A divided cabinet and battles
between parliament and the government revealed fundamental
tensions in the civil service’s role and its duty to “serve the
government of the day”, says a new Institute for Government
paper.
Published today, The Civil
Service after Brexit: Lessons from Article 50 says that
both and failed to defend the civil
service when MPs and commentators questioned its
impartiality.
The paper says May allowed Olly
Robbins, her chief Brexit negotiator, to become a target for
political attacks over her controversial Brexit policy, while
Johnson placed officials in an immensely difficult position by
implying that he would break the law to take the UK out of the EU
without a deal on 31 October
2019.
The task of delivering Brexit also
exposed weaknesses in the civil service. Senior officials failed
to confront ministers with the implications of not making key
decisions, and both ministers and officials refused to be upfront
about the severe political and economic consequences no deal
could have in Northern
Ireland.
The immense scale of the Brexit
task also drove innovations that should help the government
response to the coronavirus pandemic. No-deal preparations saw
the introduction of faster decision making, the rapid relocation
of large numbers of officials onto priority projects, and closer
working relationships with the governments in Wales, Scotland and
Northern Ireland.
However, the civil service could
yet be forced to prepare for the possibility of a no-deal Brexit
ahead of the 31 December 2020 deadline and the problems of the
last four years will resurface unless lessons are
learnt.
The paper recommends
that:
· Departments
invest time and resources in their relationships with the
devolved governments
· Government
works more closely with business ahead of the end of the
transition period
· The
civil service should continue to support the mental health and
morale of officials, particularly as the government manages both
the coronavirus response and Brexit this
year.
Maddy Thimont Jack, senior
researcher at the Institute for Government
said:
“Brexit demonstrated the very best
of the civil service. It managed to unpick a 47-year relationship
with the EU in less than three years, working under immense
pressure and to extremely tight timelines. But the task is still
not complete and the tensions that Brexit exposed – particularly,
between ministers and officials – have not necessarily gone away.
Responding to coronavirus on top of preparing for the end of
transition will place yet more pressure on the civil service –
and will likely make it more urgent than ever to address the
failings which have been exposed since the triggering of Article
50.”
