It all comes down to teamwork

'The biggest threat to the civil service in future comes from interfering politicians'. That was the valedictory comment from the former deputy chief executive of the States, Nigel Lewis. Was this an outrageously anti-democratic sign-off from a disillusioned career civil servant? Or a refreshing, frank, shackles off analysis from someone who knows what he's talking about? It depends on what he meant.

I'll consider where the demarcation lies between the roles of elected deputies and their senior officers in a moment. But first I should declare that I worked closely with Nigel Lewis for four years when I was Agriculture President and he was the committee's chief officer. We went through a lot in that short time, bringing in milk quotas, farm contracts and environmental/welfare payments. We also scrambled to make and implement emergency plans when foot and mouth disease threatened to come to Guernsey and devastate our dairy herd.

My impression of him was always as a straight-talking, down-to-earth character, about as far from a stereotypical civil service mandarin as you could get. That certainly doesn't mean we always agreed. And like all public servants who end up in a senior position at the 'political centre', he probably focused a bit too much on controlling events/politicians and protecting colleagues' reputations at the end of his career. It seems to go with the culture of the Policy Council.

Now on to the respective roles of politicians and civil servants. It's complicated but I think there are three main things to remember.

1. It's the job of politicians – not civil servants – to set policy. The clue is in the title. This doesn't mean their officers can't advise them. It's important that they do, particularly in complicated technical areas. But the final policy decisions rest with deputies and they should then carry the can for them. That means they have to be given all the relevant data to take informed decisions.

2. It's the job of the civil servants – not politicians – to implement policy and to manage their departments. Deputies trying to interfere in the day-to-day administration of public services are a recipe for disaster. A minister/president should instruct their officers to bring to their attention immediately any development which has a clear 'political dimension'. They should also attend their department most days to stay in contact, but they should never hang around all day like a spare part, trying to carry out a quasi-executive role. That isn't their job. So to that extent – and only that extent – the front page comments from the former DCEO were right.

3. Notwithstanding the above, it is a politician's job to hold their officers to account for implementing the agreed policy, ensuring that the department is running well and that the services it provides are of a good quality.

All too often in the past the first two roles have been reversed and deputies haven't understood the difference between the second and third role. How has this happened?

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, some political boards have been incapable of determining high level policies and so the civil service (hating a vacuum) has stepped in to do it for them. However, those same, somewhat limited, sets of deputies felt confident enough to interfere in a small way with the detailed running of the department. This was within their comfort zone, where the macro decisions were not.

Then, of course, certain top civil servants almost encouraged their deputies to meddle in detail – so long as it was the right detail – to keep them out of harm's way. The stories are legion from frustrated Education members fed a diet of car park arrangements and 11-plus appeals, while the big decisions needed to modernise our schools and drive standards upwards never came to the board table.

Successive Education presidents/ministers must take a share of the blame for allowing their members to be choreographed in this way. And it was far from unique to Education.

So does all this mean that I think politicians should limit themselves to meeting in an ivory tower a couple of times a month, setting high-level strategy and then saying 'now over to the civil service'?

Not at all.

Just like non-executives on a company board, they shouldn't seek to manage the organisation but they should be holding those who do to account. Are they implementing the agreed policies and strategies? Are they keeping within budget? Are they providing high-quality services? Are they succeeding in recruiting and retaining the right staff? And a raft of other measures to ensure the organisation is on track?

To do that they should be insisting on the right information to monitor performance. Monthly budget updates. Statistics on outcomes and quality control. Staffing levels. User feedback and complaints. If they are not demanding all of that data and pressing the senior officers to make improvements where shortcomings are identified, then they are not doing their jobs. That doesn't mean they should come up with the detailed solutions themselves. They are amateurs in the field but they should be capable of holding the professionals to account. If they don't feel they are up to that they should step down from the role.

To take a current example. It looks as if the HSSD minister unwittingly fed the States totally duff information about spending on bowel cancer screening after being misled by his officers.

Is he responsible for that mistake? Of course he is, however unfairly. In just the same way political boards often receive credit for their departments' achievement even when those deputies have contributed little directly to that success. It's a weird arrangement in some ways but once a political leader can duck responsibility and just blame his staff then all accountability goes out of the window.

That said, there's a huge difference between a politician deliberately misleading and their passing on incorrect data in good faith. The former should be a sacking offence. The latter shouldn't, unless we really want the instability of constantly revolving political boards.

What the minister and board of HSSD should be judged on now is their ability to instil discipline in their department and ensure they're never again fed misinformation and told that it's safe to pass on to the States. To be misled once by a sloppy civil servant is unfortunate, but if it happens repeatedly it indicates a political failure.

So far I've been talking about politicians serving on departmental boards, but maybe Mr Lewis was also talking about other deputies lobbing in hand grenades from outside. If he was, then once again it's hard to say if his concern over 'meddling politicians' is justified or not. Our political system and our public services would be much the worse if it wasn't for crusading deputies pestering departments to make improvements in certain areas.

A classic example was the recent relentless campaign by former deputy Jane Stephens for the release of data concerning exam results in local schools. It didn't make her universally popular, either with her colleagues or the public. It certainly didn't guarantee her electoral success. But it did bring to an end a long history of cover-ups and allow long overdue remedial action to start. If it wasn't for her poking there may never have been a Mulkerrin report, a spotlight on literacy problems among 11-year- olds, or a fresh look at how we provide secondary education. So I would certainly deprecate any attempt to suppress that sort of maverick behaviour by deputies, however uncomfortable it might make some civil servants or ministers feel. But I do have two caveats.

The first is that the board itself must be strong enough to prioritise its spending by genuine need rather than caving in to any high profile campaigns for new services which may be 'politically sexy' at the expense of less populist but more vital expenditure. If that means a minister slips down the polls by rejecting the demands of a high profile critic, then so be it.

The second is that Guernsey is a tiny jurisdiction, where departments have limited resources, so campaigning deputies have to be measured in the way they chivvy those departments. Put them on the spot and scrutinise them by all means, but don't bog them down with 65 written questions over three months which take huge numbers of staff hours to deal with. This isn't Westminster and if we aren't careful then we will paralyse departments and distract them from their real jobs on behalf of the public.

So is there a real danger of the civil service being undermined by interfering deputies? Well, yes, certainly. But the far bigger danger lies with the civil service conveniently isolating politicians from what's really going on within their departments and the broader public service. Never again should we see a States Assembly genuinely shocked by GCSE results, bus figures, overspends etc.

In my more than 30 years as a States member/watcher I've seen some dreadful examples of dysfunctional relationships between politicians and civil servants. I've also seen some inspirational ones.

It's always when the deputies and the officers have worked as a genuine team, each respecting the other's roles, that the most has been achieved.

Interestingly that hasn't always required a minister/president and their chief officer to like each other.

It's even better when they do, but I've also seen excellent team working between deputies and officers who would never choose to socialise together in 100 years.