worse than under previous prime ministers. “With Blair they did invite you to meetings, but not with Brown. They contracted in to a little bunker . . . you just get orders from Downing Street, not consultation and that is continuing today.”
The timing of the report must be significant. The general election is about four months away. The start of the campaign is only about two months away. This report might have some affect on the voting, but the senior figures at the institute must have accepted the risk that the report could be read as too partisan. The advantage of the timing is that it comes when the Conservative Party look like winning the election; the report will provide a Conservative government with a blue print for better administration. It will give the next government a couple of months to consider what are serious, experience-based, proposals.
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No one can forecast how new ministers will react to the pressures and opportunities of government. I had doubts about Mr Brown’s temperament before he became Prime Minister but I never thought he would be so indecisive or so little able to hold a government together.
My impression is that David Cameron will be a more professional prime minister than either Mr Blair or Mr Brown. He seems to have a stable but decisive temperament and a preference for orderly administration. Lord Sainsbury’s institute has provided him with a clear outline of what the Civil Service would regard as desirable. Certainly, civil servants would want a good relationship between Downing Street and the Treasury; certainly they would also want a clear strategy. Cameron would be in sympathy with this. He takes a rational approach.
A proper reform of administration will depend on the Conservatives winning with an overall majority. The latest YouGov poll at 40-31-18 between Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats would make the Conservatives the largest party, but might not give them an overall majority. It would, however, get rid of Gordon Brown, who has not proved to be a satisfactory Prime Minister.