Departments will be run by a Board chaired by the senior departmental minister but on which at least half of the directors would be appointed by a panel of designated NGOs and other stakeholders relevant to consumer and producer interests in that sector.

The previous nine Jury Team Governance Proposals have dealt with the need to get better legislation enacted by a higher calibre and less conflicted group of MPs, together with giving the public a direct say. However a further key element of the political system is the management and administration of the laws which have been passed. The 6+ million people employed by the Government have the task of implementing this legislation whether in health, education, the armed forces, the emergency services, tax collection, social security or the many other tasks given to the Government machine by Parliament.

It is said that “To every complex problem there is a simple solution…, but it is usually wrong”. The simple solutions of party political philosophy are insufficient for the complex problems now faced by the developed world. The “devil is in the detail” both of policy and especially of delivery as is known by anyone who has run a complex organization.

The Current Leadership of Departments

The Prime Minister appoints ministers to oversee the departments of state. They are however not usually appointed by the Prime Minister for reasons of trying to achieve the best management and administration of the department. The normal purpose is party political convenience, whether to seek balance between left and right or north and south or to bring somebody into the tent rather than having them being difficult outside.

This often leads to ministers from very different ideological backgrounds succeeding each other and directing that a completely different set of priorities be followed by the department at which they have newly arrived. In addition, the senior minister in the department has little or no influence on which junior ministers will be appointed to serve under him or her as these appointments are made independently by the Prime Minister. Similarly ministers are moved from department to department, or are relegated to the back benches, almost entirely for reasons of party political presentation and image rather than because it will improve the operation of the relevant departments.

This erratic and unpredictable system leads to confused and ever changing management as each newly appointed minister brings to the department their own personal prejudices and policies. They seek to make their political mark in the comparatively short time that they will have in office, almost certainly a lesser time then it will take any of their initiatives fully to be implemented.

The Number of Ministers

The UK has more Government ministers than almost any other country. The Cabinet Office website lists 119 “Ministers, Government whips and spokespersons in the House of Lords” of which 76 are Ministers in the House of Commons and 19 are Ministers in the House of Lords (the other 24 are the whips: 16 in the Commons and 8 in the Lords).

At each of these departments, and at many others, five ministers are therefore in place all trying to have good ideas and to develop initiatives which they can announce, driving the civil service machine increasingly to short-term and desperate measures to deliver.

In addition to the ministers there are two Parliamentary Private Secretaries (PPSs) at each department. In total there are now 45 Government PPSs in the House of Commons.

Although not paid any salary other than as an MP, PPSs are expected to vote with the Government and cannot, for example, table an amendment to a Government bill. In Parliament this large number of appointments helps the party in power because it means that they are a substantial part of Parliament which is necessarily pledged to support the Government and it also increases the patronage options for the party leadership.

Although ministers should have collective responsibility for the policies for which they are responsible, blind obedience to a party line cannot be in the interests of the country or of the MP’s constituents. The hierarchy of responsibility for an MP who becomes a minister must still in voting be firstly for the benefit of the country as a whole, secondly for their constituents and only thirdly for the government.

Jury Team members of a government would be expected to vote independently according to their best judgment on all issues. However if they were in a position of responsibility as a minister in putting a proposal for regulation or legislation to Parliament for a vote then they would obviously be expected to vote for that option as it would clearly be wrong to submit a proposal to Parliament and then to oppose it.

Reconciling Leadership and Management

Ministers leading departments should fulfill essentially not political but management roles. Their leadership needs to be sensitive to political considerations but must also provide steady management and continuity if the people in the organisations are to give of their best. Unfortunately the current combination of political interference in departments combined with senior civil service staff of a very different background and outlook means that UK Government outcomes are often internationally uncompetitive and sometimes stark in their failures.

There is now only a small difference on the key issues between the stated intentions of the major parties and most of their policy statements relate to how they would “better manage” the particular issue. This focus on delivery however makes ministers into managers which is a function for which they are normally peculiarly unsuited with no training either formally or in terms of their previous career.

It has to be recognised that both civil servants, as professional managers and increasingly with specific expertise, and ministers, as representatives of the democratic will of the people, each have their role to play. The key issue is however the brutal interface between the two groups with their hugely different backgrounds and agendas.

Organisations such as departments of state are only effective if they develop a culture which is responsive to their “customers”. This culture has to be established by design rather than from the whim of a particular Secretary of State. In order for such a culture to become embedded the agreed strategy and purpose of the department in serving its customers must remain central and not be overshadowed or diverted by short-term party politically driven initiatives. Departments should be judged not on their published intentions but on their actual behaviour in effectively and efficiently delivering on their purpose.

Establishing Departmental Boards

In order to bridge the gap between ministers and civil servants it is therefore key that fully responsible departmental Boards be established. They would consist of the ministers in the department plus independent Board members. The Boards would be chaired by the Secretary of State. As chair, the Secretary of State would represent the Department externally, as happens with charities and companies, including answering questions in Parliament. The other ministers in the department would as appropriate represent the Board’s views both in Parliament and elsewhere within their own sphere of responsibility. The Permanent Secretary (the senior civil servant) would normally attend as the chief executive together with any of his or her staff who were relevant to the particular discussion.

All pronouncements and other policy matters would therefore be issued in the name of the Board rather than of the Secretary of State or of an individual junior minister. This would lead to a massive improvement in management and a reduction in spin.

The development of new legislation would be controlled, as now, by the network of Cabinet Committees reporting into the Cabinet itself. The membership of these would be solely of ministers, as currently. The proposals actually to be put to Parliament for new legislation in the Queen’s Speech or by other routes would also be decided, as now, by the Cabinet.

There would therefore be a clear distinction between the administration of current laws and regulations and the proposal of new ones. The departmental boards, with their independent directors, would be responsible for administering all of the existing framework. Proposals for new laws and regulations would have to be approved by the relevant Cabinet Committee consisting solely of ministers. The main check and balance on those proposals would of course be the independent Select Committees and other MPs in the House of Commons.

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