Scottish Independence - Vision versus pragmatism

If recent surveys are to be believed, the yes campaign for Scottish independence is not doing very well and so political questions are being asked why this is the case. Having met and worked with a fair few Scots over the years, I think I have the answer. For some reason, Scots tend to be very pragmatic. I cannot explain why, maybe it is a cultural trait brought on by the weather!

Actually, I think the SNP and the yes campaign are doing a very poor job of selling their case and as a professional civil servant (with Machiavellian leanings, let's not deny that!) I can recognise some of the tactics the yes campaign is using which is so spectacularly failing. They are too reliant on making the emotional case for independence and they are totally failing to make the pragmatic or hard nosed case that the Scots want to know about. Listen to them when they answer questions, the responses are always about how wonderful and liberating independence would be with Scots choosing their destiny and making their own vision. I think they could just save everyone a lot of waffle and simply say, "vote for independence because we all hate those Conservative/Southern tossers telling us what to do!"

I have never been able to fob off a Scot that I have worked with by giving a vague answer talking about 'vision' or 'choices'. Like I said, they always seem to be very pragmatic and can smell bullshit! The staff members who I count as the best staff I have managed have all been Scottish and I put this down to, in part, their willingness to challenge me and to try and drill down to the facts.

So what 'facts' do the SNP use to support their case for independence as well as their more emotive arguments?

I have paid a fair bit of attention to the debates, both for professional reasons and out of curiosity and I have to confess that as an outsider who is meant to be looking for this sort of detail I cannot even answer that question. Even more of an issue for me is that I have read a bit of SNP sponsored analysis and assessments of what an independent Scotland would mean in a practical sense. I threw all those reports away with disgust, the quality of analysis was so bad. Their is plenty about their 'vision', but absolutely nothing about how they will make that vision a reality.

I should like to use a simple example. When Philip Hammond, then recently made Secretary of State for Defence, was told of Alex Salmond's plan to ask for the Scottish proportion of the armed forces, his response was devastating. "The UK Armed Forces are a highly integrated and very sophisticated fighting force.The idea that you can sort of break off a little bit, like a square on a chocolate bar, and that would be the bit that went north of the border, is frankly laughable." You need to only to have a cursory glance at the UK armed forces to realise that he is right. For a more in-depth analysis of the poor thinking that went into this policy by the SNP, this rather good post from the thinpinstripedline covers it rather well.

But let us move on from those flaws and focus on the parts that matter to the Scots. Reportedly many Scots are anti-nuclear weapons and the SNP are very happy to espouse their 'vision' of Scotland being nuclear weapons free. Of course this really means nuclear submarine free since all the submarines, nuclear armed or otherwise, tend to be supported from the same base. Having set out this 'vision' how do the SNP intend to make it a reality? More importantly, how do they intend to deal with the consequences of this policy? Remember that in politics almost nothing is black and white, there are always consequences. Well believe it or not, the SNP did sponsor a report into this issue. Unfortunately, they seemed to have given it to Greenpeace to do the analysis. It is so bad, I will not even link to it for fear of promoting a travesty of economic analysis! Effectively, the SNP have no plan or even any credible economic figures to even form a plan. Thus the thousands of Scots living on the west coast who directly or indirectly benefit from the millions brought into the local economy by the Clyde naval base would lose a significant source of income. This does not even touch on the likelihood of the British government in a pique of anger at losing the independence vote scrapping naval ship orders and refits conducted at both Glasgow and Rosyth dockyards. What was that about pragmatic Scots and turkeys voting for Christmas..?

This is just defence. Look at SNP policies and (lack of) analysis on various other important issues such as energy generation, economic policies, fishery management, funding the NHS, being a part of Europe... the list goes on. There is a complete lack of anything proving that Scotland would be better off. The Scottish Executive has civil servants, what are they doing? Aren't they drawing up any detailed plans on how to sustain an independent Scotland? Surely they are not going to start doing the work on trying to exploit Scotland's strengths after the date of the referendum with no preparatory work being done beforehand? As a UK civil servant, where do I start if I am told to work with the Scottish civil servants on 'sorting things out'? One of the most frustrating aspects of my job is dealing with people who do not really know what they want. I shudder to think what this would be like on a national scale.

Normally, this lack of detail does not matter in politics and when campaigning on an issue. Good looks, down to earth charm, appealing to emotions and an inspiring oration on how wonderful life will be are the tools of the trade for the competent politician selling their big idea to the electorate. This is the fundamental flaw with democracy, appearance and emotion is everything, substance and hard nosed realism is meaningless. Yet the Scots seem determined to prove this is not the case with them. They may yet teach the other regions in the UK something about democracy during this referendum. Pragmatism and critical analysis have their place in a functioning democracy, lose it at your peril!

Not enough plebs

There can be no doubt that UK politics has entered a very divisive phase with the mainstream press and politicians daily engaging in class war. The Conservative Party is politically vulnerable on this front and so opposition politicians have shed any reluctance in detoxifying politics and are sticking it to the Government every chance they can get.

It seems to be a successful strategy with a Conservative Party unable to manoeuvre itself clear of the political broadsides. Andrew Mitchell's 'pleb' comments really should not have been much of a story. It can hardly be a surprise that current or past Government Ministers of all political shades think little of the 'lower' orders. Yet the whole Mitchell saga fuelled the political narrative of a leadership completely out of touch with the mainstream UK. With so many rich and public school educated people sitting in the Cabinet it seems incredible that Cameron along with the Conservative and Lib Dem leadership seem to totally lack the political survival skills that necessitate more women and 'working' class visibility at the top of Government, but that is what is happening.

At the other end of the scale of the Conservative Party, MPs such as Nadine Dorries, with a more 'humble' background are making a political pigs ear of things. Whether she is going to the jungle of Australia to 'spread politics' or to pocket the £40k fee for making an arse out of herself is open to debate, but it will undoubtedly fuel the belief at the 'upper ranks' of Conservative Party that those plebs within cannot be trusted either. Meanwhile they still have no real strategy of making the Conservatives look more electorable and so they can only pray for an economic miracle, throw out a bevy of clever sounding policies or just give in and make sure they get as much out of being in charge as they can before they are voted out in 2015. Civil servants can only wonder if the latter strategy is being pursued at times due to the incoherent and unpopular policies coming out of No.10, however, like the Labour and Lib Dem politicians they are keeping their heads down and letting the Conservative politicians take the flak.

Class politics has always being prevalent in British politics, but it seems to have reached new levels now. In part this is because there can be no doubt that those at the top are protecting themselves and their friends while enriching themselves at public expense. However, what has made the narrative really acidic is a belief by the UK electorate that the politicians are really making a hash of the UK economy. In recent weeks I have been meeting a lot of business men and women in the course of my duties and I have yet to meet any that thinks the Government knows what it is doing. If they do not believe things are going to get better then it is no wonder that the UK economy is not being led by a private sector recovery. In the meantime the electorate just reads the headlines and despairs.

Unfortunately the civil servants just feel the same way, backed by the fact they can see it happening first hand and with that level of de-motivation, do not expect Government to get any better. You reap what you sow and having castigated the civil service and marginalised those not in the exalted ranks, the politicians are fast running out of lower level support, vitally needed to make their policies happen.

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.