Why the government's civil war with the civil service matters

0:02Sky News, the full story first.

0:11Kirsten, civil war with the civil service matters to you and this is why.

0:24I'm Sam Coates from Sky News. And I'm Anne McElvoy from Politico. Downing Street drama, leadership battles and policy U-turns. We're on it before it breaks. We take you straight into the rooms where the real political conversations are happening. Smart Insight, clear analysis in your feeds by 7.45am. So you start your morning fully brief for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to Politics at Sam & Anne's wherever you get your podcasts.

1:00Hi everyone, Neil here, and we're heading back to politics today. Because when it comes to government, we are told the system is pretty straightforward. Politicians decide, civil servants deliver. But if that's true, why is it so hard to work out who's responsible when things ultimately go wrong? Many members across the House will find these facts to be incredible. Well today we have been hearing from the top civil servant at the Foreign Office that the PM binned late last week And Ollie Robbins told MPs exactly how Peter Mandelson was appointed US Ambassador The focus was on getting Mandelson out to Washington quickly Despite this atmosphere, an atmosphere of pressure The department completed developed vetting to the normal high standard So right now our politicians are at complete loggerheads with the civil service And that never tends to end well, as pointed out by Harriet Harman in an emergency edition of our political podcast, Electoral Dysfunction.

1:59What's happened is that he's kind of gone nuclear with firing Ollie Robbins and created now a big kind of war with the civil service. And the truth is, when a government is at war with the civil service, nobody wins. So today we're going to ask a couple of very simple questions. How does government actually work? And when it doesn't, who's to blame? Lord Ricketts has served in a number of roles across government, including Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, National Security Advisor, and our Ambassador to France. Peter, lovely to have you back on the podcast again. Straightforward question to start with.

2:35When we say the government, in inverted commas, who are we referring to? Well, normally we are referring to ministers when you say that, because they are the political leaders of the government. They take responsibility. But of course, it also can include the whole civil service, that enormous structure, and the kind of ninchpin between the two, which is the special advisors who work with ministers and also the civil service to link the two up. So it can be any part of that enormous conglomerate, but normally it means political leaders. The political leaders, of course, being elected to their post at the ballot box in the way in which many people listening to this will have experienced.

3:15So I suppose we understand that part of it. So when we refer to the civil service, what do we mean? Well, it means all the people who are working for the government as their employees in the government departments, like the Foreign Office and the Home Office and the Ministry of Descent and all the many agencies that work for them as well. So many, many hundreds of thousands of people who are all working at the direction of the government. And it's the ministers, the politicians who set the policy, and then the government is there to carry it out to implement the policies they set. Now, neither of us would ever say that politicians were politically neutral.

3:52But of course, when it comes to the service, that is one of the key attributes, one of the key definitions, in fact, of the civil service. In practical terms, what does that mean? Well, it means in the UK, we're very proud of the fact that civil servants are not appointed as the creatures of one particular government. In the US, when the government changes, six or 7 ,000 people are changed. So the top and even mid-level departments then support as the government are brought in. The key is in the name of the top civil service official in each department, the permanent secretary. Permanent because they're supposed to be there through different governments.

4:25When I was permanent secretary of the foreign office, I served first of all the Labour government, and then I helped the Conservative government come to power, and that's completely normal. So neutral, there to carry out the policies of the elected government who have the support of Parliament. None of which is to say that, you know, there haven't occasionally been clashes between civil servants and ministers, even permanent secretaries and secretaries of state, where, you know, one or other have moved on from post because of perhaps an ideological point of difference or just a personality clash.

4:58There are often difficult conversations between civil service advisors and ministers and civil servants are there to speak truth to power and to tell ministers things that they may not want to hear. but which they need to hear if they're going to make good policy. And yes, sometimes there are personality clashes and then the permanent secretary has moved on. I have to say that's been happening more often recently than was the case 10, 20, 30 years ago, where it was, I mean, not absolutely unknown, but very, very unusual. So I think the role of people at the top of the civil service is getting more politicised, partly because it's more public and they spend quite a lot of time in front of parliamentary committees and responding to questions from MPs, and therefore they inevitably get more drawn into the political process.

5:43But that has got to be kept within limits, and certainly below the top level, civil servants stay right away from the press, because they need to stay neutral, they don't take a political position, and they get on with doing what the government of the day wants. So ultimately, who's in charge? Because you can have ministers telling the civil service what to do, but behind the closed door of that minister's office, when the permanent secretary is standing next to him and advising and giving very direct advice. I mean, that advice is hard to ignore, isn't it? It is. Yeah. I mean, who is in charge?

6:13It's the minister. The minister carries responsibility. If the policy goes pear-shaped, then they have to go to parliament and explain it. So that's clear. And yes, the permanent secretary, the senior departmental civil servants can go into the minister's office, close the door and say, look, minister, you know, I do not think you're doing this the right way. I think it's dangerous. I think you should change your policy or whatever it is. And at the end of the day, the minister has to accept that or refuse it. And most of the time, that works pretty well. Each knows their role. But of course, there can be tensions.

6:43And particularly in number 10, number 10, again, is one of those sort of catch all phrases. Does it mean the prime minister? Does it mean the tens and tens of special advisors who work there, or the civil service private secretaries who work there? It's probably the one place in Whitehall where the barriers between the political and the civil service break down because you can't be a number 10 and at least be part of the hourly kind of maelstrom around the prime minister. And so when a senior civil servant is told by one of his juniors, number 10 wants us to do that, the wise man will say, who in number 10?

7:17Because it's very different if it's the prime minister or the most recently arrived sort of intern special advisor. Number 10 is the most political of these axes of the civil service. Okay, so we have this kind of holy trinity. You've got ministers, politicians, you've got the civil service, and you've got the special advisors kind of sitting between the two of them. What happens when that relationship breaks down? We always try and avoid that, but if it breaks down sort of terminally, then you have to think about a change of the permanent secretary, perhaps, or other officials around him, or potentially, if there's a special advisor who is very disruptive and not working effectively, creating a barrier between the minister and the civil servants, then the permanent secretary may want to have a discussion with the minister about changing the special advisor, because it's in the minister's interest that this works smoothly, that his special advisors are working well with civil servants, not that they're co-opted by them, I mean, they will still have their political views, but are effective as the transmission mechanism between the minister and the civil service.

8:16If that breaks down, then one or other part of it, in the end, needs to be changed. Otherwise, the government's work isn't properly done. At the end of the day, the ministers are in charge, they have the authority, and the civil service will do what ministers want. Well, let's apply everything that you've just been teaching me to what we are seeing right now. Ollie Robbins, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, sacked by Number 10. What was the source of the enmity between him and Number 10? At the heart of it, there is, I'm afraid, a complete misunderstanding about the nature of this vetting process that Peter Mandelson was put through.

8:52Vetting process is there to establish what risks there might be in appointing someone to a job that has access to sensitive information, who will be part of the confidential heart of the government. And vetting process is something which is done by special vetting advisors in the civil service, kept separate from ministers. And Ollie Robbins explained at length why it's kept separate from ministers, because it involves disclosure of sensitive personal information by people, their personal life, their private life, their financial affairs, their contacts. I mean, it requires full disclosure of a very intrusive way.

9:31And the only thing that it's agreed the minister should see is the outcome of that, not the detail. But there seems to have been, you know, a great misconception somewhere between the civil service, Ollie Robbins in this case, in the Foreign Office, and the Prime Minister and his people. And the word has got around that Olly Robbins received a negative recommendation from the security vetting people and overrode that and didn't tell ministers he'd done so. Olly has told us a great length today, and this is a civil servant of huge integrity, enormous experience, that the system doesn't work like that in the Foreign Office.

10:03But in the end, he had some recommendations from the security vetting people. They said that they leaned against giving Peter Mandelson clearance, but it was a borderline case and there were ways of mitigating the risks they found. And Ollie Robbins decided he would go down that route, mitigate the risks, and the process finished with him giving security vetting. So it's not actually accurate, he says, to say that there was a recommendation against which he overturned. And he wasn't entitled to tell ministers anything about that process. All they needed to know was that the guy got security vetting.

10:36But that fundamental misunderstanding has left the prime minister angry. Ollie Robbins feeling furious and deeply hurt that he was sacked over this. He thought he was carrying out the established policy, delivering what the prime minister wanted, which was Peter Mandelson to go to Washington, having mitigated the risks. And I think there are quite a lot of lessons to be learned about what ministers know about the process, how those communications are done, because this kind of misunderstanding has had very bad consequences for Ollie Robbins. And we've lost a fine civil servant and the prime minister and the civil service are now at loggerheads over a really important issue.

11:10I'm just confused as to where the misunderstanding happened, apart from in the head of Sir Keir Starmer, given that, you know, it was on Friday. In fact, my chum, Sam Coates, our deputy political editor, did the pool interview with the prime minister when he was out in Paris. And Sir Keir Starmer was explicit. He said that Peter Mandelson had, inverted commas, I'm quoting directly here, failed the vetting process. On the basis of what Ollie Robbins was saying, I mean, the only person who could have failed Peter Mandelson would have been Ollie Robbins. Yeah, and this gets a bit complicated, but a lot of it comes down to a piece of paper, which the Cabinet Office people found in a file, which is a template for how the security vetters report the outcome of their discussions to whoever is taking the decision, in this case, the Permanent Secretary.

11:53And it has a green, yellow and red box. We had vetting doubts and recommended for refusal. And we were told, the cabinet office told us that these boxes, the red boxes have been ticked. Ollie Robbins tells us, actually, it doesn't work like that in the Foreign Office. It's not a pass, fail, yes, no exercise, that the security vet has come to him with a set of ideas, recommendations, leaning in favour or against. and then with them he decides am I going to fail this person or am I going to establish mitigations, ways of handling and dealing with the problems that have come up and then to give him developed betting and that's the process he took.

12:32So it seems to me the Prime Minister was misbriefed, misinformed about how the process works in the Foreign Office and Ollie Robbins has had to explain in great detail to us all, including the House of Commons who heard from the Prime Minister yesterday, that it wasn't like that. And actually, he was not allowed to tell the Prime Minister any of the detail about what led up to the decision, but only the decision. So it's a mess. And it leaves only losers, frankly. Prime Minister shackled to this manglossom problem, now at loggerheads with the civil service. Foreign officers lost a very, very outstanding, scrupulous, rigorous man, as we saw how he performed today.

13:10We're all losers from this. And we do need to learn some lessons. We've seen politicians taking on the civil service any number of times before, but I'm wondering if there are aspects to this story which show tensions within the civil service itself. I mean, Ollie Robbins made the point that at one stage, the cabinet office were essentially saying they weren't certain that Mandelson needed vetting in the first place, given his roles in the House of Lords and his status as a privy councillor. Yes, that's something else that Oye disclosed, that there was, I think he called it a dismissive attitude from number 10.

13:40Now, Now, again, who in number 10 was that? That doesn't sound to me like the civil servants there. Sounds frankly like the special advisors around the prime minister who were clear what the prime minister wanted to do. He'd seen a two page bit of due diligence, as they called it, which listed a number of the problems that might arise in terms of Mandelson shareholdings in China and Russia and so on. But the prime minister wanted to go ahead and they regarded this voting process as a formality. Ollie Robbins, it was clear today, certainly didn't regard it as a formality, as a really formal, solemn duty, as he put it, to ensure that the process was followed, that the risks were understood, and if they could be mitigated, then they would be.

14:18And so he took it seriously. He took his time and he did, in the end, take that decision. But you can see there a fundamental sort of mismatch between the political level wanting to get on with this and the civil servants wanting to do their work scrupulously and rigorously.

14:37I'm Sam Coates from Sky News. And I'm Anne McElvoy from Politico. Downing Street drama, leadership battles and policy U-turns. We're on it before it breaks. We take you straight into the rooms where the real political conversations are happening. Smart Insight, clear analysis in your feeds by 7.45am. So you start your morning fully brief for the day ahead in British politics. Hit follow and listen to politics at Sam & Anne's wherever you get your podcasts.

15:17given everything we've discussed Peter I'm just wondering why on earth Ollie Robbins was sacked certainly he appears to be wondering why on earth he was sacked yes he received his letter of dismissal yesterday I mean the timing couldn't have I think it was his birthday as well exactly I think with hindsight the Prime Minister was clearly angry. And on the basis of the information he had, which turned out not to be exactly right, one can understand his anger that he had gone to Parliament and given an account of the vetting process several times without being absolutely clear. It would have been much better if Ollie Robbins had been able to give the Prime Minister the briefing he gave today to the FAC before he took a decision on whether to sack him or not.

15:56And it's a real loss. I mean, we saw today a really outstanding civil servant at work, defending his reputation, much better if he'd been at work, you know, promoting the country's interest at a time when we're at war, where there's huge problems, where the Foreign Office is in the middle of a wrenching reform programme, with a lot of jobs going, really not the time to lose the need for the Foreign Office. When we have stories of this nature involving the civil service and politicians at loggerheads, it feels as if a considerable amount of government time and attention is focused on the issue.

16:27I mean, government business, if it hasn't stopped entirely, this route has certainly seen a slowing down of the pace of government activity. Well, you're absolutely right. The Prime Minister spent basically all day yesterday explaining his part in this. I'm sure MPs will have been watching every minute of Ollie Robbins' testimony today. And there is a huge international problem to deal with in Iran, in Ukraine. There, as you say, the legislative agenda as well. But when Westminster gets into one of these who knew what, when, why, you know, chases, it blots out everything else for a few days. And it will fairly quickly, I suspect, if not settle down, you know, it will recede, and the business of government of the day will continue.

17:10But yes, it's very damaging to have the whole political class bracketed on this rather than the critical problems the country's facing. Honestly, though, do you think that Sir Keir Starmer can repair relations with the civil service? Or is this just another chapter in what many now feel is his inevitable downfall? He has to repair relations with the civil service. He can't deliver a government without the civil service. And I'm sure he understands that. He was a civil servant himself. I sat around the permanent secretary's table with him when he was director of public prosecution. So he knows.

17:41He knows how the civil service works. I think he's got to give some time now to getting out to the departments to reassure ministers, reassure civil servants that he believes in their work and he values it. That's now important. Yes, he can do it and he needs to. Lord Ricketts, thanks for your time. Thanks, Neil. Thanks for listening. Do remember to follow the podcast if you don't already. And you can let me know what you'd like covered on the podcast. We'll be doing an episode based on your suggestions very soon. Why at sky.uk is the email. We're back again tomorrow.

18:41Politics at Simon Anz, wherever you get your podcasts.