War on Whitehall

IT seemed very much like a pincer movement against Britain's Civil Service: the Sunday Times quoted astonishing criticism of it from Steve Hilton, formerly a close aide of the prime minister, and yesterday the Times launched an investigation into its failures which include “generalist amateurism” and “distrust of outsiders -- especially those with specific expertise”. Several other newspapers have joined in from various perspectives but the Civil Service's best defender turned out to be David Cameron who dismissed much of the criticism and praised the Civil Service when John Humphrys raised the issue during a BBC Radio 4 Today interview. Steve Hilton's preposterous comments came from a lecture he gave recently to students at an American university. He said that often No 10 Downing Street learns about departmental policy initiatives for the first time from the radio or morning newspapers and alleged that Whitehall is currently being run by Civil Service mandarins rather than by ministers. If there is any truth in Hilton's accusations -- which I doubt -- the fault is with weak or unqualified ministers, not civil servants. The rules are simple: it is the job of civil servants to advise and of ministers to decide. There have been U-turns enough from Mr Cameron down by this government to suggest that ministers have too often ignored the advice on “unintended consequences” that is routinely provided by civil servants.