Alex Kane: Outside influence needed to reform our civil service

‘Corrupt or malicious activity on the part of officials, ministers or special advisers was not the cause of what went wrong with the NI RHI scheme (albeit the Inquiry has identified some instances where behaviour was unacceptable). Rather, the vast majority of what went wrong was due to an accumulation and compounding of errors and omissions over time and a failure of attention, on the part of all those involved in their differing roles, to identify the existence, significance or implications of those errors and omissions.

‘There is no guarantee that the weaknesses shown in governance, staffing and leadership revealed by the Inquiry’s investigation of the NI RHI scheme could not combine again to undermine some future initiative. Many of the failings observed in DETI’s handling of the NI RHI scheme had been observed in earlier failings within DETI ... (and) evidence suggests that important lessons had not been acted on with sufficient impact, despite the assurances given by senior civil servants.

‘The sad reality is that, in addition to a significant number of individual shortcomings, the very governance, management and communication systems, which in these circumstances should have provided early warning of impending problems and fail-safes against such problems, proved inadequate.’

The inquiry was confined to one specific issue and one department, yet Sir Patrick’s comments – made within his overall summary – suggest that it is certainly possible that the practices and flaws in that one department may exist in other departments, too. Maybe that’s why one of his recommendations (which as he noted, are usually designed, chiefly, to seek to remove or reduce the risk of similar failures to those which gave rise to the inquiry in the first place) was this: ‘As far as practicable, Northern Ireland Civil Service teams working on policies, particularly new and untested initiatives, should be trained and supported so that they have the skills to do the jobs, not least the ability to model the policy, the skills to test it in advance under different conditions and scenarios, and the self-awareness to seek and use external challenge.’

The report was critical of Arlene Foster – although not fatally so – and a number of other politicians (including Simon Hamilton and Jonathan Bell) who gave evidence; and it was particularly critical of the appointment, role, function and influence of special advisors. Yet its most brutal, damning criticism was directed at the civil service.

‘A fundamental shift is needed in the approach used with the Northern Ireland Civil Service with regard to recruitment and selection for government jobs.’ ‘Best practice and risk management disciplines should be the default practice with the NICS when developing novel and complex policies and managing their implementation.’ ‘The NICS should take steps to draw on best practice from other jurisdictions to provide more support for professions within the civil service.’ ‘Notes of significant meetings between officials and ministers, particularly those affecting decision-making and spending must be taken and retained. The responsibility for ensuring this is done should be clearly identified and compliance should be ensured in practice.’

As I say, brutal, damning criticism. Politicians come and go. Ministers come and go. Special advisors come and go. But the civil service goes on and on. That’s a good thing, particularly if that arm of governance (which remains in place during periods of direct rule or three years of Assembly suspension) brings all of its vast experience, best practices, acquired knowledge of dealing with crises and skilled advisors and administrators to the preparation, implementation and analysis of policy and resulting legislation. And, unlike most ministers and special advisors, the civil service machine has been through this process many, many times.

Yet there are parts of this report which hint at a civil service still stuck in a pre-devolution era in which internal reform was never considered necessary because of a culture of ‘we know better’ than the short-term direct rule ministers. In fairness to it the NICS was responsible for keeping NI running for long periods after Stormont was prorogued in 1972 (and it deserves our gratitude), but I’m not persuaded that it has yet fully accepted the new challenges to it posed by devolution. Some of the practices which became apparent during the inquiry – things like agreeing not to keep proper notes/minutes for the record – suggest that some senior figures within the NICS played along because they didn’t want to do anything which would damage the peace process; which may also explain why they seem to have gone out of their way to encourage and facilitate the separate and competing silo approaches of the DUP and Sinn Fein in particular.

The RHI Inquiry wasn’t just about Arlene Foster and DUP spads. It was a forensic examination into how one government department functioned. And from the perspective of an observer like myself – someone who has written extensively about the weaknesses of devolution long before RHI – it was also about what the findings might tell us about other departments. My conclusion – and it’s a worrying one – is that the NICS flaws and bad practice in one department probably apply to every department.

In his concluding comments Sir Patrick says, ‘...the Inquiry’s belief is that, if its recommendations are followed ... it will be much more difficult for the types of general problems discovered ... to reoccur. Hopefully that will, in turn, lead to a better functioning NICS and provide for a much healthier devolved administration in Northern Ireland ... The recommendations set out above require sustained, system-wide change and will take time to implement effectively.’

He is right. But it will also take professional outsiders – with no links to the political parties, the Assembly or the NICS – to oversee those changes. Otherwise the process will fall at the first hurdle and we’ll be left with the same-old, same-old.