Special Advisers: Part of the Constitution
Article in The House Magazine
12 July 2012
Following the Leveson Inquiry’s revelations of the part played by Jeremy Hunt’s special adviser in the News Corp-BSkyB takeover bid, the role of political advisers in government has come under renewed scrutiny. The media have rehearsed the familiar charges – that ‘SpAds’ are unaccountable, have undue influence over decision-making and undermine the civil service. The Public Administration Select Committee is now conducting an Inquiry.
The PASC study provides an important opportunity in fact to regularise their role and status. The most striking observation about the evidence presented to the Committee – such as from the Institute of Government, which has conducted extensive interviews with senior civil servants on this subject – is that the civil service itself values the role that special advisers play. So far from undermining them, SpAds enable officials to maintain their political independence: ministers need political advice but it is precisely this which civil servants, constitutionally and culturally, cannot give. Working closely with them on a day-to-day basis, Spads help officials understand what their Ministers want, and in turn help Ministers translate impartial advice into the language and judgements of real-world politics.
Special advisers play a particularly important role when Ministers want to change the direction of policy. If the civil service is a Rolls Royce, it is one with sticky steering. Understandably, officials tend to believe that existing policy is correct, and they are not generally trained to be innovative. This creates an inertia in government which makes it difficult for Ministers who want to change political direction (not least, after elections) to get good advice on alternative options. Special advisers can help officials research and think through different approaches.
The role of political advisers at No 10 has caused particular controversy. Both the present and previous Prime Ministers began by reducing their number, and then found themselves required to increase it again. There’s a simple reason: the PM needs political eyes and ears across Whitehall to prevent departments doing stupid things and to resolve conflicts between them. To take just two examples from the field I worked in: if David Cameron had had a special adviser on the environment you can be absolutely sure that Defra would have been prevented from proposing the politically disastrous idea of selling off national forests, and the Treasury would not have been allowed to force DECC to cut the solar feed-in tariff in the middle of a consultation about it (which resulted in the government being forced to U-turn by the High Court.) Countless other examples could be given.
It is time to end the silly media image of all political advisers as ‘spin doctors’ whose activities are somehow illegitimate. Political advisers exist in all political systems, including Westminster-style ones: in contrast to the two per Minister allowed in the UK, Australia has ten per minister and Canada 20. (Many countries give Ministers mini-‘cabinets’ mixing political advisers and civil servants, a structure with which we might usefully experiment here.)
The status and role of special advisers within our constitutional arrangements now needs to be properly acknowledged. We need a clear statement from the Cabinet Secretary on their value and role, and what they should, can and must not do. (The existing Code of Conduct is in fact already very strong on this.) There should be clear job descriptions, a set of expected qualifications in terms of expertise and experience, and proper training. SpAds should appear before Select Committees to explain their role in government processes. Ministers should remain politically accountable for them, while departmental Permanent Secretaries should ensure that their Code is followed. Special advisers are an important part of our government system; they should be recognised as such.
12 July 2012
Following the Leveson Inquiry’s revelations of the part played by Jeremy Hunt’s special adviser in the News Corp-BSkyB takeover bid, the role of political advisers in government has come under renewed scrutiny. The media have rehearsed the familiar charges – that ‘SpAds’ are unaccountable, have undue influence over decision-making and undermine the civil service. The Public Administration Select Committee is now conducting an Inquiry.
The PASC study provides an important opportunity in fact to regularise their role and status. The most striking observation about the evidence presented to the Committee – such as from the Institute of Government, which has conducted extensive interviews with senior civil servants on this subject – is that the civil service itself values the role that special advisers play. So far from undermining them, SpAds enable officials to maintain their political independence: ministers need political advice but it is precisely this which civil servants, constitutionally and culturally, cannot give. Working closely with them on a day-to-day basis, Spads help officials understand what their Ministers want, and in turn help Ministers translate impartial advice into the language and judgements of real-world politics.
Special advisers play a particularly important role when Ministers want to change the direction of policy. If the civil service is a Rolls Royce, it is one with sticky steering. Understandably, officials tend to believe that existing policy is correct, and they are not generally trained to be innovative. This creates an inertia in government which makes it difficult for Ministers who want to change political direction (not least, after elections) to get good advice on alternative options. Special advisers can help officials research and think through different approaches.
The role of political advisers at No 10 has caused particular controversy. Both the present and previous Prime Ministers began by reducing their number, and then found themselves required to increase it again. There’s a simple reason: the PM needs political eyes and ears across Whitehall to prevent departments doing stupid things and to resolve conflicts between them. To take just two examples from the field I worked in: if David Cameron had had a special adviser on the environment you can be absolutely sure that Defra would have been prevented from proposing the politically disastrous idea of selling off national forests, and the Treasury would not have been allowed to force DECC to cut the solar feed-in tariff in the middle of a consultation about it (which resulted in the government being forced to U-turn by the High Court.) Countless other examples could be given.
It is time to end the silly media image of all political advisers as ‘spin doctors’ whose activities are somehow illegitimate. Political advisers exist in all political systems, including Westminster-style ones: in contrast to the two per Minister allowed in the UK, Australia has ten per minister and Canada 20. (Many countries give Ministers mini-‘cabinets’ mixing political advisers and civil servants, a structure with which we might usefully experiment here.)
The status and role of special advisers within our constitutional arrangements now needs to be properly acknowledged. We need a clear statement from the Cabinet Secretary on their value and role, and what they should, can and must not do. (The existing Code of Conduct is in fact already very strong on this.) There should be clear job descriptions, a set of expected qualifications in terms of expertise and experience, and proper training. SpAds should appear before Select Committees to explain their role in government processes. Ministers should remain politically accountable for them, while departmental Permanent Secretaries should ensure that their Code is followed. Special advisers are an important part of our government system; they should be recognised as such.