The U-Turn Trap

Another day, another u-turn by the Government. I don't have a problem with u-turns providing there is a good reason to do so. Good policy is not made by stating publicly what will be done only to find out later the unintended consequences are too great to be acceptable. Good policy is made by quietly suggesting something should be done and then asking other people to look at that suggestion from all angles and then to reach a conclusion on whether it can and should be done and what should be done to reduce unintended consequences. I refer back to my earlier statement in this blog, "No decision is black and white", embrace this concept and seek to confront it and you are halfway there to producing a good policy!

Sadly, this is a case against the adversarial politics as practised in the UK. Standing up and shouting in parliament makes for good TV, but does not necessarily lead to good policies. Good policy is boring and painstaking work. It is detailed cost-benefit analysis backed by the best available information at the time. Sometimes this is not enough because in a democracy, not only should a policy make logical sense, it must be seen to make logical sense by those outside of government. U-turning on what appears to be a large chunk of the policies set out in your last budget (pasty tax, charity caps etc) and indeed on some much bigger policies made in the last two years (which aircraft for the aircraft carriers, the NHS and security reforms etc) is not exactly confidence inspiring!

No doubt many people might say that this is a consequence of coalition government and such debate and scrutiny is healthy. This is a point I would agree with, but there is a world of difference between exploring what is the right policy and that of stating what is the correct policy. To be fair to the coalition, they have tried to show that they are 'consulting' on policy formulation. Sadly this has been clumsy and too often the media has reported that these policies were firm policies and done deals. UK politics is all about shouting loudly and pretending unwarranted confidence on what are complex issues. True democratic leadership is not about dictating to people what will happen, but by convincing them that it will happen that way because it must happen that way to get the best result. True leadership in a democracy also about having the confidence to set out a broad objective which you then expose to scrutiny, including by people opposed to you, which you can then constructively harness to implement your stated objective.

In short, far too often those who comment on government policies are badly informed and do not understand the complex issues behind those policies. They are not helped by government refusing or unable to expose those facts. Sadly, those at the top of government also don't understand the issues and complexities behind their decisions leading to more u-turns, more criticisms and more defensive behaviours thus reducing confidence in them further. It is a vicious circle in which Ministers, parliamentarians, the media and senior civil servants are all complicit. Fixing this problem is not easy and unfortunately there is no sign of the political will to do so.

I leave you with a final point, politics is the only profession where you do not need formal qualifications or demonstrated competence in the subject matter to practice it! Should maybe the Prime Minister (or a delegated panel) conduct proper job interviews before appointing their Ministers? No other profession or business thinks this should not be done so why is politics different and yet our expectations of the political process so high?

Kick starting some economic recovery

In the heart of government, there are some universal golden rules. One of them is that no decision is truly black and white. Everyone has their own opinion and most people will broadly agree on what is the morally right thing to do, but when is comes to making or implementing government policy there is always a side effect or unintended consequence. It could be a well known problem such as giving welfare support to out of work people which unfortunately discourages them from going back to work (called the Welfare Trap by economists) or it could be something more complicated such as offering more lenient sentences to suspected rapists in an attempt to improve conviction rates and spare rape victims the horrifying ordeal of testifying in court. Ian Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is making a big deal of trying to tackle the welfare trap and Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, had to pedal back from his clumsy efforts to gain support for his more lenient sentences idea. Wherever you stand on these issues and whatever opinion people may have, fixing these problems is not black and white - you don’t want unemployed people unable to even feed themselves and their children because they can’t find work and the justice system desperately needs to improve the conviction rates for rape cases, but how do you do it? And then there is the issue of trying to fix the economy…

Significant political bickering is underway in the UK, Europe, the USA and elsewhere about whether it should be austerity or growth, more or less taxes, more or less government spending and so on. So many people claim to know the answer, yet I can’t help but feel that if any of them are proved right by history it will be by accident rather than by truly understanding how to fix the problem. Everyone can see there is a problem, but no one can make a fully logical argument about what will actually work, there are just too many economic variables to take into account. Getting the UK economy (or other troubled economies) to grow again is not a black and white issue no matter what any politician or economist says. What is clear is that the UK population is not confident that the government (or the opposition benches) knows what to do. The French have certainly already demonstrated this lack of confidence by voting out Sarkozy and this pattern is a familiar one across Europe . Conservative and Lib Dem MPs and Ministers are not in a happy place right now, they know that in 2015 they will face electoral wipe out if they have not ‘fixed it’. On the face of it, Labour needs to do nothing more than avoid looking stupid to be able to win that election.

So what would a Machiavellian sort of advisor whisper into the ear of George Osborne, David Cameron or Nick Clegg? What secret trick could there be lurking within the secret file named, “Break glass to kick start the UK economy and win the election”?

I am thinking of an economic concept called ‘Helicopter Money or the Helicopter Drop’. It is a very simple concept. The UK Government and/or the Bank of England simply gives money away to UK citizens and tells them to spend it. They can do this by reducing taxation or by printing more money and giving it away as a lump sum. This may sound familiar and that is because it is, it is called Quantative Easing. But of course, all that money is going to the banks and they are not in the mood for sharing it right now which is part of the problem. So would giving UK citizens the money instead work better?

Looking at the 2011 census results, there are approximately 65 million people in the UK . Not all pay tax, not all work, not all are here legally and not all can vote. To keep things simple, I would favour paying a lump sum to everyone who can vote. Yes children and teenagers do miss out, as do prisoners and immigrants, but this is the easiest way I can think of tracking everyone down to give them the money and thus giving it to people who should be spending it. By law, you have to register to vote (knowing that this sort of gift was coming would make people eager to comply with that law!) and as everyone can only have one vote, thus they should only receive one cheque via this method. Yes there is room for error and yes it can be abused, but these issues would have to be tolerated in the name of the national good. Now back to our 65 million figure. A back of the fag packet calculation (using this source) says around 15 million will be missing out from being too young or not eligible to vote. So that means 50 million people to send cheques to. Let’s say we give them £1000 each and so easy maths says that this is £50 billion ( UK not US billions) of Quantative Easing going direct to UK citizens. Now this is a lot of money, but it is a hell of a lot less than what the Bank of England has already committed to for the banks, £325 billion according to the BBC. Ok so there might be a higher admin cost, but this would again be money spent in the UK employing people to distribute this money, itself not a bad thing and would hardly be billions in itself by using the existing electoral roll.

So the rules for the Helicopter Drop would be simple. If I was the Government, I would say, “Here is £1000, spend it however you want. All we ask is that you spend it in a way that helps the UK economy, your choice on how you do it.” So no buying TVs, Ipads or anything else made in China please! On the other hand, this is not that bad as long as UK consumers use UK retail outlets to buy those products. Guidance could be produced to show that fixing or extending your house, donating to charity, going on a UK holiday, having a gluttonous party or even putting it into a savings account in your bank (thus improving their capital which is what QE is all about) would all help. Sure, rich people who don’t need the money would also benefit and no doubt some people will hide it under the mattress or spend it abroad. But this does not matter, the point is that this is money people are being gifted and we all like to spend our gifts don’t we? The rich may even spend £2000 rather than just £1000. It is all about telling people that it is up to them and giving them the feel good factor to get into the spirit of things.

So the question that needs to be asked, will this actually work? Who knows. I don’t think it could be any worse than the current methods. In fact, I think it can only benefit the UK economy because it gets money flowing again which is what is desperately needed. More money going through the system means companies are more confident and employ more people, where that money goes is not so important, just as long as it goes somewhere in the UK. More importantly for the politicians, it sends a warm message that the Government is going to trust the people to help fix the economy and if it works, the Government gets the credit for being creative and generous. The only remaining question would be when to do it. Not too close to the election as that would look like outright bribery and you need time for it to look like it worked and kick started the economy when it desperately needed it. So, a gift for the Queen’s Jubilee? Next year perhaps? I await with bated breath…

Machiavelli would probably approve, but then he knew his Roman history where the emperors did something similar on a regular basis. Buy the mob, it worked then can it work now? This trick was also done by President Roosevelt during the Great Depression of the 1920s. This cartoon was a pessimistic view of that approach. It didn't work out too bad for the Americans in the end did it...

Being in the civil service

So what is life like in the civil service? A frequent and natural question. I like the phrase civil service. It has a certain mystique about it, but as the phrase implies, civil servants are there to be civil and to serve! Ok, I will stop the silly jokes now, but there is an important point to be made here with that play of words.

To some people, we seem like a faceless and sinister breed able to shape government policy at will, manipulate clueless politicians and to backstab all enemies of good government policy in the name of the national interest in the style of that shown on the fantastic never grows old show, Yes Minister. To others we are feckless and lazy, love red tape, there to build our own little empires and to stop businesses from doing critically important things such as making lots of money. You won’t be surprised to hear me say none of that is true. Well except for the stopping businesses making money bit, but that is only when they are being bad people of course! By the way business leaders, a small tip, there are more important things in life than making lots of money! Like families, friends, health and hobbies… Ah what the hell, just call it having a life! And yes screwing people or the environment is a bad thing. Get a grip on your humanity/morality sometimes! (rant over)

It is well understood that civil servants do not join to make lots of money and in reality very few of them are power hungry. I work in an open plan office and so my response to the question at the top of this blog post is, “If you work in an open plan office and you look around at your co-workers, what do you see?” Lazy people, hard working people, smelly people, loud annoying people, nice people and so on. The civil servant environment is no different in this regards. What does make the civil servant environment different are the expectations placed upon us and the work we do.

The expectations of a civil servant

Do what is right A stupid, common sense statement no? So what happened with those casino bankers? What happened in the case of Trafigura who caused environmental catastrophe in the Ivory Coast? What about A4E who it is alleged their staff systematically worked to defraud UK taxpayers? Civil servants are not meant to be motivated by profit and so they are not motivated to do what makes the balance sheet or shareholder report look good at the end of the financial year, possibly at the expense of others. They make mistakes, as do everyone, but the goal is always to try and do what is right for the UK as a whole. This is important, we are paid for by the taxpayer, we serve them and we are told strategically how to do so by elected politicians representing the will of the UK public. (I will cover the issue of the democratic deficit in the UK in another post)

Treat your staff well If there is one thing I will say a civil servant is likely to do better (on average) than a private sector counterpart it is in managing staff fairly. This is not to say private companies cannot manage staff fairly or well, far from it. This is also not to say no civil servant badly manages staff, that would also not be true. The point I wish to make is that I have been taught as much of UK law as I need to know and I have been taught in no uncertain terms that discrimination, bullying, harassment and so on are unacceptable. In the pressure of a private sector office, these things can sometimes slip by and staff can be too scared talk, in the civil service these negative behaviours are much harder to get away with. Apart from line managers being extensively trained to avoid them, there are plenty of openly advertised routes for scared or bullied staff to raise their fears. A confident organisation is one that is not afraid to look for these problems and to confront them in a fair way. I sincerely believe that if you are from an ethnic minority, gay, a woman or disabled you (as a group) get well treated in the civil service and can compete equally on merit. This is right, the civil service must be seen to uphold best practice and to show the highest standards and where we get it wrong, we always look to fix it rather than brush it under the carpet. I will add a discordant note here that from what I have read in the Private Eye and from conversations with friends and strangers, the NHS is a shameful exception to this expectation from civil servants. No doubt other areas are equally bad, but I am picking on the NHS because it is such an open secret. From my personal experience, I have never had a bad line manager in the civil service. I have known of them, but never had one. Only my experience, granted but it does say something.

Be accountable Possibly one of the hardest things for a non-civil servant to understand. You want us to be transparent in our decision making and in our data? Fine, but understand that this is very time and resource consuming. I am not saying we should not do it, civil servants themselves believe that people must have confidence in the work they do, but when people complain that things takes so long to get done, you can bet that accountability is a big reason why. Need to make a decision on how to spend £100 million? That all needs to be documented, due diligence performed, everyone has to agree, including Ministers, and we have to spend a large chunk of our time answering damn fool questions from MPs in Parliament! All necessary in a democracy, but it comes at a cost and the private sector can move faster than us without this need for accountability, no doubt of that at all.

 Deal with complex problems Much has been made of dubious statistics showing that civil servants are paid more on average than those in the private sector. Since nearly all government departments seem to have outsourced the cleaning and catering work and anything else not judged as 'core business' what do you have left? People who are meant to run billion pound projects, experts in specialist fields and managers who might have to decide things like how much disability severely disabled children get or whether suspected terrorists should be detained for x days without charge. Do you really want to try to pay these people the minimum wage while still getting a good service? Historically, the civil service used to be known as the profession the rich clever kids with good public school education went to. This is no longer as true as it was (a good thing) and while civil servants don't join for the money, they do want to be paid a decent wage. They still need to do complex work dealing with life changing policies or complex technical systems and they know damn well that they can get paid more for this work in the private sector. They may not be rich public schoolboys any more with a good grounding in Latin and Greek, but making and implementing government policy remains a complicated task even if people don't always see it that way. Always remember, almost no government decision is truly black and white, money or effort put into one area or policy is money or resources not going somewhere else and sometimes it is not easy to get the evidence of which cause is more deserving.

Neutrality I am apolitical and I make a deliberate point of not supporting any political party. For me (not everyone) this is important. It does not matter whether I dislike those politicians in charge or whether I disagree with their policies, they were elected and it is my job to implement the policies they were elected on. Because I am not wedded to any political ideology (does not mean I don't have my own opinions) I do not feel compelled to defend any particular policy and I can be man enough to admit I was wrong if someone can come up with the evidence to prove it. And here I will take a pop at the very senior civil service, they are not adhering to this expectation of neutrality as rigidly as they should and the rot is spreading downwards. Successfully being promoted to the top of the civil service should be on the basis of competence and being able to tell Ministers that their policies (like everything else in government) will have certain unintended consequences. I cannot help but look at those at the top and feel that too many of them got there because they kept telling the people above them what they wanted to hear rather than the full truth. Many recent government policies have looked half baked and I think the senior civil service should share in the blame. There can be no doubt that the civil service has been politicised (both Labour and Conservatives are guilty) and this can be seen in the declining performance of government policies. In short, we have lost a precious commodity at the top of the civil service - leadership. I sincerely hope we get it back one day.

The work we do

The great thing about the civil service is that there is so much variety. I will not go into details about what I have done or where I have been, but I can only say that there are some experiences and work areas that money can't buy. I get the opportunity to influence government policy, I have the opportunities to influence foreign governments, I get to meet all sorts of interesting people and to do strange things, I help those who need it the most, I punish the corrupt and the venal (after due process), I see the unvarnished truth behind many newspaper headlines and all this in one career! Now is a demoralising and depressing time to be a civil servant, with politicians, business leaders and newspapers attacking us in all directions for their own agendas and to cover their own mistakes. But I will always have the opportunity to do something interesting and important. I don't have to sit in a depressing office somewhere crunching spreadsheets and doing mundane tasks so that some undeserving chief executive of the company can take home a nice fat bonus.

This for me is what being in the civil service is about. Many of my friends are accountants, lawyers, teachers, nurses, entrepreneurs, but when they talk about work it is as boring as hell more often than not. I have many more interesting work stories to tell and only my very closest friends vaguely know this, but the reality is that I cannot tell them. I can live with that, I am a civil servant and this is what I do. I don't take plaudits and I don't brag or boast or get more than a pat on the back for a job well done. I just go and do what is supposed to be important and the fact that I enjoy the work will just have to be its own reward.

Introduction

Most people have heard of Niccolo Machiavelli, but do they know what a Mandarin is? For those of you who do not know it is what the British call their senior civil servants. A non-elected group of people, traditionally white, middle aged male and middle class and to be found at the heart of government and in charge of their respective government departments. That stereotype is no longer as true as it was, but unfortunately the Mandarins are not as diverse as could be wished. I would know as I am one of them. So was Machiavelli as he was a senior advisor to the rulers of some of the Italian states during the 15th Century.

Machiavelli stands out from what is traditionally a very anonymous group of people, not just because of some of his controversial writings, but because he was a man who sought to provide a critical analysis of the workings of rulers and governments at the time. I have chosen the alias The Machiavellian Mandarin because like him I want to set out a critique of how government is conducted in Britain. Fortunately, unlike Machiavelli, I do not face the risk of being tortured or executed for my criticisms. However, there are some ground rules for this blog.

Ground Rules

I wish to remain anonymous

I do work for the central civil service, but I am not going to reveal which department I work for

I will not be exposing any secrets or blowing the whistle on anything, as a member of the civil service I gave up that right. Everything I talk about in this blog will be common knowledge or on issues exposed in the UK press

All the opinions and writings contained in this blog are my own and not any official government opinion

All constructive comments, criticisms and feedback are welcome