DEMOS

 

Sir Richard Wilson's retirement offers a golden opportunity to overhaul the civil service and accelerate the reinvention of public services. Existing controversy about the 'politicisation' of the civil service has masked the fact that this institution is struggling with the complexity of the demands it now faces. Senior politicians express growing concern about the capabilities of the civil service, but offer few solutions.

In this open letter to the new Cabinet Secretary, Charles Leadbeater agues that the Government’s delivery mantra has resulted over-centralisation. There is now a growing tension between the short term, incremental improvement of existing services and the creation of entirely new services for a more complex society. The solution is to encourage innovation from within.

As an alternative to a target-driven approach, Leadbeater sets out nine principles for reform. These are based on the need for 'licensed freedom' to innovate within a framework of transparency and high expectation. For a notoriously risk-averse institution such as the civil service, this means a fundamental change of culture and working practice. The diversity of people recruited as public servants also needs to be increased.

This is the challenge facing the incoming head of the British civil service; for Government the challenge is overcoming its controlling instincts enough to allow it to happen.