The Prime Minister wants civil servants to be bolder about taking risks . He is not alone in this, nor is he the first to express such a hope.

But when a civil servant is deciding how much risk to accept in a new policy, service or project, it is probably not the memory of Cameron’s speech which will fill their mind. Instead, they may well be swayed by the fear, should their risk fail to pay off, of a public and career-damaging castigation from a select committee or the National Audit Office.

The demands of a hungry and intolerant media, and the ambitions of opposition politicians and opportunist lobbyists, increase the dangers.

In this context, it was refreshing to hear Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude tell civil servants last week that, while in opposition, he stopped shadow ministers from using capability reviews as a stick with which to beat the government: this would have been an easy way to score political points, but with a cost for future honesty and openness. It’s also encouraging to hear David Cameron say that politicians have a role in
convincing the press and public about the benefits of risk taking; the very fact that he’s publicly stated that sensible risks are to be embraced may go some way towards mitigating the fear of failure among civil servants.

In the short term, civil servants can choose to be bolder as they pursue the drastic savings and radical reforms outlined by the coalition government. But in the long term, officials’ atttitudes will be shaped by the approach of other politicians, the media and the wider public.

Cameron may emphasise his tolerance of useful risks, and Maude may have convinced his colleagues of the benefits of restraint in opposition, but will the Labour shadow cabinet show a similar moderation, or listen to David Cameron’s arguments about managing failure; supporting innovation; accepting risk? If not, civil servants may find that the personal costs of failure are still too high a price to pay for the bold, riskembracing culture that Cameron is so keen for them to develop.