Civil service posts should not be politicised, says mandarin leader

A leader of senior civil servants today warned ministers against surrounding themselves only with “believers”, saying it risks damaging the Government.

Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA whose members include Whitehall mandarins, hit out at calls to move to a US-style system of senior jobs being filled by political appointees.

“If ministers simply surround themselves with people who believe rather than people who can do, that makes for poor policy,” he told BBC radio.

His warning will be seen by many at Westminster as an attack on Education Secretary Michael Gove — though he insisted this was not the case.

Mr Gove, who has a tight-knit group of political advisers wielding huge power at the Education Department, is being hailed by Tory MPs for radical reforms he is pushing through.

In a paper for the 2020 Group of Conservative MPs on the role of ministers, MP Nadhim Zahawi wrote: “It’s symptomatic of the problem we’re investigating that Michael Gove, widely recognised as one of the most effective ministers in this government, has made a point of circumventing the usual process of Whitehall.

“If the modern test of a good minister is being able to work outside the system, then there is clearly something wrong with the system.” He called for hundreds of senior civil service jobs, rather than about 80 at present, to be filled by political advisers.

Sources close to Mr Gove stressed that civil servants and ministers were working well in the department, delivering thousands more academies and hundreds of free schools.

In a staunch defence of the civil service, Mr Penman stressed it was reforming, called on ministers to “celebrate” its success and insisted it had delivered £12 billion of savings for the Coalition.

He added: “The civil service is there to give impartial advice to ministers. Sometimes ministers don’t like it but that’s what makes good government.”