The Civil Service and Intergovernmental Relations in the Post-Devolution UK
| Author | Richard Parry |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-856X.2011.00498.x |
| Published date | 01 May 2012 |
| Date | 01 May 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Civil Service and Intergovernmental
Relations in the Post-devolution UK
Richard Parry
Thecivil service, as an ‘apolitical’ actor, may supply a significant facilitating role in intergovernmental
relations. This is especially the case in the UK, where even the most senior civil servants are not
politically appointed and remain in office when their political masters change party colours.
Furthermore, civil servants who work for the Scottish or Welsh governments are part of a unified
(British) Home Civil Service. As such they have been socialised in and respect similar operating
procedures, which also encompass Northern Ireland despite its independent civil service. These factors
have contributed to oil (lubricate) and glue (hold together) intergovernmental relations. Experience
since1999 is of a civil service accommodating well to various kinds of party incongruity and of working
successfully with nationalists in government. The unified service seems well-entrenched, including in
a 2010 UK statute, and relationships at official level on financial matters have become particularly
important in times of austerity. In the longer term the ‘interdepartmental’ mode of working may be
harder to sustain as operating procedures set up in a path-dependent way from before 1999 erode as
more civil servants are externally recruited and contact with Whitehall departments is reduced. It is
even possible to envisage a reversal of attitude in which the devolved administrations value the civil
service link to Whitehall more than does the UK government.
Keywords: civil service; devolution; Scotland; Wales
Introduction
This article addresses the question of how far the civil service has been able to
streamline intergovernmental relations (IGR) in the UK and how it may require
adaptation and reform in a situation where there is no longer congruence between
political majorities in the UK jurisdictions. The context for this discussion is the
general role of the civil service internationally, and the particular role of operating
intergovernmentally. The normative context of most civil services is Max Weber’s
concept of bureaucratic authority, which is derived from the political position of
rulers but has to be deployed with the help of officials who in some sense become
the guardians of the way that the power is used. Recent work has emphasised the
socialisation processes of civil servants, the distinctive world of senior officials in the
shadows but at the heart of government, and the concept of a ‘public service
bargain’ (PSB) based upon norms of trust and mutual respect: ‘in a PSB, politicians
normally expect to gain some degree of political loyalty and competency from
bureaucrats or public servants, and those public servants normally expect to gain
some assured place in the structure of executive government, a definite sphere of
responsibility and some mixture of tangible and intangible reward’ (Hood and
Lodge 2006, 7). R. A. W. Rhodes’ work in particular, within the UK tradition,
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856X.2011.00498.x BJPIR: 2012 VOL 14, 285–302
© 2012 The Author.British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2012
Political Studies Association
highlights the practices that embed an official within a ‘career’ of being known over
an extended period, with ‘postings’ planned several moves in advance (Rhodes
2001; Rhodes et al. 2003). Edward Page’s recent work emphasises the persistence of
the behavioural characteristics of the permanent bureaucracy in the face of political
and managerial pressures (Page and Wright 2006; Page 2010; see also Pyper and
Burnham 2011).
Devolved government does not in itself alter these bargains and norms but it does
increase the importance of intergovernmental working as part of the repertoire of
the civil service task. Government has to be organised on a differentiated basis,
horizontally between ministries and agencies and vertically between levels. Typi-
cally, local (municipal) government has legal and financial resources inferior to
those of central government and inadequate to match the full scale of its respon-
sibilities. This makes the relationship between central and local officials inherently
unbalanced. The higher level of intergovernmental relations deploys resources
(financial and legal) and works through brokers like local government associations
and employers’ joint negotiating bodies. Intermediate governments that are small
in number and of variant political characteristics, as in the UK devolved adminis-
trations, lack a similar infrastructure and become dependent on arrangements
confined by time, place, issue and personality.
The civil service role in intergovernmental relations suggests imagery of oil (lubri-
cating a system and facilitating an interaction between its parts) and glue
(binding together potentially fissile elements). These images, attractive though
they might be, work best in low levels of political conflict and common patterns
of socialisation. They underpinned the decision in 1997 to maintain a common
Home Civil Service (HCS) in which the Scottish and Welsh devolved administra-
tions were responsible exclusively to their own ministers but were managerially
equivalent to UK government departments, under authority and delegations set
by the Cabinet Office.
In a comparative context, the UK civil service is markedly non-territorial. It
resembles the civil services of India and South Africa which retained their unity
after the coming of democratic, federal systems as symbols of efficiency and unity.
A much more common pattern in both English-speaking and European worlds is
of separate services whose fusion is supplied by party politics or by officials
moving around jurisdictions. Within federal systems influenced by the Westmin-
ster Model—Australia and Canada—there is a politician-driven model in which
officials work within jurisdictions, move posts on their own initiative, and would
accept a ministerial right to choose their closest and most senior advisers
(Halligan 2003).
After the first devolved elections in 1999 there was congruent Labour party control
of the governments in Great Britain; coalitions with the Liberal Democrats in
Scotland and (from 2000) Wales were expected outcomes of the electoral system.
Eventual party incongruence was inevitable, most plausibly through the election of
a Conservative UK government which Labour devolved ministers would confront
on the basis of stronger national mandates. The actual form the incongruence took
was unexpected. Nationalists entered devolved government in 2007 but because of
their minority position in Scotland and coalition position in Wales (until 2011) had
286 RICHARD PARRY
© 2012 The Author.British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2012 Political Studies Association
BJPIR, 2012, 14(2)
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