what's wrong with the civil service?

What's Wrong with the Civil Service?Author(s): C. V. JanesSource: The Australian Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jun., 1941), pp. 95-105Published by: Australian Institute of Policy and ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20630941 .

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What's Wrong With the Civil Service? By C. V. JANES*

We do not indeed imagine that the servant ought to be governed to his own detriment. ... : On the contrary, we believe it to be better for every one to be

governed by a wise and divine power, which ought, if possible, to be seated in the man's own heart, the only alternative being to impose it from without.

?Plato: Republic, Bk. ix.

"What's wrong with the Civil Service?" in the present context, is a rhetorical way of saying that something definitely is wrong with it. But why "the Civil Service" and not "the civil servant"? Isn't this an important distinction? It is: an efficient system might be ineffi cient through being in the hands of incompetent servants; efficient servants might become inefficient because they are forced to do homage to a "system" which was good enough in the good days of their Vic torian grandfathers. The study of an organism can be distinguished from the study of an organization, even though it might consist of an

organization of organisms. Another important distinction is that between short- and long

term problems of organizing the Civil Service. It must be recognized that the present difficulty of meeting the additional and exceedingly heavy demands of the war on the Service requires the adoption of methods which might be unsuitable for correcting long-term defi ciencies. Similarly a long-term remedy might be quite inadequate to meet the present position. Alteration, for example, of the antiquated methods of recruitment will not produce able administrators for exist

ing posts. Therefore, in answering the question of what is wrong with the Civil Service, the burden of the reply will deal with the pressing problem of making the Service better fitted to handle the war effort. Yet the suggestions made will have a definite bearing on long-term issues.

Have critics always paid regard to the distinction between the ser vant and the Service? Probably in most instances of proved inefficiency the system is more culpable than the man. Because a civil servant

* President of New South Wales Branch of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand.

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June, 1941 THE AUSTRALIAN QUARTERLY

"falls down on his job"?and there are many who do?he is not

necessarily to be "booted" into insensibility, but helped to his feet, led to another job or "put to grass"; and to be pitied always as the victim of a soulless system. Even by the methods of recruitment he might have been cruelly treated: securing a job is no certain proof of being fit for it. Judgment then of the incompetency of a civil servant must be mixed with considerable compassion. Accordingly all the facts of organization of the Service must be given their full importance as determinants of character and business acumen.

Any criticisms which might creep into this article?so far not any have appeared?will not be personal: they will, that is, not be directed to civil servants detached from the Civil Service. Furthermore, there is always che possibility that those for whose benefit criticisms are

made, will "get their backs up" if their faces are slapped, their char acter assailed or their ability ridiculed. "This is not the time for hitting heads for cheap amusement."1 Moreover as Aldous Huxley says "violence produces only the results of violence and the attempt to impose reforms by violent methods is therefore doomed to failure."2

Therefore be it clearly understood that civil servants as a whole are

loyal, honest, well-intentioned, hardworking and work-loving em

ployees of the State. But what is wrong with the Civil Service? Many influential per

sons, some of them inside the Service, share the opinion of the writer that something very definitely is wrong with it. Is "opinion" the right word for those outside the Service? Perhaps "hunch" is better! That is how the public feels about it, despite the assurance of Sir Phillip

Goldfinch, Chairman of the New South Wales Board of Management of the Ministry of Munitions that "so-called red tape is not holding up munition production in any material way." Yet how audible was the sigh of relief in Martin Place when Sir Phillip followed with "many regulations are being disregarded. I break them every day. Many more of them must go to get quick action."3

It is because Sir Phillip of the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. is not a civil servant that he is able to slash away red tape, but in so doing he confirms the suspicions of the public that the regular procedure in Government departments is hampering the war effort. It is the neces sity for disregarding regulations that is so disturbing. The public would be less disturbed if it was satisfied that virile imaginative slashers of red tape were operating throughout the whole Service.

1 Sir Gwilym Gibbon, Public Administration, October 1940, p. 219. 2 Ends ar^d Means, p. 126. 9 Sydney Morning Herald, 3/5/I941

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THE AUSTRALIAN QUARTERLY June, 1941

Until the public is so satisfied the "hunch" will remain that all is not well with the Civil Service, that the war effort is retarded. This is so because the public sees in the cutting of red tape an attempt to speed up production, to increase the efficiency of government business, to economize the precious asset of time, and not the breaking of "regula tions designed to prevent waste, loss and even the pilfering of public

money."4 Criticism of the Civil Service is so widespread that justification

for writing on the subject is not needed. The "hunch" might be quite ill-founded, but because so many persons in high and low places have

it, some time devoted to analysing this uneasiness should not be wasted. "What is serious," says Sir Gwilym Gibbon, a highly credited retired civil servant, writing of the position in Great Britain, "is that many critics of sober mind, men who realize the essential need of a Civil Service strong and able, with the confidence of Parliament and the country at its back, are genuinely uneasy, are afraid that the Civil Service is not rising to the great challenge of the present emergency and is not adapting itself quickly and with vigour to its urgency."5 That might have been written to sum up the position in Australia. It is criticism, adds Sir Gwilym, which "should be frankly examined; where it is right, as I think it is in a measure, the needed reforms should be effected; and where mistaken, as I believe it is largely, it should be rebutted."

Much of the criticism is mistaken because those voicing it, though prompted by good intentions, have, as Sir Phillip stated, "no know ledge whatever of the facts." If they did they might have a different view of red tape. It is no crime if, having diligently sought the facts, critics base their criticism on insufficient information: the most that can be said is that their conclusion is unsupportable. But it is a grievous offence if, for reasons other than the State's'interest, those in possession of information refuse to make it available. The Civil Service must, to some extent, be a silent service, but even in wartime the virtue of silence can degenerate into a vice. Much of the public's uneasiness would disappear if a simple story were widely and authoritatively told of how the Service is organized and what it does.

To this end civil servants should be given greater freedom of expression, and they should not be denied the thrill of hitting back? provided they do not use knuckle-dusters. At present they are at a

great disadvantage: their mistakes, their inefficiency, their slothfulness, are widely circulated?thanks mainly to an inconsiderate press; their

4 Sydney Morning Herald, 3/5/i94i. 5 Public Administration, October 1940.

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faithful and efficient service, their creative work, rarely have a cover age beyond departmental boundaries?thanks to the oath of secrecy and perhaps to some modesty. "Civil servants," says Laski, "like other human beings, do in fact make mistakes, even grave ones; and the best method of convincing the public of their bona fides is the fullest open ness about their habits. A failure in this is bound, in the crucial instance, to have serious repercussions."6

The granting of greater liberty should be extended to the realm of public policy. Merely because a citizen is a civil servant he should not be debarred from exercising the citizen's right of taking part in controversy on major public questions, but he must never be given permission to enter into political debates except in private places.7 It should not be considered improper for him to reveal faults of the system, inefficiency, mistakes, incivility or other failings of other officers, and above all the incompetence of Ministers.

This is not to say that he should be allowed to rush into print? he might write very bad English and that would bring further dis credit on the Service. His revelations could be conveyed orally, in the first place, to his spiritual adviser and, if they survived this ordeal, they could be taken in writing to the Public Service Commissioner. This suggestion needs a little polishing up, but the point surely is clear.

However, for the sake of the large number of officers suffering from Service myopia it is necessary to make it a little clearer. The point is that some restraint should be placed on those public servants who

wish to display for public enlightenment the Service skeletons. Is anything fundamentally wrong with the proposition that if the

competent head of a Government department is satisfied that his Minister is an ass, the said head is performing a national service in calling public attention to the fact? More politely, but less realistic ally, the question can be put in these words: Should the permanent head of a Government department keep his Minister out of trouble? Sir Gwilym says that he should, "but not by counselling the shirking of public duty."8

When, however, the keeping of a Minister out of trouble involves tutoring in the elements of economics, the problem is much more

complicated. Fortunately Ministers, as a rule, have sufficient wisdom to place

? Parliamentary Government in England, p. 344. 7 "It is, I think, clear that a civil servant could not easily be permitted publicly to

criticize the policy of the department of which he was a member. Ibid., p. 341. Note that this rule does not preclude civil servants from criticizing their departmental heads.

The right so to criticize should be conferred only on certain civil servants. 8 Public Administration, October 1940, p. 223.

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themselves in the hands of the heads of their departments respecting routine affairs, but some doubt exists whether they are pliable enough in matters which are chiefly technical. Of such they cannot, unless they have specially trained themselves, have an intimate enough knowledge upon which to base sound decisions. What qualifications, for instance, has a Treasurer whose organized study has been confined to a dental school, to reject the advice given by the Secretary to the Treasury on such a matter as war finance, especially if the view expressed is shared by the expert advisers to the Secretary?advisers whose opinion outside the Treasury would not be seriously challenged, except perhaps by some persons in University circles.

Prudent Ministers?that is "statesmen," for "in fact," says Aristotle, "statesmanship and prudence are the same faculty"?will take their cue in all things relating to their official position from their departmental heads. If they do this they wUl "tend to get the Civil Servants they deserve"9 and civil servants will tend to get the Ministers they deserve. Is a civil servant intellectually honest, who, being an economist and having prepared a memorandum at the behest of his

Minister on, say, the advantage of Social Credit, costless credit, "national" credit or "easy money," fails to write across it in red ink? "This is bosh, but you asked for it"? It would be downright insub ordination not to comply with the behest?with a smile. It is always possible to prepare a "case," yet let there be no pretence that it is any thing but specious pleading.

Prudent10 Ministers, too, will give full credit to civil servants for services rendered to them personally, and to others. The conceit of

Ministers is directly proportional to the pains they take to conceal the authorship of memoranda written for them and either bearing their own names or distributed by them in a way that creates the impression that "alone I did it." Recognition of merit is not only a mark of good breeding and sound training; it is evidence also of a sense of justice.

Moreover?to descend to the mercenary?praise bestowed where it is due revives the flagging spirit thus bringing increased and better effort. That may legitimately be regarded as a principal aim for Ministers in administering their departments.

Is anything to be gained by withholding the names of civil ser vants responsible for the preparation of Government memoranda,

The Economist, i March 1941, p. 264. The article continues: "The average Minister's lack of understanding of the affairs of his Department has thrust decisions back upon the Civil Service, and his lack of political courage has compelled the decision to be a timid one."

10 "Prudence is a formed faculty which apprehends truth by reasoning or calculation, and issues in action, in the field of human good." Aristotle, Ethics, Bk. vi.

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public reports, and Ministers' speeches? In all Government depart ments many men devote the whole of their time preparing matter for public consumption and never receive the slightest recognition of their services even when they excel themselves as many of the younger poorly paid men frequently do. "After a certain point," says Laski, "the quasi-anonymity with which the Service surrounds itself is harm ful, rather than beneficial, to its proper relations with the public."11

But?and it is an exceedingly important "but"?the validity of the proposition discussed above is destroyed if one word is deleted from it, and the relationship between Ministers and their department chiefs, the discussion of which arose from it, would then become fan tastic. That word is competent. Prudent Ministers must necessarily have a different attitude to the heads of their departments than that adverted to above, if these civil servants are incompetent. They will be forced to give greater attention to departmental routine and will be compelled to deny freedom of expression not only to permanent heads but to other officers?juniors must pay for the failings of their seniors, as Ministers however efficient cannot be expected to supervise the detailed activity of all officers. When departments are run by inefficient civil servants Ministers must accept greater responsibility for documents bearing their own names and for "copy" produced by their departments.

But ministerial responsibility does not stop there; it should show itself in a vigorous purging operation. In addition to the head being decapitated, it will doubtless be found that many members of his staff will have to be dragged to the block. Without fear of election conse quences, without favour to political friends and relatives, without appeasement of political enemies, the Minister must see that the decapitator continues with his purifying job to the very end. Yet it is not the Minister's function himself to operate the guillotine; his responsibility is to see that this truly democratic instrument is in the hands of capable operators. It will seldom be idle in a well-conducted Government service, for no system has yet been nor could one ever be, devised to ensure recruitment of none but the competent.

The function of executioner belongs exclusively to the Public Ser vice Commissioner?and rightly so. The right to dismiss civil servants must never be conceded to Ministers singly or jointly.12 If it were, it would be too easy for cowardly Ministers "to pass the buck," for

11 Parliamentary Government in England, p. 343.

12 "Instead of a Minister being able to say whether or not an appointment shall be made, a promotion effected, or an officer's services terminated, these powers should be vested entirely in the Public Service Board." Bland, Planning the Modern State, p. 116.

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Ministers holding weird theories to force their views down the throats of their intellectual superiors in the Service, for sauve Ministers to coax personal favours out of susceptible officers, for Ministers pushing barrows for their political supporters to secure concessions at the pub lic's expense, for nest-feathering Ministers to obtain information from Government departments which must be kept even from them, and generally, for Ministers having other undesirable qualities to make civil servants eat out of politicians' hands. At all costs, even if it means an incompetent Service, the livelihood of civil servants must be pro tected from the whims and failings of Ministers. Patrimony breeds inefficiency.

Though the prerogatives of Ministers do not embrace the pri vilege of dismissing civil servants, they carry, among the more im portant responsibilities of office, the duty of requesting the Public Service Commissioner to appoint departmental heads to less senior positions, and to promote junior officers to the chief executive positions in the Service. In addition Ministers should recommend to him officers

who in their opinion should be dismissed from the Service because they will never "make good." In all these matters the decision of the Com missioner must be final, and towards his verdicts the press and the public should have the same attitude as they do to pronouncements of the High Court of Australia. He might make mistakes and injustice

might be the lot of some civil servants, but it is preferable that the community should carry the ordinary human failings of its Civil Ser vice Commissioner, whoever he might be, than that it should be bur dened with an inefficient Civil Service.

This plea does not carry an expression of opinion on the work of present Civil Service Commissioners whether they operate singly or as a board. Principles and not personalities are the subject of present discussion. Nor should any particular individual be regarded as the object against which criticism might be levelled. These terms of debate govern also all references to Ministers and civil servants. Yet it might so happen that some well-fitting caps will have been manu factured. Machiavelli has well said that "the first impression one gets of a ruler and of his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him."13

Would it be in accordance with fact to say that those Australian Civil Service Commissioners, who have the right to dismiss civil ser vants, have so rarely exercised it that the public would be surprised, and Labour leaders would work themselves into a state of frenzy, if these Commissioners "sacked" some of the many servants whose effi

13 The Prince, chap. xxii.

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ciency has recently been questioned? Apart from press comment, it is no secret that grave charges of incompetence are being made in some ministerial quarters, in certain business circles and in some academic sections, against certain highly placed Government officials and groups of Government employees. It would seem that most of this criticism is exceptionally well informed. So widespread is it, so persistent and in some particulars so consistent, that it must have some basis in fact. It surely provides a sufficiently good reason for the issuing of a number of dismissal notices.

To attempt to correct the position by reshuffling jobs might not be successful. The odds are in favour of it failing. If administrators are born and not made,14 then it is clear that if a civil servant has failed as the head of a department, and it is decided to remove him from his post, he should either be derated, or dismissed: it would be folly to transfer him to another administrative position. If on the other hand administrators are made, it is by no means certain that a

departmental head who has not "made good" will do any better if transferred to the chief executive position of another department: he

may have reached that stage in life when his character and administra tive habits are so fixed that he can no longer be "made" into a good administrator; and, even if he were still plastic, the time to mould him is scarcely when he ought to be moulding others. Whether there fore administrators are born or made, the transference of "wooden heads" from one executive position to another is not a course of action which will be recommended by those whose chief concern is the national interest, especially in a time like the present when risks must be avoided. It were better to offend some sensitive souls, than to jeopardize the country's war effort or to prejudice the preparation of plans for post-war reconstruction.

For whatever incompetence exists in the Civil Service, past Ministers and Public Service Commissioners are chiefly responsible; for whatever incompetence remains to impede the war effort, present

Ministers and Commissioners must accept the blame. Yet it would be unjust to members of both these groups of "public" servants not to include in this general indictment certain sections of both the press and the public. Of these sections, the press is the most reprehensible, because it is in a position to inform the public of the essential elements of civic responsibility, among which are included the necessity of giving competent Ministers "a fair go." Towards incompetent Ministers, the attitude of the press and the public alike should be distinguished by

*4 Cf. Mr Parker's article in the Quarterly, June 1940.

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its tolerance, and above all, by a sympathetic understanding of the weaknesses of representative government which regularly throws up "anomalies."

Given the correct attitude of the press and public to this problem of increasing the efficiency of the Civil Service the solution will soon appear in some dismissals and in considerable reshuffling of high and low posts involving numerous promotions and demotions. Some objec tions will certainly be raised within the Service particularly by those adversely affected. With the knowledge however that the changes reflected not merely the opinions of Ministers, but the wishes of the electorate, these objections would be swamped by a spectacular upsurge within the Service of loyalty to the cause of good government. For, no matter with what vehemence and viciousness critics deliver their charges against civil servants, of indifference to the common weal, of disinterestedness to the demands of the Service, and of slothfulness in carrying out their daily tasks, the assault is without avail.

As a whole, civil servants are conscientious, interested in their work, and responsive to regulation. Some pockets of indolence exist and for those in them utter contempt is held by other officers. Numer ous officers do not spend their time to the best advantage, but for that the system is chiefly responsible. For scores of civil servants, especially those in the higher positions, the hours of leisure are few indeed. On this matter the Economist says it would be fairer to complain that the officer in the higher ranks "works too hard and to suggest that a limita tion of his hours might compel him to make a distinction between his more and his less important tasks, to the advantage of the former."15 No! the charge of laziness should be thrown back firmly into the teeth of the critic.

On the other hand, criticism calling into question the administra tive and executive capacity of civil servants must be treated with con

siderable respect. But by what standard is such capacity to be mea sured? How are competent officers to be singled out from incompetent officers? About all that can be said in reply, and it is ridiculously inade quate, is that efficiency is measured by its results. The same, of course, can be said of inefficiency. In both instances the further question arises: what results? Not even designers of efficiency systems or their high powered salesmen can supply a satisfactory answer. If administration consisted merely in driving machines it would be possible to express "output" as a function of capacity. The fact is that, for the type of work done by the Civil Service, no objective test of efficiency exists, except for those officers employed exclusively on machines: it is easy

15 The Economist, i March 1041.

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to say whether a typist is efficient; it is very difficult to assess the effici ency of an administrator.

Whatever justification, therefore, may be found for keeping doubtfully incompetent administrators in responsible positions, there can be no excuse for retaining in the Service obviously incompetent typists and others whose inefficiency is clearly demonstrated. If numer ous women highly qualified in clerical duties were not available outside the Service, the Public Service Commissioners might be justified in not

dismissing those in the Service who are inefficient beyond doubt. To attract outsiders it might be necessary to offer higher salaries, but that should not deter the Commissioners from taking the only action which reasonable men would take and which the public should expect them to take: better to have a more highly paid and more efficient clerical staff than to hobble along with one in which there are many who are not worth the award rate and all the others are penalized by a strict observance of "fixed" wages. It should not be beyond the wit of these

Commissioners, provided they obtain outside expert advice, to devise a

plan under which merit is rewarded by liberal additions to award rates. Whenever any doubt arises respecting the administrative ability

of any civil servant, Public Service Commissioners should give the

public the benefit of it. Since the degree of efficiency or inefficiency is so difficult to determine and because it is so largely a matter of personal opinion, dismissal from the Service is not, except in obvious instances

of incompetence, the best course to take in the public interest: trans

ference to a less important post might be a highly satisfactory per manent solution; transference to a post of equal status and salary

might perpetuate unwarranted expenditure of public money. Sometimes the efficiency of civil servants, particularly of those

occupying high positions, is compared with that of persons holding similar positions in the business world. This is rather too naive to merit more than passing reference. The implied similarity of tasks and responsibilities when tested with facts vanishes, leaving statements without foundations. There passes too the false view that successful business men necessarily succeed when they are brought into the Ser vice. "Business man," comments Sir Gwilym, "seems to many a kind

of talisman, guaranteed to see us through all our troubles. This is a

pathetic faith, the more so because contrary to experience."16 He

opines that there is "about an equal chance" of business men succeeding in running "a big department of State or a big division of a depart

ment." "The proportion of failures among business men in the last i? Public Administration, October 1940, p. 224.

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war," says the Economist, "was high, and there have been a number of similar examples in this war."17

Some of the most noticeable successes of men brought into the Civil Service during the last war were shown by men who had not been business leaders. They were "persons with instinctive judgment of men and affairs, with the gift of leaving to others all but the big things, with the demoniac drive and touch of ruthlessness which are essential for great achievement," to quote Sir Gwilym once more. The view of the Economist on this important matter is that "those who are in a position to judge would probably agree that there is a higher percentage of successes among the professional men?the solicitors, the

accountants, even the professors?than among the business men."

It is widely held that all that is needed to improve the efficiency of the Australian Service is to appoint business men to important Gov ernment posts. Provided the business men are wisely chosen, and are

selected from a field which includes employees as well as employers, provided, too, that those brought into the Service are given consider able liberty to make decisions without reference to the traditional way of doing things, the Service can be greatly improved by this means. But while getting in outsiders, it would be well to promote to the highest positions some of the more promising young men in the Ser vice, whose ability, in not a few instances, is denied full expression by unimaginative and jealous senior officers.

Many appointments of outsiders have already been made, mainly to new positions created to handle essential aspects of the war effort. Some of these outsiders have not been successful. The retention of

imported failures cannot have but a very harmful effect within the Service where the extent of failure is so well known. In some instances, the Service itself must share the blame, having denied to new arrivals that sympathetic co-operation without which it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for any one but a genius at administration to succeed. A little judicious "firing" of some civil servants, or some

spectacular demotions, would have a salutary effect on the whole Ser

vice, especially if it were backed up by the press, and would ensure that those outsiders who are successful in carrying out Civil Service duties, would be even more successful.

... if we once get a sufficient quantity of honesty in our Captains, the

organisation of labour is easy, and will develop itself without quarrel or

difficulty; but if we cannot get honesty in our Captains, the organisation of labour is for evermore impossible.

?Ruskin: Unto This Last. 17 The Economist, I March 1041.

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