When I was a Minister I understood that I had been appointed to office but that did not mean I was as many say “ in power” . The change from being an Executive Chairman of a large quoted industrial company to being a “junior” Minister was an even bigger jolt than I had been…
When I was a Minister I understood that I had been appointed to office but that did not mean I was as many say “ in power” . The change from being an Executive Chairman of a large quoted industrial company to being a “junior” Minister was an even bigger jolt than I had been expecting.
My world changed from having to be very careful with everything I said because my word was writ in my company, to having to plot and plan every change I wanted to make to get anything I said incorporated as departmental practice and government policy.I had to ensure I had cleared my lines with the Secretary of State, who did trust me to take command of my specified Ministerial responsibilities. I had to get across to officials it was vexatious and pointless going behind my back to the S of S to change or undermine my decisions.
I had to battle to stop officials trying to turn departmental decisions into matters of debate with other departments, as a few were up to trying to stop things by an external intervention. I had to follow up everything we had agreed to make sure it happened in a timely way, as delay was always a good means to block a Minister.
In some cases I had to persuade the Permanent Secretary to take action, as much was about the training, motivation and deployment of staff. Councillors have more power over the selection, deployment and remuneration of their officials than Ministers have. Councillors can sack CEOs but effectively Ministers cannot sack Permanent Secretaries without the support of the PM who will usually be advised anyway by the Cabinet Secretary. Truss’s sacking of the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury was one of her worst blunders and added to the force of the establishment push back to her policy.
I found there were some very good officials. Key to success was getting the Permanent Secretary to allow some talent to work on your Ministerial priorities. It was crucial to success to know exactly you wanted to do and to have thought through the detail of how it could be done. I always wrote my own speeches and drafted crucial parts of documents central to a policy I wanted to avoid confusion or dilution.
I found that if you were always polite and thoughtful about your officials you could persuade enough of them that things could be done better.The civil service does more with much more money as its mantra. My mantra is faster, better cheaper. You could get a success by showing them how. Most people do prefer being associated with success than with failure, A Minister has to be good enough to cut through a failing culture of poor quality and more money, to deliver some success for the department he is meant to lead .
