Whitehall can learn more from the successes of the civil services reform north of the border in Edinburgh, a new paper from the Institute for Government (IfG) written by the former Sir John Elvidge, former permanent secretary to the Scottish government has claimed.
In his paper, Northern Exposure: Lessons from the first twelve years of devolved government in Scotland, he articulates how he as the senior most civil servant in Scotland worked with the minority SNP government, to radically transform the structure of government so it works together around a “common national purpose”. These measures included reducing the number of ministers and abolishing departments and aligning the whole Scottish public sector around a single framework of national purpose - whose outcomes would be tracked and measured: "at the heart of [this] was the concept of government as a single organisation.. the idea of "joined up government taken to its logical conclusion".
In stark contrast to the Whitehall civil servants who were criticised recently by a Parliamentary Committee for lack of inertia and flexibility, the Elvidge paper praises the civil servants in Scotland for the role they played in the reforms. “As well as providing essential continuity of understanding about the processes of government, it has displayed agility and energy in assisting the adaptation of that understanding to fresh challenges," he said.
He says the model of Scottish government structure reforms was based on “an explicit rejection of departmentalism as a basis for effective government and involves the abolition of a departmental structure within the Scottish government."
"In partnership between civil service and political leadership, a radical Scottish model of government has developed since 2007, building on the learning from the earlier period of devolution. It is based on the effort to have government function as a single organisation, working towards a single defined government purpose based on outcomes, and establishing a partnership based on that purpose with the rest of the public sector which is capable of being joined by other parts of civil society,” he wrote. “"It places strategic leadership and the facilitation of co-operation between organisations and sections of society at the heart of the role of central government, rather than a managerialist view of the relationship of central government to others”
The former top civil servant in Scotland highlighted the role played by the Scottish public leadership forum, which brings together all Scottish public sector leaders, in ensuring the changes were not just limited to Edinburgh. He argues “"my central proposition is that we are making less use than we could and should within the UK of the opportunities for transferable learning from the experience of devolution.”
Lord Adonis, the former Labour Cabinet Minister and now the Director of the IfG echoed his thoughts and said the Scottish model does offer a successful alternative and its time for Whitehall to “wake up to the changes” north of the border in Scotland.