FDA General Secretary Dave Penman has welcomed the “tone of collaboration” in the Declaration on Government Reform, published today, but warned that the “devil may very well be in the detail”.

Penman said the declaration, “like so many of these documents, brings together work that is already under way, some firm commitments to reform and some vague declarations of intent, where the devil may very well be in the detail.”

“What is to be welcomed is the tone of collaboration and recognition of the incredible strengths of our civil service, as well as the bedrocks of impartiality and integrity which these strengths are built on.”

“Much is made of the need to bring in external talent, yet there is little detail on how they will bridge the chasm between pay levels in the civil service and the rest of the public sector, never mind the private sector. With equivalent jobs paying multiples of what a senior civil servant earns, pay reform – which they have so far manifestly failed to introduce – will be critical to the success of attracting and keeping talent.”

Penman went on to also raise concerns over the “vague assertions” of ministerial involvement in the appointments of Permanent Secretaries and Directors General, saying they “will raise alarm bells”:

Ministerial involvement in selection not only threatens the impartiality of the civil service, but will inevitably lead to greater turnover as successive ministers seek to build their own team around them, the very opposite of what they say they are trying to achieve.”

“Overall, civil servants will need to be convinced that yet another strategic plan is more than just that, and will actually result in real world changes that help them to deliver the first-class public services to which they’re committed.”