Centrism and the mandarin class: Understanding the meta-politics of Whitehall bureaucratic neutrality

Introduction

In Ribbins and Sherratt (2014a), we consider problems facing the UK civil service in the light of the June 2012 Reform Plan (HM Government, 2012). Focussing on what this could entail for senior bureaucrats we drew on our longitudinal study of eight successive permanent secretaries at the Department for Education (DfE) from 1976 to 2011. Depicted as ‘the elite of the elite’ (Barberis, 1996: xv) of the service, such officials have only quite recently been the subject of extensive systematic study and their praxis has elicited surprisingly limited theoretical attention. In what follows, we set out a consolidated account of the theorising that underpins our research. Pivotal to this is a framework identifying six genres of ‘centrism’ as an analytic aid to describing and interpreting the generic and individual thought and practice of senior civil servants – as members of the meta-political class – in determining and delivering policy. In doing so, it categorises permanent secretaries as makers, shapers, sharers, takers and resisters of policy as a means of describing the style in which they function. These styles are presented as corollaries of the genres of centrism and examples of civil service centrist approaches to policy-related activity, along with accounts of the approach of selected permanent secretaries, are briefly examined. As a prelude, setting our discussion in a broader canonical context, we outline our stance on a major exception to the lack of field theorising – the work of Dunleavy (1991) and his collaborators and critics on ‘bureau shaping’ – and explain the relevance this has to our research.

Bureau shaping and beyond

Bureau-shaping advocates a rational choice approach to understanding and predicting the organisation of public sector bodies and their reform. It was first outlined by Dunleavy (1991) in Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice and has since continued to attract much attention world-wide in studies designed, for example, to explore its empirical relevance (e.g. Gains and John, 2010) and in general reviews of the state of field theories of public sector organisation (e.g. Kohoutek et al., 2013). In what follows, having outlined some of its key ideas, we will focus on aspects of a debate between critics (Marsh et al., 2000, 2004) and allies (Dowding and James, 2004) that resonate with our studies.

In his book, Dunleavy examines ‘the characteristic ways in which government bureaucracies work’ (1991: 8). Challenging the received wisdom on public choice (Downs, 1967; Niskanen, 1971) he proposes ‘a radically different … model in which rationally self-interested officials have few incentives to maximize their budgets’ (p.8). Rather ‘Welfare-maximising officials in policy ranks are primarily concerned to improve their welfare by providing themselves with congenial work and a valued work environment … ’ (p.200). As such they engage in bureau-shaping strategies designed to enable them ‘to work in small, elite, collegial bureaus close to political power centres … They do not want to head up heavily staffed, large budget but routine, conflictual and low-status agencies’ (p.202). Having such values, officials ‘can most effectively pursue (them) at an individual level, searching for career or promotion paths which lead them to an appropriate rank in a suitable sort of agency’ (p.202). Even so once the possibility of individual strategies is exhausted, Dunleavy lists five collective strategies (like budget maximisation) by which bureaucrats can foster such utilities – internal reorganisation; transformation of internal work practices; redefining relationships with external ‘partners’; competition with other bureaus; load shedding, hiving off, contracting out (pp.203–205). Contending that ‘the plausibility of any model can best be assessed by comparing it to alternative frameworks’ from a review of the literature on bureaucratic behaviour and a study of large-scale change in bureaucratic administrative organisations in the UK and USA, he claims that ‘budget maximising models have been strikingly unconfirmed by empirical evidence … By contrast, although not yet subject to rigorous testing, the bureau shaping account seems strongly consistent with existing knowledge’ (p.8).

This challenging thesis has been the subject of much dispute. Reflecting on this we will focus on those aspects of the debate noted above relevant to our work. This was launched by Marsh et al. (2000) who whilst acknowledging the significance of Dunleavy's model argue that it underrates the role of politicians, mis-specifies the preferences of bureaucrats and underestimates the extent to which the reforms he describes mean senior civil servants must focus on management. From interview data, Marsh et al. suggest that for two reasons it is hard for such officials to maximise their policy-related activities. First, because distinguishing between policy and management is in practice questionable given the remit of permanent secretaries has three elements: ‘managing the policy process; administering the department; and devising and implementing specific policies’ (p.466). ¹ Of these, only the third focuses primarily on policy – but with much of the detailed work undertaken by more junior officials – whereas the others are wholly or partly management. Second, because not all bureaucrats attach the kind of higher worth to policy advice than management that the model presumes.

In response, Dowding and James (2004) argue that although Marsh et al. rely on evidence which contains some interesting material, as a test of the bureau-shaping model and an explanation of the ‘Next Step’ reform process, ² it is at best ambiguous not least because any assessment relying exclusively on elite interviews by those involved is highly problematic. In contrast to this ‘economists … have tended to be sceptical about the stated-preference approach. For them, talk is cheap and preferences revealed through action are all that can be trusted’ (p.188). Furthermore, for Dowding and James the superiority of the ‘dialectical approach’ to research that Marsh et al. (2004) advocate would be compelling only ‘if it generates … prescriptions at variance with the bureau shaping model which their empirical evidence then corroborates … These predictions are entirely lacking’ (p.189).

Replying, Marsh et al. (2004) stress three themes. Epistemological: as ‘critical realists’ they take a view of social science which ‘focuses on two approaches … usually absent in rational choice research … interview data that deal with the agent's understanding of both his/her situation and the actions of others; and a historical analysis’ (p.190). Methodological: whilst noting possible limitations of an interview-based approach, they stress that these can be minimised by triangulation. They also argue: (1) that all forms of data have flaws; (2) that Whitehall is such a closed world, it is difficult to generate other forms of data; (3) that since politicians and officials generally acknowledge the role of political figures in civil service reform such an ‘understanding must surely play an important part in any fuller explanation of the changes that took place in the 1980s’ (p.190). Indeed, it seems that

these changes occurred despite, not because of, the civil service … Dunleavy may have been right in predicting the form of some of the changes that occurred, but his explanation that it was a consequence of utility maximization by officials is wrong. (p.191)

Summarising their attempt to refute the core hypothesis of the bureau-shaping model they stress not all senior civil servants prefer policy work and that both Conservative and Labour governments have in recent times sought to diminish the monopoly senior civil servants have over policy advice and indeed the former tried to make their role more managerial. Ontological: although Marsh et al. accept that a rational choice approach can offer ‘new ways of thinking about the motivation of agents, and … the process of reform in Whitehall’ (p.201), they believe, given its limitations, it cannot fully explain public sector reform. Crucially, they

are sceptical of positivist approaches to political science that aspire to generate predictive models … Our interest in critiquing the bureau-shaping model was never to generate a ‘better’ predictive model, particularly as the original model did not work in the first place. (p.192)

For our part, like Dunleavy we are interested in the values, attitudes and actions of senior civil servants and how this shapes the organisations in which they work. His model, and the evidence informing it, has been a valuable source of themes and questions in conducting our research leading us, among other things, to examine how such mandarins describe and enact their role and what motivates them in doing so. However, our research approach to such issues differs from that of Dunleavy (and Dowding and James) but has much in common with Marsh et al. Ideal typically, positivistic studies espouse a classical model of conjecture and refutation. This usually begins with a puzzle a researcher has with an established theory (e.g. the budget model). To test this, hypotheses are generated and operationalised and relevant data collected and analysed leading to the rejection, revision or acceptance of the established theory. The underpinning process is deduction with an emphasis on the logic of demonstration (Ford, 1975). A central objective of such research is to produce refutable predictions. In contrast, an interpretive approach to social research can simply begin with a question (e.g. How important to them is their role in policy?). This leads to data collection that can involve a variety of techniques used to generate first-order accounts. The data are then analysed enabling the generation of second-order accounts or generalisations from which a theory is constructed. Finally, the theory can be ‘tested’ in various ways – taking it back to the actors involved; asking if it matches their experience or facilitates their subsequent action; checking what they say against what they do; and checking this against the views of relevant others. In this, the underpinning process is induction emphasising the logic of discovery (Ford, 1975). A key object of such research is enabling understanding – as Marsh et al. point out, hard prediction is rarely possible in accounting for social action.

Although our research approach and the evidence it generated was very different from Dunleavy's examination of budget variations over time, from interviews with permanent secretaries, we came to share his view that increasing the scope of their authority via departmental aggrandisement and improving their remuneration by budget maximisation was not an aspiration commonly of great importance in their working lives. But as ‘interpretive sociologists’ (Gronn and Ribbins, 1996; Ribbins, 1986) unlike Dunleavy we were not seeking to predict what this might mean for the future of the civil service. Rather we have sought to account for the agency of senior civil servants as they, and some of those with whom they most closely interact in Whitehall, describe and perhaps even explain their attitudes and actions. As it happens, Dunleavy's claim that central civil service departments were at the time of his research engaged in bureau-shaping policies designed to enhance their strategic policy advice role whilst devolving operational functions to ‘at arms-length executive agencies’, and his prediction that such reforms would be the shape of things to come, was prescient. However, whether this took place primarily because of the impact of rational choice oriented, bureau shaping, activities pursued by senior officials that he describes is, for the reasons Marsh et al. point out, doubtful. Thus, if Dunleavy's prediction has proved largely correct, the reasons he offered for it were arguably not. Before turning to this and related matters, we will say something on our research in terms of setting, scope and style.

Setting, scope and style

The origins of our project lie in an exploration of the radical educational reform agenda of the Conservative administrations of 1979–1997. Based on recorded face to face interviews (from May 1994 to March 1996) with the seven Secretaries of State who held office at the DfE, it offers portraits of each of them (Ribbins and Sherratt, 1997). Subsequently, in seeking a wider view of policy making during these years, interviews were recorded with significant individuals influencing these Secretaries of State. Having interviewed several of the permanent secretaries who had served them and discovered how scant the literature was on this topic, it was decided to refocus the study on this vital role. Each of the permanent secretaries who held office from 1976 to 2001 (James Hamilton, David Hancock, John Caines, Geoffrey Holland, Tim Lankester and Michael Bichard) was interviewed twice (between July 1997 and August 2002). In addition, interviews were undertaken with other key individuals in order to contextualise and enable a measure of triangulation of the views expressed by members of the meta-political class, the permanent secretaries. This aspect of the research was conducted using an approach explained in Sherratt (2004: 35–67).

Since 2009 we have recorded further interviews; with the two permanent secretaries who served from 2005 to 2011 and the four Education Secretaries in post between June 2001 and June 2007 and others. Currently, we are seeking to interview the one permanent secretary (Christopher Wormald) and two Education Secretaries (Ed Balls and Michael Gove) that we have not as yet spoken to. In all, our research to date rests on 56 interviews with 38 subjects including 19 with 10 permanent secretaries (eight from Education) and 18 with 14 Secretaries of State (13 from Education). In addition, we have interviewed Chancellors of the Exchequer (2), Home Secretaries (5), junior ministers (5), Chief Inspectors (2) and special advisers (5). What, then, have we learnt of those who have held this role, and what place has our evolving theoretical perspective played in understanding this?

La politique politicienne

Although the self-promoted civil service image is one of disinterested impartiality (Chapman, 1988; O'Toole, 1989) towards ministerial will, such a view has been caricatured as myth (Ponting, 1989: 35). It can also be argued that from the 1980s the senior civil service has become increasingly politicised (see Rhodes, 2005; Richards, 1997, 2008). The reality is that a permanent secretary is in place to serve her/his Secretary of State. It is impossible to do this without some identification with her/his political will (Nairne, 1990: 6). With the rise of the ‘career politician’ has come an intensification of the tendency for politicians and civil servants to develop what King (1981: 250) has described as ‘a private language, private quarrels, their own interests, priorities and preoccupations – what a perceptive Frenchman has called la politique politicienne’. ³ The permanent secretary is there to serve the Secretary of State (Cabinet Office, 1995: 46–53) but has her/his own professional concerns (Nolan, 1995: 58, para 48). Having offered the relevant advice, she/he should do the minister's bidding. The concerns of the minister must be the concerns of the permanent secretary. As Barberis notes, ‘Whatever bears upon the minister must also bear upon the permanent secretary’ (1996: 22). Given that most Secretaries of State will tend, in political terms, to think in the short term, it is incumbent on a permanent secretary to hold before the minister a longer term, broader political context within which policy decisions might be made. That said it is undesirable for a permanent secretary to become too associated in the public mind with any one minister, policy or government. Such association could make it difficult for a new minister and the permanent secretary after a re-shuffle or government change. However, it is common Whitehall knowledge that permanent secretaries do adopt postures on policy. Usually, but not inevitably, this is supportive of the minister. Bichard is an example of a permanent secretary closely associated with the policies of his Secretary of State, Blunkett (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2013b). Holland is an example of one who found achieving such an association with his Secretary of State, Patten, problematic (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2013c).

King's paper, ‘The consequences of the career politician’ (1981: 285), has major resonance here. He identifies a hierarchy of commitment among politicians; arguing that the deeply committed should be called ‘career politicians’, rather than ‘professional politicians’:

On the one hand Britain's politicians have become more politically experienced, harder working, more assertive … On the other, they have less experience of the world outside politics than their predecessors … show signs of being more partisan, more doctrinaire and less in touch with the mass electorate … It is hard to escape the conclusion that the demise of the non-career politician has led to a certain loss of experience, moderation, detachment, balance, ballast even, in the British political system.

Ideally personal likes or dislikes, reservations on policy or political persuasion, are irrelevant because the permanent secretary's role is to offer impartial advice. This is analogous to the role of counsel in providing convincing advocacy: a lawyer does not have to befriend a client or be convinced of the clients’ innocence to give a committed performance in court. A new minister or government may entail the permanent secretary adopting a quite different policy posture to that taken hitherto. In this sense, he or she has no enduring loyalties. For Ridley (1985: 37), neutrality has two guises. First, there is the offering to governments of whatever political persuasion sensible, dispassionate advice. Second, there is the need to align oneself to the will of the Minister who happens to have been appointed to one's department. Permanent secretaries are not perhaps as independent as they might appear.

Impartiality, bounded by loyal service to one's minister, is aptly depicted by Stuart Sexton (Special Adviser to Carlisle and Joseph) in his account of Clive Saville, under-secretary at the DfE, whom he recalls as ‘the ideal apolitical civil servant’, ⁴ proficient in drafting legislation and implementing policy. After the 1979 election, he gave Saville details of the Assisted Places Scheme policy for elaboration and implementation: with the first cohort of

… pupils accepted I said, “Thank you very much, Clive. The APS has got off so well, all thanks to you”. Clive then shocked me by saying, “Thank you Stuart. I have to tell you of course that if the next Government tells me to undo it I shall undo it just as efficiently”.

Whilst this tells us something about impartiality, what then of ideology and the role and relationship of civil servants and their political masters?

Political ideology and meta-political inclination

The term ‘ideology’ was first used by Destutt de Tracy at the time of the French Revolution and since then has had many meanings. For purposes of this paper, we define it as: ‘Generally any system of ideas and norms directing political and social action’ (Speake, 1979: 162). The ideological background to the period in which our study is set is intricate. Limitations of space preclude a detailed analysis of its complexities and so we will focus on two dominant political figures of the time – Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair – and consider the relevance of ideology to their thought and action. Curiously, whilst Thatcher is widely reputed to have been a committed ideologue the term is not used in her autobiography (Thatcher, 1993, 1995). Conversely, whilst Blair sought to present himself in non-ideological terms, the term is often to be found in his (Blair, 2011). Thatcher (1993) recalls of her early ministerial career ‘I could not help notice a curious discrepancy in the behaviour of my colleagues … their rhetoric was prompted by general ideas they thought desirable, such as freedom; their actions were confined by general ideas they thought inevitable, such as equality’ (p.13). On coming to power she wanted ‘a fundamental change of direction … I was asking the Conservative Party to put its faith in freedom and free markets, limited government and strong national defence’ (p.15). In doing so, she was ‘aware that all too few of my colleagues in the Shadow Cabinet and House of Commons saw matters like this’ (p.14).

In some respects, Blair (2011) faced similar problems from colleagues and the trade unions in setting up New Labour. As he saw things

the traditional left/right divide of Western politics … is an essentially twentieth century construct that is now … an obstruction to new and sound policy … I remain unreservedly on the progressive side … but I am fiscally more conservative, and on markets, liberal … When it comes to policy, the challenge today is efficacy, not ideology. People want government that works … To achieve this governments have to liberate themselves from ideology based on left/right and embrace new ways of thinking that can cross traditional party lines. (xvi)

He understood such a course could have electoral advantages. Thus in pursuing a solution to the long-standing problem of Labour's perceived un-electability, he sought to discard ideology by re-positioning his party towards the centre ground with a broad appeal to ‘common sense’ in policy making.

Although these two approaches – one towards ideology and the other away from it – appear in stark contrast to each other, the reality is that Thatcher's inclination of New Right thinking ultimately nudged her political colleagues towards a centrist position. That is to say her attempt to introduce a doctrinal underpinning to Conservative values did not appeal to their essentially pragmatic mind set and therefore ideological conservatism was to prove relatively short lived. Thus the later Thatcher years, and certainly those of John Major and David Cameron, were typified by a centrist impulse. Indeed, centrism, at least in embryonic form, had begun to be a characteristic of Conservative politics even before Blair adopted it as the ideology of non-ideology. Centrism meant for the Labour party that if its raison d'etre had been the ideology of socialism (however defined), that of New Labour (and One Nation Conservatives) was practical solutions generated by experts uncompromised by ideology. The electoral advantage that was implicit in Blair's centrism was that it freed his party to appeal to a broader public through policies that were not seen as class orientated or socially divisive. If ‘ideology’ defines adherence, consciously or otherwise, to a set of ideas and values underpinning the articulation of social, political or economic systems, then the centrism of the late Thatcher and Major years followed by the rejection of ideology by Blair might suggest that ideology has lost its currency. However, it cannot be said we now live in a post-ideological age since some politicians, mainly but not exclusively from the Labour Party, seem ready to draw on traditional party ideological vocabularies when conflictual policy utterances seem beneficial. However, the extent to which this is done for other than rhetorical purposes remains to be seen. In summary, if convergence towards a kind of centrism was a feature of the Blair and Brown administrations and to an extent of the Coalition, and as such appealed to both political and meta-political classes, it could be that – irrespective of who wins the next general election – the demise of New Labour will sharpen the line of demarcation between the habitus of the politician and that of the official. What then of ideology and meta-politics?

On this, whereas politicians may be expected to have an embracing ideological orientation or at least the appearance of one, members of the public and the meta-political class, are not so perceived. Civil servants, especially those operating at a strategic level, may well hold views on policy but this does not mean they cannot work impartially on policy they do not personally favour. As members of the meta-political class, working alongside professional politicians, they will not necessarily have fully fledged or articulated ideological allegiances of the ‘doctrinal’ kind but may, nevertheless, find they have an alternative inclination to the ideological allegiance, expressed or implied, in a policy or policies on which they are required to work. This notwithstanding, it is the civil servant's duty to proffer impartial advice irrespective of whether this is to the minister's liking. If, however, such an alternative inclination or aversion was to surface in the advice offered or was to be reflected in the manner in which it was given then it could be said such an official had insinuated, consciously or otherwise, political opinions inherent in the ideology towards which he or she personally inclines under the camouflage of bureaucratic neutrality. That is to say he or she had allowed her political leanings to affect or even to determine the kind of advice given or action taken. In the strongest case of the latter, this could amount to outright resistance on political ideological grounds to a policy advocated by her or his minister. Such actions would constitute an abrogation of the impartiality implicit in what Max Weber (1994: 331) has described as the ‘supreme ethical discipline’ which civil servants are required to bring to their meta-political duties. How, then, does all this relate to the notion of centrism?

Politicisation and centrism

Exploring the idea of civil service ‘impartiality’ in supporting ministerial initiatives through successive political administrations, in practice, as distinct from principle, can be described as a process of civil service ‘politicisation’. As a case in point, this developed a propos the interventionist posture adopted by Thatcher as evidenced in the appointment of permanent secretaries (Richards, 1997; Thatcher, 1993: 47–48). This politicisation developed alongside a reaction in her own party to what came to be seen as a ‘Thatcherite’ agenda underpinned by a distinctive ideology. The reaction, from civil servants and many politicians alike, was instinctively to move towards a middle ground; a centrist position in which politicians could avoid accusations of political extremism and civil servants could maintain a policy equilibrium which ministerial re-shuffles or general elections would not destabilise. The new centrism did not originate in an aspiration to revitalise anything like a ‘Butskellite’ compromise but constituted a deliberate attempt to create a new ideology of non-ideology: the middle ground. For our purposes, this alignment towards a middle ground, in party political terms neither to the ‘left’ nor to the ‘right’ as Blair has noted, is described as ‘centrist’, a concept that can be used to analyse and interpret the politics of the late and post-Thatcher administrations and the preferred milieu of senior officials.

Although it is difficult to define the extent to which politicisation ⁵ of the civil service has occurred and, because permanent secretaries in particular are reticent to speak about such trends, almost impossible to obtain data, there are pointers to this tendency. Indeed, the perceived politicisation has formed the basis (Plowden, 1985) for demands for an actual politicisation of the higher civil service or at least for some kind of official demarcation (Ponting, 1989: 47) between the role of political and independent advisers. The catalyst for what appears to be a politicisation of the higher civil service may in some measure be adduced to the reaction of officialdom to the hostility of Thatcher ⁶ to what she perceived to be the inertia-inducing characteristics of the Whitehall machine coupled with a concentration on policy advice at the expense of sound departmental administration (Fry, 1986). Her solution was to streamline the civil service (Fry, 1984) through cuts and by her personal intervention in appointing permanent secretaries (Thatcher, 1993: 47–48). In any event, politicisation of the official bureaucracy seems to have evolved more or less in step with a Zeitgeist of centrism colouring political and official pre-disposition.

As Carlisle notes (Ribbins and Sherratt, 1997: 68), the first Thatcher Cabinet represented a wider Conservative perspective. Thatcher had little option but to work with the personnel best suited to ministerial office at the time (Riddell, 1983: 42). It was predictable that in reshuffling, she would wish to reconstruct her Cabinet to reflect her radical (‘right-wing’) convictions. Carlisle, a self-confessed ‘wet’, accepts this was necessary. In this sense, he understood why he had to go and why she replaced him with her mentor, Keith Joseph. Such re-shuffles, and the emergence of a distinctively ‘Thatcherite’ agenda created the political and organisational climate within which embryonic centrism amongst ministers and especially senior civil servants was to germinate. As we shall see, once it took hold it survived in later iterations to the present day. How, then, might this be described?

Centrism: Sweeping away the dogma

Centrism is essentially the politics of the via media (of the middle path of moderation) and it is this middle ground or apparently non-ideological (and potentially populist) aspect of centrist policies that commends them to a wide constituency. If, in terms of content, other policies may be categorised as ‘left’, ‘right’ or neither, the content of centrist policy is predicated on its mid-spectrum locus, the just mean between opposing extremes.

Whereas, however, centrism can be described in terms of polarities – neither far left nor far right or the happy medium between mutually exclusive political mind sets – it is more than this: it is a political doctrine in its own right explicitly seeking to avoid leftist socialism or rightist conservative ideologies along with their accompanying vocabularies. The centrist position cannot accommodate either right or left ideological positions since this would involve incompatibility and incoherence but adherents of centrism effectively reject the need for any ideology. They can, by adopting an ideology of anti-ideology, follow policies which the electorate in general are likely to see as common sense. However, this is not to imply that centrist policies pander to populism: centrism tends to rely on the advice of experts whose politically unbiased views are sought to provide a balanced rationale for policy formulation and implementation.

At his second leader's speech to Conference (Brighton, 1995) at which he ‘rebranded’ the Party as New Labour, ‘free from the weight of outdated ideology’, Blair said,

It has always been absurd that the debate about crime in this country has some talking of its causes and others of the need to punish criminals. Sweep away the dogma - tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

This middle ground undertaking to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime became a defining Labour mantra in the run-up to the party's landslide election victory in 1997. The mantra is quintessentially centrist in that it:

espouses neither a right nor a left political orientation;

For the political class, centrism, in its apparent rejection of dogma and ideology, can become an ideology in its own right encompassing a logically related set of ideas – the ideology of non-ideology. For the meta-political class, it is a political milieu likely to provide both policy continuity and equilibrium. Centrism was not a Blairite creation. Rather the primogenitor of the centrist impulse was discontinuity with the consensual politics of the late 1970s but it was not until the post-Thatcher governments of the 1990s that the impact of overt centrism can be detected as proponents of the ideological right found it prudent to pitch their tents in the camp of pragmatism, compromise and sound government. However, it was Labour in its renaissance as New Labour which as it turned out became the party of centrism par excellence. Shedding its socialist ideology and adopting centrism – ostensibly a lack of ideology – arguably secured its landslide victory in 1997.

Centrism, centralisation and politicisation of the higher civil service

In the post war era,

it is possible to discern three main phases in the evolving story of the place of consensus in the policy praxis of Ministers and officials. Phase One, from the 1950s to 1970s, was distinguished by a broad national and local policy consensus on education. (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2012: 548)

In this context, whilst the proto-centrism, which reached its apogee in the Boyle/Crossland years (Kogan, 1971), still has a vestigial manifestation, subsequently a new centrism, not unrelated to this earlier form of consensus, has emerged. If, then, proto-centrism has been superseded, what are the characteristics of this new centrism?

The new centrism: Five genres

Although new centrism may, prima facie, appear straightforward to define, it is in fact a protean concept requiring sharpening and calibrating via situational specificity. Refracted through the prism of the real-[meta]-politik of Whitehall bureaucratic convention, centrism produces a spectrum of bureaucratic reactions or postural loci which lend themselves to clearer delineation and are thus potentially useful in interpreting the meta-political praxis of senior officials. These epistemologically related yet distinct genres of centrism are identified as pragma-centrism, retro-centrism, ideo-centrism and meta-centrism, and these genres were used in our earlier work to analyse and interpret the generic and individual performance of permanent secretaries (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2012: 548–550; Sherratt, 2004: 294–349). Recent developments, and our latest field research, has meant that to these forms of centrism a fifth, exo-centrism, has been added to describe the importing of specific expertise and ‘know-how’ into the more generalist repertoire of civil service skills.

Pragma-centrism, is characterised by an ostensible reasonableness with currency beyond party politics and thus likely to produce policy continuity; retro-centrism is characterised by the desire for a stable policy milieu which promotes not only continuity of specific policies across administrations but also a longitudinal policy equilibrium in which momentum and direction might be sustained despite re-shuffles or general elections; ideo-centrism is characterised as civil service reaction to policies which officials perceive to be ideologically predicated or an expression by civil servants of an alternative ideology, sometimes leading to conflict with Ministers; meta-centrism is the centrism of the via media which transcends both ideology and consensual proto-centrism, thus providing a milieu within which civil service ‘impartiality’ and ministerial political will are most likely to coalesce. Exo-centrism represents a reaction to a perceived need within the civil service, essentially the ability to programme manage and deliver objectives as defined and required by Ministers: it is most notably characterised by the deliberate cultivation and promotion of ‘outsider’ experts and expertise drawn from the wider public or private sectors. On this, at the time of writing a study by the Institute of Public Policy, commissioned by Francis Maude, minister responsible for pursuing civil service reform, is said to suggest (Watts, 2013: 2):

allowing senior Ministers to hire ‘cabinet sized’ private offices of 20 to develop and drive through their agenda;

Such proposals, along with the suggestion that Secretaries of State should have the final say in the appointment of departmental permanent secretaries, have been challenged by the Civil Service Commission. As Normington (2013), First Commissioner, put it at a seminar at the Institute of Government

in our view, this is the wrong debate at the wrong time. If the real aim is to create the best possible Civil Service to tackle the immense economic, social and security challenges of 2013 or 2015 … the emphasis must, in our view, be on improving the skills, experience and competence of those who are already in the Civil Service. Whether Ministers have choice has little to do with that aim; politicisation even less. (p.2)

He then noted that

even 10 years ago … it would have been unusual to open Permanent Secretary Appointment to external competition. Now it is the norm … Over the last 5 years … (the Commission) have chaired 372 open competitions for the posts at the top three levels and 49% of them have been won by non-civil servants, the majority of those from the private sector. (p.2)

Even so, ‘We don't believe the answer to all the Civil Service's problems is to recruit at senior levels from outside’. Similarly, O’Donnell, former Cabinet Secretary, has argued that private sector executives are not always as good as they are cracked up to be by some Ministers: ‘I tried to bring in more people from outside and on the whole they did slightly worse than other civil servants’ (Cameron, 2012: 25). For Normington, a key issue is to

be open to new ideas for identifying and recruiting new talent and for injecting new skills into the Civil Service. With one proviso: we would be totally against using this as a cover for bringing in more political appointees or cronies of either civil servants or politicians. (p.3)

Given this, the kind of politicisation of Whitehall entailed by the first of the suggestions from the Institute of Public Policy, with all the additional expense it would involve, is likely to be an extreme form of exo-centrism that the Commission will resist.

Finally, we would not include Proto-centrism in the spectrum of centrism because we regard it as the antecedent of the genres identified above. Having outlined these five later genres of centrism observable in civil service praxis, we will now consider the continuum of five descriptive categories identified in our research – maker, shaper, sharer, taker and resister – and their relationship to centrism. Since much of what we have to say on the five categories has already been set out in recent papers (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2013a, 2014a) in what follows we will focus mainly on their relationship with centrism.

Permanent secretaries as makers, shapers, sharers, takers and resisters

The categories of the continuum noted above were identified inductively from our field research. They vary according to the extent to which a permanent secretary is active in leading or passively led in the formulation and implementation of policy. Each of the categories constitutes a type of centrist meta-political behaviour. Thus, for example, the behaviour identity of the maker is iterative (characterised by the initial presentation of a policy or policy opportunities); that of the resister is evasive (characterised, among other things by circumventing ministerial policy intention, counter-iterative argument or delaying tactics). Meta-political identities for all five categories are specified in Figure 1. OPEN IN VIEWER

A permanent secretary is a maker (iterative) of policy when the policy is primarily his/her idea; he/she will usually, although not necessarily, take the lead in advocating it to the Secretary of State and in developing it. As maker of policy, a permanent secretary will usually be operating within an essentially centrist mode. If policy has been suggested by or promoted by a permanent secretary, it is likely that his/her approach will also be that of the pragma-centrist: thus taking the initiative in a policy area where, to him/her, change seems common sense. An example of pragma-centrist policy making is Hamilton's initiative on the centralising of power at the Department of Education and Science (DES) (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2013a: 35–44). However, given that it is likely to be in a permanent secretary's interest to ensure policies introduced under one Secretary of State are not overturned by a successor it is inevitable that, as a maker of policy, he/she will be self-constrained by a retro-centrist impulse. For example, Hamilton's attempt to centralise power at the national centre and to diminish power at local government centres can be seen as a measure designed to create greater central control in terms both of departmental and policy management.

A Secretary of State is at the epicentre of many political pressures. His/her permanent secretary is a shaper (re-iterative) of policy when the policy idea comes from the Secretary of State, a minister, the No. 10 Policy Unit, an adviser or some other area of influence. As a shaper, the permanent secretary can be characterised as a policy technician, utilising his/her ability to understand and manage policy programmes; he/she will normally be highly practised in government and have the capacity to foresee the course of public policies. Political will expressed in terms of political goals need to take account of the probability of goal achievement (Rose, 1987: 409). When a minister articulates a political goal, the permanent secretary can produce a range of policy options. These are likely to range from those most likely to be achieved albeit furthest from the goal to those that correlate most closely with the articulated goal but least likely to be achieved. The permanent secretary shapes policy in that it is incumbent upon him/her to dissuade his/her Secretary of State from embarking on policy objectives unlikely to be achieved or which may prove unpalatable to the electorate. In this sense, the permanent secretary shapes policy so as to ensure the most positive policy outcome in terms of political acceptance and practicability. The shaper role of the permanent secretary is essentially pragma-centrist but there is inevitably scope for ideo-centrist idiosyncrasies to colour the process. Perhaps the best example from our research of a permanent secretary playing such a role would be that of Hancock and his relationship with Baker in shaping the 1988 Education Reform Act and in enabling its passage. As Baker put it: ‘we worked very closely together … David had a big role … I think he was very committed to the great changes … that we were bringing in … He wasn't just appeasing me … We soldiered on together’ (see Ribbins and Sherratt, 2012).

A permanent secretary is a sharer (collaborative) of policy when both he/she and his/her Secretary of State have worked closely together in its formulation: in such a case the policy is characterised by a high degree of collaboration following an initial meeting of minds. This kind of sharing is exemplified in the close working relationship between Bichard and Blunkett. As Bichard notes, ‘It's a joy when you get that kind of relationship between a politician and an official’. Where the permanent secretary is a sharer of policy the meeting of minds may possibly, if not necessarily, be predicated on a shared political persuasion. The sharer can be motivated by pragma-centrist and retro-centrist rationales to the exclusion of any ideo-centrist impulse. Indeed, for the official policy technician, ideo-centrist inclination may in practical terms be an irrelevance. The sharing of policy is more likely within a context of meta-centrism where ostensibly there is no clear ideology but rather a desire to move policy forward in terms of practicability and general acceptance.

As a taker (performative) of policy, the permanent secretary assumes the traditional Whitehall role of offering dispassionate advice and then implementing the wishes of the Secretary of State. Ultimately, the permanent secretary knows that if his or her Secretary of State rejects the advice tendered, then the minister must win. Barberis (1996: 25) describes this as ‘the bureaucratic equivalent of the shopkeeper's lament that the customer is always right’. However, policy taking does not necessarily imply impotence in the face of ministerial will; policy taking need not imply disapproval. Policy shaping, also the role of the policy technician, is essentially pragma-centrist in that it can be seen as implementing political will through workable policy outcomes. Similarly, policy taking implies a degree of freedom for the policy technician in terms of the various options that might be adopted in arriving at the desired outcome. This freedom gives scope for retro-centrist caution or, on the other hand, retro-centrist entrepreneurialism.

The resister (evasive) role can take various forms: it may be legitimate and made for entirely pragma-centrist reasons. The Civil Service Code sets the expectation for the neutrality required for senior civil servants to perform their role satisfactorily. In a summarised version, published in November 2010 and given to all civil servants, the expected impartiality in the giving of advice is made clear:

You must: serve the Government, whatever its political persuasion, to the best of your ability in a way which maintains political impartiality … no matter what your own political beliefs are; act in a way which deserves and retains the confidence of Ministers, while at the same time ensuring that you will be able to establish the same relationship with those whom you may be required to serve in some future Government …

As an aid to summarising our argument postulating five genres of centrism and their epistemologically related continuum of five descriptive style-categories, and to depicting their inter-relationships, we propose the following diagram (see Figure 2). The explanation of why some genres give rise to more possible types of meta-political behaviours than do others is in part deductive – for example, a permanent secretary brought in from outside (exo-centrist) for specific expertise would be an unlikely resister but certainly a taker (given that alignment with ministerial will and policy direction pursued by the government would have been a feature of the selection criteria) and perhaps a shaper; whereas it would seem that pragma-centrism suggests scope for all five meta-political behaviours. It is nevertheless the case that, inductively, we found evidence for all five behaviours in the data for pragma-centrism, whereas with the other genres – and, although there is inevitably some overlapping – this was not obviously the case. OPEN IN VIEWER

The central purpose of this paper is to set out the theoretical framework which has informed out research. In doing so, we have identified a number of examples illustrative of permanent secretary praxis, using these constructs. From our data, we could set out case studies of all 16 behaviours noted in Figure 2, but limitations of space mean that this must be developed fully elsewhere (see Ribbins and Sherratt, 2014b). Instead, in what follows, we must limit our discussion to a brief exemplar of each of the genres.

Illustrative examples of the five genres

Pragma-centrism can be illustrated in the praxis of James Hamilton. Having been briefed by Prime Minister, James Callaghan, who asked him for a report on the state of education, he then acted as a maker and shaper in formulating the ‘Ruskin’ policy of centralising control at the DES (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2013a: 35–44). Commenting on the Yellow Paper, the prototype for the Ruskin College speech, Hamilton felt: ‘It seemed to me to do nothing but present some obvious truths about education’. This document, of which he was largely maker, was an expression of mandarin pragma-centrism. To him, most people would see the sense of its implications: far from accepting the status quo ante, here was a civil service pragma-centrism that would be instrumental in re-configuring the power relationship between the DES and local government. Although centralisation can flourish independently of centrism, Hamilton's centralising conviction is driven by an urge to convince Ministers and the Department that policy must be formulated on the basis of pragmatism. He is revealed to be a pragma-centrist maker and shaper of policy: and centralisation, as a means to an end, has been a feature of all administrations since his time as permanent secretary.

Retro-centrism seems ubiquitous in the praxis of permanent secretaries: implying caution in seeking to sustain policy equilibrium, it yet offers scope for entrepreneurialism as is evident in David Hancock's role in introducing the National Curriculum policy (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2012). In this, he showed himself to be an effective manager of policy continuity (a characteristic of retro-centrism) between two Secretaries of State – Keith Joseph and Baker – with very different views on a national curriculum. As Baker recalled; ‘David was a shaper of (the) policy’. Here is an example of a permanent secretary re-instating policy made and shaped by DES officials awaiting a decisive Minister to espouse it. Hancock's retro-centrist caution and entrepreneurialism in supporting Baker in introducing the National Curriculum reveals his ability to maintain policy continuity with the direction established by Hamilton, his predecessor and also his steer on the centralising of power at the DES. In sharing (collaborative) and shaping (re-iterative) this policy, he helped Baker to establish and sustain, through this element of the Education Reform Act 1988 (ERA), a stable policy milieu and longitudinal policy equilibrium: we still have a National Curriculum.

Ideo-centrism can be exemplified by Tim Lankester's attempt to resist further erosion of the relationship between the DfE and Local Education Authorities (LEAs) (Sherratt, 2004: 233–234). Implicit in resisting government policy, the metier of the ideo-centrist, which, as in his case, can be described as circumventing ministerial plans, is a desire to restore the status quo to its previous configuration. Where dialogue between a Secretary of State and a permanent secretary is deficient (as was the case between John Patten and Lankester), the official may be inclined to seek circuitous ways of influence. Describing his work in re-establishing links with LEAs as ‘a kind of personal rescue effort’, Lankester represents graphically the ideo-centrist resister. In the spectrum of Whitehall meta-political postural loci postulated in this paper, Lankester in effect classifies himself as an ideo-centrist who resisted the dissolution of partnership between the Department and LEAs. Believing it unrealistic for central government to run 24,000 schools without an intermediate level of governance, he admitted trying ‘to row back. It was a sort of personal agenda with which I probably went a bit beyond my brief. I don't think I used to tell Ministers exactly what I was doing’.

Meta-centrism defines the context in which civil service disposition and political will are most likely to coalesce and in which policy sharing and agreement on via media solutions of a non-ideological kind is evident. This informed the praxis of Michael Bichard who shared with his Secretary of State, David Blunkett, a close working affinity, and who emerges as a meta-centrist maker, sharer and shaper of the Learning and Skills Council policy (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2013b). As he put it: ‘the bringing together of post-16 education was very much an area where I led. You could say it was primarily my idea’. He sought to create a common landscape of learning and skills provision. But whilst accepting responsibility for the policy he, like other mandarins, was reluctant to portray himself as a policy maker. Whereas he shared concerns with, and put the policy to, Blunkett, he is anxious to avoid ‘black and white ‘terms’: We talked around those concerns and gradually ideas developed’. Rejecting any notion of pragma-centrism or ideo-centrism in his praxis his approach seems decidedly meta-centrist. Pre-occupied with ‘substance’ not ‘politics’, its orientation is neither left nor right. Such is the apolitical via media wherein civil service impartiality and ministerial political will are most likely to coalesce. It is the milieu in which the sharing of policy – a corollary of the meta-centrist postural locus – is to be anticipated.

Exo-centrism, a reaction to a perceived need for civil servants to programme manage and deliver ministerial objectives, has led to the appointment of ‘outsiders’ with relevant expertise recruited from the public or private sectors. Generally, they lack a civil service pedigree. David Bell, like Bichard, was an ‘outsider’, recruited for his know-how and managerial expertise: a teacher, a local authority administrator and Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools. Bell defines his role as departmental management, not policy, which he sees as the domain of Ministers. This focus distinguishes exo-centrism from the other four genres of centrism. Bell does not see his role as predominantly one of policy advice, but did offer advice in areas deemed important by his Secretaries of State. His adherence to the primacy of ministerial will vis-à-vis the policy continuity of pragma-centrism or the longitudinal policy equilibrium of retro-centrism indicates an outsider difference in approach to policy. In summary, Bell brought educational and programme management expertise to the position of permanent secretary. His appointment underscores a recent emphasis on departmental management and policy implementation rather than the more traditional work of policy adviser. For him the role is less about influencing Ministers than the performative function of taking and implementing their policy decisions.

Summary and conclusions

Our research has a wide ranging interest in those engaged in management and policy at a national level within the UK education system with a focus on permanent secretaries. As such, whilst the ontological and epistemological assumptions underpinning our work are very different, we have been influenced by the canon of work on bureau shaping as promoted by Dunleavy and others in: (1) detecting issues and questions for investigation, and; (2) drawing on aspects of its theorising as a means of interpreting our findings. Thus key themes of our studies include what motivates senior bureaucrats, how this influences the ways in which they interpret their role in general and in policy in particular, and whether (and if so how and with what success) they seek to shape the bureaucracies which they, with Secretaries of State, have been said to co-lead (see HM Government, 2012: 18).

Whilst our findings, gathered mainly from elite interviews, support aspects of Dunleavy's model much does not. Having begun our research with a study of the role of the secretary of state, we believe that the evidence suggests politicians far more than bureaucrats lead devolution-related reforms. Furthermore, almost all the permanent secretaries that we interviewed were at pains to stress they were informed and experienced managers. Caines told us, ‘I may have pursued it (management) with more vigour and zeal than others’ and stressed that he had seen ‘what happens in industry, commerce and the National Enterprise Board’ and unusually for a high civil servant had ‘completed a post-experience course at the Manchester Business School’. Bichard (Brent, Gloucestershire and Benefits Agency) and Bell (Newcastle and Ofsted) were recruited from posts as executive heads of government agencies and had been Chief Executives of local authorities with the latter suggesting such roles could be at least as exacting as that of permanent secretaries. Normington noted his professional qualification in Human Resource Management; emphasised his time as a Regional Director in the Employment Service managing ‘upwards of 8000 staff’; and, stressed that if the role of permanent secretary usually has the same basic elements (policy and policy advice, managing the organisation, managing the external face of the department) yet ‘you do these jobs in completely different proportions according to where you go’. Thus, the management demands of the Home Office, which when he was appointed, had ‘70,000 directly appointed staff’, were very different from the DfE with less than 4000 staff. In addition, the great majority of relevant others and notably most Secretaries of State that we talked to readily, even fulsomely, acknowledged the managerial competence of their permanent secretaries. On the basis of our admittedly limited data, whilst all eight permanent secretaries noted the importance of their management role, there was evidence that the most recent (Bichard, Normington and Bell) stressed this most of all. In contrast, only one permanent secretary, Lankester, felt that the importance of management had been exaggerated in recent times: curiously he was also the only one of whom we heard any reservations expressed about his abilities as a manager.

On an associated theme, other than the sanguine attitude which Caines seems to have taken to the setting up of Ofsted at arms-length from the Department of Education, we heard little enthusiasm expressed from permanent secretaries either for or against the kind of hiving off of routine and conflictual work that Dunleavy claimed. As it happens with regard to the setting up of Ofsted, Eric Bolton, the last Senior Chief Inspector of Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI), told us that this happened mainly because Kenneth Clarke, then Secretary of State, having become increasingly irritated by what he saw as constant public criticism of the government's education policies by HMI, wanted it to. In this, he was not opposed by Caines. As Bolton recalls ‘I found life a bit difficult with John Caines. Not because he was ever directly anti HMI, but I never believed there was ever any firm support or animosity. He just did not see us as something terribly relevant’. Although Ofsted is an independent, non-ministerial government department reporting to Parliament and managed by an Executive Board, it continues to be subject to the DfE for aspects of its organisation and work. For this and other reasons, the Department continues to be widely regarded as answerable for its limitations. More generally, as some permanent secretaries have pointed out to us, whilst it was possible to delegate authority, it was far more difficult to hive off responsibility. As such even where apparent ‘load shedding’ did take place, the central department tended still to be held accountable for the things that went wrong whilst getting little of the credit for the things that went right – surely the worst of all possible outcomes.

Finally, notwithstanding their commitment to management, all the permanent secretaries we interviewed identified policy as an archetypal exemplification of their role. But this tells us little about how they claimed to define and enact this aspect of their work and with what consequence? Nor does it necessarily say much about how they interact with ministers in all this. In addressing such questions, especially those relating to Secretaries of State, we were initially motivated by a seminal study by Barberis (1994) on ‘Permanent secretaries and policy-making in the 1980s’. In this, he argues that whilst in the early 1980s

the belief was widespread that top officials within Whitehall were, so to speak, the real power behind the throne – the permanent politicians … (By the early 1990s) such allegations, even in their milder form, seem overdrawn, perhaps fanciful … instead there has been much talk about the loss of influence exercised by top civil servants; about their subordination within the policy process; and about their roles becoming more managerial. (p.35)

In exploring such claims, we have sought, in one Whitehall department, to ask permanent secretaries, Secretaries of State, and others, about such matters. To date we have written up in published papers and conference presentations our findings on selected aspects of the lives and careers of the six permanent secretaries who served between 1976 and 2001. This has included a paper outlining a preliminary model that seeks to identify types of personal and policy relationship between them and the 10 Secretaries of State they served during these years (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2013d). Our ultimate intention is to report our work as a whole on this and related themes in a book based on chapters on each of the nine permanent secretaries who have served after 1976. Central to these chapters will be an examination of the relationship between them and the 16 Education Secretaries they have worked with during these years. As such, in analysing and interpreting what we have heard and in attempting to generalise from this about the praxis of permanent secretaries in a way that will inform our book, we believe the explanatory framework discussed above, will be critical.

In conclusion, whilst parts of the framework have been explored in other papers, at conferences and with several of those we have interviewed, this is the first time that it has been presented as a whole. In summary, we would depict it as representing the politics of the via media, the practical, common sense, of reasonableness, of broad appeal enabling policy continuity. Regarded from the perspective of the meta-politics of civil service neutrality as described above, ‘centrism’ has resonance, if for very different reasons, with the rational choice, risk minimising, attitude and activity of the senior bureaucrat informing Dunleavy's account of bureau shaping. However, given the chorus of criticism that the Civil Service is facing (Ribbins and Sherratt, 2014a) and growing demands for radical solutions based on the primacy of the political will of ministers, some may question if such ‘centrist’ attitudes are sustainable. On this, at the risk of seeming to make predictions from our research rather than simply posing a historically based appraisal of possibility, we doubt if the June 2012 Reform Plan and its subsequent iterations will be notably more successful in realising fundamental change in the Civil Service or the praxis of its senior mandarins than have been the many other attempts since Northcote-Trevelyan reported in 1854.