Meaningful reform

It’s time to lead the civil service, not just the morning news round, says Dave Penman.

The government is talking a lot about reform. It’s a word that can mean many things to many people. It can be shorthand for changing either the way people work, location or the technology they use but for others, it’s just linguistic cover for cutting jobs or terms and conditions.

Leading change, or reform, in organisations is difficult. Management consultancies have earned fortunes supporting organisations through large-scale change, not always with the right results, but no one would argue it is easy.

I have always argued that unions are agents of change. Our job is to bring our experience and that of our members to bear on any change programme, to challenge where necessary, but to get a better end result for both the organisation and staff. Whilst some employers and politicians like to paint unions as “blockers”, that usually comes from a place where they are susceptible to challenge because what’s being proposed hasn’t been thought through. Good union engagement is about making better management decisions.

Reform can be destabilising for individuals, as most large-scale change programmes inevitably have winners and losers. Staff having confidence that their interests have been considered is another benefit of good union engagement.

The civil service is not like most employers. Ministers, who operate in a political realm, have a huge sway over what happens and how it happens. Often, for them, what they are saying publicly is less about their role in leading the civil service and more about the politics of the day. Governments need to get elected, I understand that, but when politicians enter government they need to balance the politics with leadership.

If the government is serious about reform, then it needs to inspire civil servants and build confidence that the substance of that reform programme has merit. Announcing significant changes to how half a million civil servants are managed in the Sunday broadcast round, including sensitive issues like fast tracking dismissals, is almost a test case in how not to do it. The government may get its political goal of favourable headlines, but it risks alienating the very people it is supposed to be leading and who it relies upon to deliver the public services it’s reforming.