Former ministers have called for a fundamental restructuring of the civil service career ladder to improve Whitehall policymaking, arguing in particular that high-flying civil servants should be encouraged to develop their careers in a single department or profession rather than regularly moving into entirely new roles.

“This policy of shifting people around every few years is ridiculous and leads to poor policy evaluation,” Margaret Hodge, the former children’s minister and current chair of the Public Accounts Committee, told Civil Service World. She added: “It may be good for civil servants’ personal development, but it’s bad policy development and dreadful policy implementation for the nation.”

Tessa Jowell, the shadow minister for the Cabinet Office and a former cabinet minister, also said that the changing nature of policymaking requires a new generation of civil servants who are expert in specialist fields – particularly in the sciences. “The civil service needs more specialists at a higher level and they need to be given time to do their job,” she told CSW. “There are aspects of policymaking now that are so specialist that they can’t be done by the traditional generalist civil servant.”

Hodge and Jowell’s comments were supported by David Blunkett, the former education and home secretary, who argued that policymakers should develop deep expertise in their subject before designing policies. The fast-track system, he said, “allows a few specifically-defined individuals to flourish”, but it “should be more commonplace” for civil servants to stay in one department for an extended period to develop subject knowledge.

The former ministers were responding to a report published last month by the Institute for Government, Making Policy Better, which called for a restructuring of the relationship between civil servants and ministers. The report suggests ways in which policymaking could be improved, including calls for ministers to take a more hands-on approach throughout the stages of policymaking and for civil servants to challenge ministers more robustly over policy.

Commenting on the need for people to stay in post for longer to develop expertise and see projects through to their conclusion, Jowell also argued that ministers should have fixed-term appointments to prevent policymaking and delivery from being damaged by politically-motivated ministerial reshuffles. “The biggest change we need is that ministers should be appointed for a period of time, rather than being reshuffled as an answer to problems within government,” she said.

For a feature setting out former ministers’ views on policymaking, see here.

Written by Mark Rowe