As always @JGForsyth gives window into mind of the machine...but staggering how the machine can't see that many of the failures of #Covid-19 handling started with the politicians & in No.10 - which is not to say Civil Service doesn't need reform - but take a peak in the mirror /1
@JGForsyth As James reports, actually lots of senior civil servants do acknowledge need for reform when you talk to them - indeed agreed with elements of @michaelgove speech to Ditchley Lecture.
In my experience what strikes you about CS is how uneven it is - by which I mean... /2
In my experience what strikes you about CS is how uneven it is - by which I mean... /2
@JGForsyth @michaelgove You get to know someone in a particular job. And they're brilliant - some really smart people who could be earning a lot more elsewhere. And then they get replaced by someone nominally on same grade - who is total dud. That suggests lack of meritocracy/weeding out /3
@JGForsyth @michaelgove And as @michaelgove says, there is too much arse-covering and clock-watching. I find that people in CS often speak 'according to their grade' in a way they don't in private sector. All this has been true since time began...recall Yes Minister, Dicken's Circumlocution Office etc/4
But you have to ask if it is really the Civil Service that has "failed it's stress test" during the #Covid-19 crisis?
Because there is surely a bigger quality control problem in the Cabinet than among the perm-secs - just look at the where the failed wheezes have come from. /5
Because there is surely a bigger quality control problem in the Cabinet than among the perm-secs - just look at the where the failed wheezes have come from. /5
The Ventilator Challenge for example.
Why did government launch what Prof Andrew Farmery, head OxVent team, called a 'village hall' competition to create a complex medical device? That particular brainwave didn't come out of the CS. /6
ft.com/content/a4574c…
Why did government launch what Prof Andrew Farmery, head OxVent team, called a 'village hall' competition to create a complex medical device? That particular brainwave didn't come out of the CS. /6
ft.com/content/a4574c…
The homegrown NHSx track and trace app that was "world-beating" one week and on the shelf the next. A lot of Civil Servants saw that one coming right from the get-go./7
The Quarantine system? The one that has had only two fines issued and led to guidance from home office that said basically someone has to write "mickey mouse" on the form before enforcement happens. /8
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The civil service will argue that the entire quarantine idea was based on what focus groups pointed to, not the scientific advice. There were large internal rows on this, but the focus grouping won. /9
And then when you look at the successes - the implementation of the furlough scheme, the standing up of capacity on the NHS - they came out of the 'machine', not the Apollo-19 bright ideas box in Downing Street /10
All of which is to say that yes, the Civil Service could definitely do with, to use a technical term, a kick up the butt, but in equity you can't ignore the quality-control problems in the political machine at the moment. ENDS
