Last week Reform UK scandalised Whitehall. If they take power, they said, they would take a hard look at the top civil servants they inherited, and if necessary swap them out for their own external or internal hires. Although this idea is not entirely new (something like it was floated in Reform’s 2024 manifesto and trailed again last year by Danny Kruger), it has caused predictable outrage. Critics immediately labelled it an ideological purge – a Trump-style attack on traditional civil service political neutrality.
Parts of Whitehall are excellent. Much, however, is bloated, obsessed with process and diversity, and highly unproductive
These critics have a point – up to a point. In the US it’s a genuine worry for any relatively senior civil servant that his appointment may last only as long as the administration that appointed him. And it’s a worry for the citizen that the apparatchik he deals with may be seriously ideologically biased against him.
Nevertheless, for all the risks there is something going for Reform’s idea. For one thing, behind much of the opposition to it there lies the tacit mantra that we have a Rolls-Royce civil service which we mustn’t risk tinkering with. But this is beginning to sound threadbare: like the shibboleth of the NHS as the envy of the world, it suits insiders who do well out of the existing arrangements, but is otherwise unconvincing. Parts of Whitehall are excellent. Much, however, is bloated, obsessed with process and diversity, and highly unproductive. If appointing new people at the top helped overcome this, it could be worth trying.
But there’s a more important point. The idea of civil service neutrality is excellent; over the last few years it has however been subtly subverted. The nineteenth-century Northcote-Trevelyan reforms rightly suppressed nepotism and political partisanship for civil service appointments. The bargain was a good one: it gave civil servants a good measure of job security in exchange for an obligation to give effect to government policy without reference to party political interest or ideology.
Neutrality towards party politics still applies, at least in theory. But when it comes to ideology, civil service management has been willing to go along with, and even support, politically controversial issues or causes (think Black Lives Matter, or pervasive racial awareness workshops). This institutional dabbling in issues subject to strong political disagreement has extended to other matters such as international human rights, international law, and the idea of commitment to a loosely-defined notion of the rule of law.
This has led at times to something close to open opposition to government. In April 2022 Home Office officials reportedly threatened to refuse ministerial orders to work on the Rwanda scheme because they thought it racist. In 2024 the FDA, the union for the Whitehall top brass, even brought judicial review proceedings (thankfully unsuccessful) against the Rwanda scheme. More recently, in the last two years civil servants have repeatedly suggested they should have the right to refuse to process applications for export licences for arms destined for Israel, citing far-fetched claims of a risk of being hauled before some international criminal court.
Coupled with the fact that it is now remarkably difficult to sack a civil servant, even for plain disobedience or incompetence, this clearly amounts to a problem for any government with policies that are not aligned with these new institutional values. Furthermore, the quiet setting up of Whitehall as a kind of fifth estate imposing checks on elected governments is an unacceptable threat to democracy. When the chips are down, it must be made clear that, short of demands for clear breaches of UK law, the minister’s will prevails.
And that is, in essence, Reform’s campaign. Unlike the other parties, it is willing to restore the principle that democracy must prevail, and that civil servants paid to promote the interests of the British government must set aside their private principles.
There are risks. Reform must resist the temptation to demand from appointees any kind of commitment to support its policies. They should merely ask for a commitment from civil servants to suppress their personal views or institutional ideology and work with whoever a minister might be, whatever their party, to carry out their policy.
Were this to be successful, the effect would be to restore civil service neutrality rather than suppress it. And for that we would all be grateful.
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