An Institute for Government survey of senior United Kingdom Public Servants has found that more than half of those workers in the 21 biggest jobs have been in their posts for no more than 18 months.
At a time when State institutions are under heavy pressure, former Public Servants and MPs warn that a lack of institutional memory, and in some cases expertise, could be hindering the Government’s ability to spot and deal with crises.
They raised concerns about a culture which sees Public Servants rotating around the entire institution, rather than working their way up through a single Department to its most senior posts.
Conservative MP and former Chair the House of Commons Public Administration Committee, Bernard Jenkin said a Permanent Secretary who had been parachuted into a Department simply could not know all the people that he or she needed to know.
Cabinet Secretary and head of the Public Service, Simon Case has been in post for just 13 months and at 41 is the youngest-ever person to be appointed.
Mr Case, a key figure in negotiations to leave the European Union (Brexit), left the Government to work for the Royal Family, before returning to help with the Government’s COVID-19 response just before he was given the top job.
He has not previously run a Whitehall Department.
Several of those at the top of Government Departments are good examples of the growing tendency to switch roles regularly.
Antonia Romeo (pictured) who became the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice in January was previously at the Department for International Trade, and before that at the Cabinet Office.
While Susan Acland-Hood has some previous experience in the Department for Education, her previous two jobs were at the Courts Service and the Treasury.
Sarah Munby who started her career in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, worked at the consultancy Mckinsey and Company before joining the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in 2019 as a Director General, a year before becoming Permanent Secretary.
Mr Jenkin said Public Servants wanted as many things as possible on their CV if they left an organisation — something he argues could work against them becoming experts.
One former political adviser, who worked on the pandemic response, agreed.
“If you want to be a successful Civil Servant you don’t stay at a Department for decades,” the adviser said.
“Instead, ambitious officials enter through the graduate Fast Stream program and then jump around Departments, zigzagging their way to the top,” they said.
London, 2 October 2021
