Understand Politics

by Peter Joyce

  The ability of chief executives to exercise political power over key aspects of government is aided by the presence of advisers in formalized machinery of government under their control.

  The role of a head of state is separate from that of a chief executive and is often performed by a different person who may be directly elected or who obtains their position by birth (as is the case with the UK monarch).

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  10

  The bureaucracy

  In this chapter you will learn:

  what is meant by the terms ‘bureaucracy’ and ‘bureaucrats’

  how civil servants influence policy making

  the key issues affecting the reform of the civil service.

  The role of the bureaucracy

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  Insight

  Bureaucrats are the permanent arm of the executive branch of government whose roles are to advise policy makers and implement their decisions.

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  This aspect of our study concerns the administrative arm of the executive branch of government. Here the work is performed by paid officials whom we term ‘bureaucrats’. Many of these are categorized as civil servants. This means that key matters such as recruitment, pay, promotion, grading, dismissal and conditions of work are subject to common regulations which operate throughout the national government within which they work. Such common regulations are enforced centrally by bodies such as the American Office of Personnel Management or the United Kingdom’s Civil Service Commission.

  Civil servants perform a variety of roles in liberal democratic states, but there are two which have traditionally been emphasized: they give advice to those who exercise control of the political arm of the executive branch on the content of policy; they may also be responsible for implementing it. The implementation of policy is carried out at all levels of government and includes the delivery of a service to the public (such as the payment of welfare benefits).

  Bureaucracies employ large numbers of people within government agencies and departments. Efficiency in administration requires rational organization. Max Weber suggested that the ideal bureaucracy would be organized according to a number of principles. He suggested that appointments should be determined on the basis of tests and not patronage, that bureaucratic decision making should be characterized by the impersonal application of established rules and procedures (the term ‘red tape’ being commonly used to describe the consequences of this method of operation), that the structure should be hierarchical with each bureaucrat occupying a defined place in a chain of command and that bureaucracies should operate on the basis of technical expertise.

  HOW IS THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED?

  The machinery of government comprises a diverse range of agencies. In countries that include Ireland and the UK, government departments constitute a major component of the machinery of government.

  The existence of government departments is sometimes determined by legislation. In Ireland, for example, the 1924 Ministers and Secretaries Act provided the legal basis for the establishment of the departments of state and the allocation of work between them. Elsewhere, chief executives may possess the ability to initiate reorganization to the structure of government by abolishing existing departments, creating new ones or reallocating the tasks of government between departments. In the UK the power to reorganize government departments is derived from the Royal Prerogative rather than through legislation. This theoretically gives the prime minister considerable freedom to reorganize the machinery of government, which may be carried out for a number of reasons that include the desire to direct attention to a particular area of government policy. However, political constraints frequently restrict the scope of such changes. This tends to mean that changes made by a chief executive to the structure of government are often of an incremental nature, marginally adjusting, but not radically overhauling, the organization which existed when the chief executive assumed office.

  JOINED-UP GOVERNMENT IN THE UK

  An important reform affecting the organisation of the machinery of government in the UK has sought to improve the co-ordination between government departments.

  Historically, government departments in the UK operated independently of each other, which made a co-ordinated approach to a specific problem difficult to achieve. One solution to this is joined-up government, which was pursued by post-1997 Labour governments. This approach seeks to establish mechanisms whereby the operations of separate government departments can be fashioned to achieve objectives that are common to a number of them.

  The objective of joined-up government can be achieved in various ways. The 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review introduced Public Service Agreements (PSAs) which contained a theme that a number of departments were required to pursue and whose attainment was measured by performance indicators.

  An alternative way to achieve joined-up government is to establish co-ordinating machinery, one example of which was the creation of the Office for Criminal Justice Reform (the OCJR). This consists of a cross-departmental team which is responsible to the Home Secretary, the Justice Secretary and the Attorney General. Its role includes the production of strategic plans to shape the common future operations of these three agencies.

  Joined-up government may also seek to link various tiers of government. An important example of this is Local Area Agreements which establish the priorities for a local area that are agreed by central government, local government and other local partners.

  The ‘alternative’ machinery of government

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  Insight

  The machinery of government in the UK includes a number of bodies termed ‘quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations’ (or quangos).

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  In addition to government departments, in most countries there exists a vast range of alternative mechanisms whereby national public policy is discharged. In America, regulatory agencies, government corporations and independent executive agencies perform federal government functions. In the UK, a range of bodies which include quangos (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations) deliver services at both national and sub-national levels. In Ireland, state-sponsored bodies or semi-state bodies discharge important areas of central government work. The staff employed in this ‘alternative machinery’ of government may be civil servants but often are not.

  The main advantage arising from the use of such machinery is that it is implemented by organizations which are purpose built to perform a specific function. It does not have to accord to the organization and structure dictated by normal civil service requirements. Thus people can be recruited with expertise which would not normally be possessed by civil servants (for example, experience in conducting a large-scale business enterprise) and rewarded by a salary which does not have to conform to civil service pay scales. In both the UK and Ireland, these bodies have been used to link the public and private sectors.

  There are two major problems affecting these bodies.

  ACCOUNTABILITY

  The extent to which the ‘alternative’ machinery of government is adequately accountable for its actions has been questioned. It may be deliberately used to avoid the constant ‘interference’ of politicians. It is argued that organizations that pursue commercial activities require a certain amount of freedom so that enterprise can flourish. Others that pursue non-economic tasks may also justify a relative degree of insulation from political control on the grounds that the task with which they are concerned should not be subject to the constant to and fro of political debate: thus such bodies effectively depoliticize the function with which they are concerned. However, accountability remains an important issue as such bodies are concerned with the administration of public policy. Additionally, some rely on state funding to finance all or some of their activities.

  Accountability may be secured in three ways – by the chairperson (a political appointee) reporting to the minister, by the chief executive (a paid official) reporti
ng to the department associated with the body (perhaps in the form of an annual report or a corporate plan indicating targets and performance) or through scrutiny exercised by the legislature over the operations which such bodies perform.

  The consideration of annual reports might aid legislative scrutiny of such bodies but parliamentary select committees (such as the Irish Joint Committee on State Sponsored Bodies, established in 1976) possibly possess greater potential for enabling legislatures effectively to examine the activities of these bodies.

  PATRONAGE

  The second problem associated with the implementation of public policy by bodies other than government departments concerns the manner whereby those who manage these organizations are appointed. The main criterion for the appointment of managers to such organizations often seems to be their political sympathy to the government that appoints them. In the UK this led the Nolan Committee in 1995 to recommend that appointments to quangos should be scrutinized by an independent commissioner for public appointments. The role of this office was extended by the 1997 Labour government to ensure that future appointments were non-partisan and that a much wider group of people (including women and members of ethnic minorities) were encouraged to apply for these jobs.

  The civil service as a ruling elite

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  Insight

  Civil servants perform an important position in government that may be based upon their social background and vocational training.

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  The description of senior civil servants as an ‘elite’ particularly refers to their social background. In many countries such officials derive from a middle-and upper-middle-class background. The stereotypical British senior civil servant is middle-class, male and educated at public school and at Oxford or Cambridge University. A similar situation exists in France, where despite efforts by socialist administrations to broaden the recruitment base of such officials, a large number derive from socially exclusive backgrounds. There are, however, exceptions: in New Zealand, for example, the main source of recruitment into the civil service is secondary school graduates. Preference is given to internal promotions to fill higher-level vacancies.

  Concern has been expressed that senior civil servants are able to ensure that policy making is influenced by attitudes and values derived from their untypical social backgrounds. In some countries, however, the influence they possess extends throughout society and is not confined to the machinery of government. We now consider the case in France.

  FRANCE: THE ADMINISTRATORS’ STATE?

  In France, an elite group of people trained as administrators occupy key positions in not only the civil service but also political and commercial life in both the public and private sectors. Specialist training schools function as recruiting agencies for key areas of government activity. The most influential are the École Nationale d’Administration and the École Polytechnique. Their role is to recruit and train candidates for the higher-level civil service posts. Such training involves education and practical experience. Successful graduates are able to secure posts in the most prestigious areas of government activity. Additionally, however, their background and training enable them to move from the public to the private sector and occupy senior positions there or to occupy key positions in other aspects of public affairs.

  Although the French administrative elite do not monopolize influential jobs throughout society, the dominant positions held by many from such a background have given rise to accusations that France is an ‘administrators’ state’ in which people trained as civil servants are dominant in all walks of life.

  Civil service influence over policy making

  In theory, senior civil servants give advice to politicians but the latter make decisions. The role of the civil service then becomes that of implementing these decisions. The key issue concerns the extent to which the provision of advice by senior civil servants enables them to dominate the policy-making process. It is argued that the role of civil servants sometimes goes beyond the mere provision of advice and entails the exertion of a considerable degree of influence over the content of public policy. Civil servants act both as policy makers and as policy implementers.

  The accusation that civil servants usurped (that is, took over without lawful authority) the role which ought to be fulfilled by politicians within the executive branch of government has been voiced in the United Kingdom in recent years. An extreme form of this argument has been that senior civil servants might conspire to prevent ministers from pursuing a course of action which they wished to embark upon. We examine this argument in greater detail in the following paragraphs.

  MINISTER–CIVIL SERVANT RELATIONSHIPS IN THE UK

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  Insight

  In the UK, senior civil servants may go beyond offering advice to policy makers and exercise a major role in policy making.

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  The aim of this discussion is to consider why and how civil servants might occupy a dominant position in policy making.

  Civil servants are permanent officials with expertise (either of a policy area or of the workings of the administrative machine). Ministers hold office temporarily. They are ‘here now and gone tomorrow’. Additionally, ministers may know little or nothing of the work of a department until they are placed in charge of it by a prime minister. Although they may employ a limited number of policy advisers, these are heavily outnumbered by permanent officials. In theory, therefore, civil servants are in a powerful position to overawe ministers, but in any case many ministers will be voluntarily disposed to defer to the views or wishes of their permanent officials. Some ministers will by choice take little part in policy making and be content to legitimize decisions made on their behalf by their civil servants.

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  Delegated legislation

  Civil servants in the United Kingdom may perform the task of law making through their ability to draft what is termed ‘delegated legislation’. This arises when an act of parliament establishes broad principles whose detailed substance is left to civil servants to implement through means such as statutory instruments.

  There are many advantages of this process. The ability of civil servants to draw up or amend delegated legislation means that the process is speedier than would be the case were parliament required to carry out this process. This means that the law can be speedily updated. Additionally, civil servants may be better equipped than politicians to devise detailed and technical regulations. The importance of delegated legislation was enhanced in 2001 when the Regulatory Reform Act provided for the reform of primary legislation through regulatory reform orders. Subsequently, the 2006 Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act simplified the procedure involved in this process.

  Nonetheless, parliament retains a scrutinizing role over delegated legislation. All statutory instruments must be referred to parliament and some require an affirmative resolution to be passed before they become law. Scrutiny is also carried out by parliamentary committees. The House of Commons has a Regulatory Reform Committee and the House of Lords a Delegated Powers Scrutiny Committee and a Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee. A joint committee of both houses of parliament, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, further performs work of this nature.

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  The workload of a minister affects civil service involvement in policy making. A minister is also a member of parliament who needs to devote some time to constituency affairs. He or she is a leading member of a political party, who is expected to perform activities to promote that party. A minister may additionally be a member of the cabinet and thus need to devote energy to the overall work of government. It would thus be physically impossible for a minister to supervise all aspects of a department’s affairs. Ministers rely heavily on civil servants using their initiative to resolve unimportant or routine issues. These constitute the bulk of a department’s work, which does not, therefore, come before the minister for consideration. This gives the civil service the a
bility to make decisions over a very wide range of departmental activities in which the only political guideline might be that of ‘knowing the minister’s mind’ – that is, assessing how the minister would act were he or she available to deal with the situation personally.

  These arguments suggest that ministers may acquiesce to civil servants playing a significant role in policy making. Problems arise only when ministers perceive civil servants acting improperly by seeking to control the policy-making process by manipulating or obstructing them.

  Many ministers make decisions by selecting from options presented to them by the civil service. This gives the civil service ample opportunity to guide the minister in the direction in which they wish him or her to go. They may do this, for example, by producing an incomplete list of options designed to direct the minister towards the course of action favoured by the department.

  Alternatively they may attempt to ‘blind a minister with science’: that is, to make an issue seem so technical that the minister, as a layperson, feels uncomfortable and thus disposed towards accepting the preferred view put forward by the civil service.

  Some ministers wish to exercise a more prominent role concerning policy making. They enter office with clearly defined policy objectives and an appreciation concerning how these goals should be accomplished. However, this does not guarantee that civil servants will follow the minister’s lead. They may utilize an array of devices to stop, or slow down, the implementation of the minister’s wishes. Such tactics include deliberately delaying the implementation of ministerial directives or mobilizing opposition to the minister’s policy. The latter may involve the use of machinery such as interdepartmental committees (which are staffed by senior civil servants and from which ministers are excluded) to mobilize opposition to a minister’s policy from civil servants drawn from a number of departments. Alternatively, civil servants might manufacture political pressure against a minister which is designed to secure the abandonment of the politician’s preferred course of action. They may do this by appealing over the head of the minister to the prime minister or the cabinet, possibly utilizing the argument that the minister’s intended actions are contrary or damaging to overall government policy. The success of such a tactic is considerably influenced by the minister’s standing among his or her political colleagues.