Has Liz Truss fallen victim to ‘civil service reform syndrome’?

The Tory hopeful is following a well-worn path to attacking Whitehall bureacracy, says Kate Devlin

Civil service reform – three words that provoke fear and exasperation across Whitehall and beyond.

As the Institute for Government points out, ministers have been concerned with reform almost since the 1854 report by Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir Stafford Northcote formed the basis of the civil service.

Fads and political bugbears have come and gone (previous generations of officials are unlikely to have found notes at their desks asking why they are working from home, such as those recently dished out by Jacob Rees-Mogg, for instance).

But there have been some recurring themes, often focused on changes to civil service culture, including pay and conditions.

As in previous attempts at reform, some of the ideas in Liz Truss’s war on Whitehall waste could prove more difficult to implement than expected.

Her regional pay boards plan, for instance, appears to be an attempt to revive an idea briefly floated by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government, until it was unceremoniously dropped.

At the time, MPs warned of a furious backlash from voters. Some, they reported, had been so angry at the idea of regional pay that they were shaking with fury, despite being retired and never intending to work another day in their lives.

Among her eye-catching ideas, Ms Truss also wants to cut the average number of holidays, to bring them in line with the private sector, something likely to be strongly resisted by unions and workers.

The issue is in part what Christopher Hood, a professor of government at Oxford University, dubbed “civil service reform syndrome”. This can include attempts to fix the service without enough follow-through or continuity, as well as populist ideas such as red-tape bonfires, evidence-based policy and “joined up” thinking.

It exists in part because reform is notoriously difficult to achieve. The coalition government did manage to meet part of its aim to shrink the overall size of the civil service. But it was forced to expand massively again to deal with the challenges created when Britain voted to leave the European Union.

Civil servants like to jokingly refer to opposition politicians as “friends we have yet to work for”.

But another way to think of the relationship is that politicians come and go, but the civil service is what always remains.