THE ANGLO FUTURISTMANIFESTO
The programme / Restoring the foundations / § 04 The Civil Service

The Civil Service

Machinery that answers

Returning authority over the machinery of government to the ministers who answer for it, and making that machinery able to deliver.

1 PAPER20 MIN IN TOTALIN DRAFT
Read the paper → The programme in brief

The Civil Service: Machinery that answers

The Cabinet Office is abolished and replaced by a Department of the Prime Minister and a Department of the Civil Service, and every department receives a published charter letter. Ministers appoint permanent secretaries on fixed terms, as in Australia, and directors general from fields that include outside candidates, with a small office of outside experts alongside them. Senior officials work to objectives that follow from the charter letter and can be removed if they fail. Every department publishes a costed audit of its functions, and functions with no current purpose stop recruiting so that non-frontline numbers fall as people leave, with the 2016 level as an indicative ceiling. Advisory lawyers return to departments, advice that a policy is unlawful is signed, graded and shown to ministers in full and the guidance on legal risk is approved by Parliament. No staff network may act as an interest group inside government, the service's purpose of serving the long-term interests of the United Kingdom is written into law with a stewardship test for major decisions and new civil servants must be British or Irish citizens.

THE PAPER

One paper

  1. 01 The Civil ServiceReturning authority over the machinery of government to the ministers who answer for it, and making that machinery able to deliver. 20 MIN

Elsewhere in restoring the foundations

§ 01 RESTORATION AND RENEWAL Equality before the law Restores equality before the law, withdraws from the ECHR, protects free speech and puts the national inheritance back at the centre of schools and public life. § 02 UNLOCKING THE POWER TO GOVERN Ending the veto state Three papers on the courts, arm's-length bodies, charities and returning power to those who are accountable to the people. § 03 UK BUILD REFORM One route to consent One accountable route from a national infrastructure decision to an operating asset. THE WHOLE PROGRAMME The programme in brief Every paper summarised on one page.