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How has the Whitehall engine been coping with the blizzard of change introduced by coalition ministers? Jonathon Werran takes a look under the bonnet Six months after the strained birth of the current Government, and with the nation snow-bound, it seems hard to recall the sunny Whitehall garden scene where two youthful leaders ushered in what cynics soon labelled the ‘Brokeback Coalition.' Within this brief period of time, the Programme for Government has heralded such a relentless whirlwind of activity and announcements that some commentators have re-dubbed it the ‘Breakneck Coalition'. The Whitehall machine, rigorously prepared by Cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, served as a skilful midwife during those strange days in May. But, with PM David Cameron expending his entire political capital with the ruthless demeanour of a hormonally-imbalanced, Home Counties housewife bidding for a Heston Blumenthal Christmas pudding kit on eBay, how well is the ‘Rolls Royce' engine of government holding up? Permanent secretaries and senior officials are variously helping ministers re-cast the welfare system to deliver a single, universal benefit; transfer control of £70bn health funding from primary care trusts to GPs; establish a new breed of ‘free schools', and reform criminal justice. As if this wasn't challenge enough, they are undertaking this radical programme while departmental administrative budgets are cut by one-third. Set against an £81bn overall programme of spending cuts designed to eliminate the structural deficit within the lifetime of Parliament, this has naturally forced changes to how departments operate. Addressing the public administration after the Comprehensive Spending Review, Sir Gus advised: ‘Don't carry on doing things the way you were doing them before, but think quite innovatively.' In the new climate, achieving value for money is fused with the macro-economic challenge of reducing the deficit – something senior officials had been preparing for, well in advance of the election. As a civil service priority, this comes second only to making the coalition government work effectively. How senior officials will inspire their staff to drive change is another matter. The latest quarterly workforce survey by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development showed only 16% of public sector staff trust them. This can hardly be thought surprising in the civil service, where large-scale downsizing plans await only the parliamentary progress of the Superannuation Bill to lower the cost of redundancy payouts. Although the Office for Budget Responsibility lowered its original forecast of 490,000 public sector job losses over the spending round by 160,000, chancellor George Osborne insists those departmental headcount reductions ‘that need to take place, will happen over four years'. Dynamic tensions inherent in the coalition have forced the pace, but also resulted in some less-than-smooth changes. For instance, business secretary, Dr Vince Cable, admitted moves to replace regional development agencies with local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) had been ‘a little Maoistic and chaotic'. Perhaps this is symptomatic of the feeling held by certain ministers that the Whitehall mindset would benefit from a spot of cultural re-education. So, in September the prime minister called for civil servants to accept a ‘power shift' to a ‘post-bureaucratic' age. With a nod towards localism, Whitehall officials will no longer be charged with delivering outcomes, but instead create the structures in which communities and individuals can take greater responsibility. Smaller government, bigger society is the message, and if civil servants could take this on by forming public sector mutuals to support this, so much the better. To encourage transparency, all departmental spending above £25,000 is published online, and the public can look beneath the bonnet by inspecting government business plans. These supersede the previous regime of public service agreements which used to monitor departments' progress and value for money, which Labour's Gordon Brown introduced as chancellor. Updated monthly and scrutinised by the Number 10 implementation team, these are meant to set out clear priorities for reform and delivery. But, according to Sir John Bourn, former head of the National Audit Office, these constant revisions could ultimately become the ‘passport to an alibi', and offer permanent secretaries an opportunity to seize the initiative from hapless ministers. Sir John says the ‘done deals' mentioned in the business plans represent a whole series of accommodations, made against the clock, and without a full understanding of the underlying costs. He warns that as the plans progressively unravel, they will face fierce scrutiny from spending watchdogs which invariably find savings hadn't come out as originally proposed. Citing the proverb, ‘In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king', he argues that as the only people seen holding the antidote, the authority and influence of mandarins increases in times of confusion. He envisages Yes Minister's Sir Humphrey flourishing some marvellous face-saving schema on a single page of A4 to cement his position. Some commentators feel that a greater boldness from the civil service in saying ‘No, minister' would have been preferable, and prevented problems further down the line. David Walker, former managing director of communications for the Audit Commission says the wishes of ministers to get major plans in place quickly seem to have met little resistance from a civil service keen to appear willing to accommodate, possibly to the Government's detriment. The timing of the promotion and transfer of permanent secretaries across major departments may have played an accidental role in this transition period. The departments for communities and local government, welfare and pensions, transport, Home Office and Ministry of Defence have all been subject to change at the top. Perhaps the new mandarins have already found time to prepare their cunning one-pagers. Jonathan Werran is editor of Governetz Public Property

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WHITEHALL

What lies under the bonnet?

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