There is a popular perception in some quarters that non-elected civil servants govern the island, and keep elected deputies firmly under their thumbs. Indeed several letters to this newspaper have alleged just that. They point out that sometimes new States members don’t seem to carry through on their intentions as stated on the campaign trail. Then they cite that as proof that they must have been ‘got at’.
So is this cliche about the civil service ruling the roost true? Or is it just a fallacy brought on by watching too many episodes of Yes Minister? I can reveal all. The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
In my experience most civil servants, in most departments, will do their absolute level best to execute any political decisions made by committee members.
They may give their professional advice about the potential consequences of those decisions. They would be failing in their job if they didn’t.
Sometimes that advice might cause politicians to think again. That’s only natural. But I’ve always found that in 90% of cases when elected members, after due consideration, instruct that a policy should be implemented, the civil service will take all of the necessary operational steps to make that happen. Even when they think it is a thoroughly bad idea. Really the only exception is in the extreme circumstance of when they are being asked to do something which is clearly illegal.
So am I saying that our elected deputies are always be in charge of policy making, and claims of civil servants usurping that role are nonsense? Well not quite. I have two caveats.
Firstly the civil service is like nature – it abhors a vacuum. So if officers are being directed on policy by a completely feckless bunch of committee members, who are effectively leaving their department rudderless, then civil servants will sometimes creep into the policy-making role themselves by default. That’s definitely not right in theory but it’s sort of understandable. Force Majeure.
On the other side of the coin I have served on one or two committees where there has been a totally unacceptable and inexcusable culture of officers expecting to be able to ‘manage’ their politicians and thereby effectively provide all of the policy directions themselves. Really bad examples only occur where the practice has been allowed to go unchecked for so many years that no one – include the officers themselves – can really see what unacceptably bad practice it is. So in some ways it is the fault of weak politicians who failed to stamp on it early enough. And once it is ingrained it can be very hard to correct.
Of course when this sort of thing goes on it is both pernicious and wrong, but from my long experience I can assure you that it’s very much the exception rather than the rule. Drawing parallels with Yes Minister, most Guernsey civil servants tend to resemble Bernard far more than Sir Humphrey.
So if civil servants rarely seek to block policy decisions taken by deputies what is the real explanation? Why do so many deputy candidates not see through on their stated intentions once they’ve been elected? Were they lying on the campaign trail? Maybe but probably not.
In my experience such changes of mind are usually as a result of a close encounter with inconvenient facts. Too many candidates spout populist nonsense to get elected, promising to do things that they later come to see are either impossible or damaging once they’ve been confronted by the hard facts.
A very good example of this is those deputies who hammered on about reducing taxation at the 2020 election, only to later advocate increasing it instead once in office. Had they been subjected to the thumbscrews and the rack by treasury officials? No.
They had just educated themselves over the true state of Guernsey’s public finances.
I can see why from the outside such an about-turn might be perceived as the result of being bamboozled by officers, but in reality it is simply because when the known facts change so do sensible people’s opinions.
That doesn’t mean I don’t have great sympathy with those bemoaning the gap between some deputies’ campaign rhetoric and their later actions. They have a very good point. If they voted for someone on the understanding of a statement of intent, which is then promptly discarded, they have effectively been swizzled.
Ignorance of the facts should be no excuse. Candidates should either take the trouble to learn the facts before standing for election or else desist from making campaign promises they can’t possibly know if they’ll be able to deliver on.
So no, in the vast majority of cases, deputies are not marionettes, manipulated by scheming civil servants. And I say that from my own experience – not because a senior civil servant has told me to say so.
Finally, I am aware that in this column I’ve said that in my time I’ve come across one or two committees which were exceptions to the rule, and where civil servants did indeed try to control the policy-making process.
And I know that I haven’t actually stated who the culprits were. Sorry about that, but I have to keep a few things back for my memoires.
