Thank you, it’s great to be with you this afternoon, to spend some time with you. Not least because it has been a quiet week in Westminster so it has been something to look forward to. Even if it had been a busy, bustling week in the Westminster bubble, I of course wanted to take the time anyway to come and spend some time with you and to thank you for your service and all of your work; to talk a little bit more abou...
Thank you, it’s great to be with you this afternoon, to spend some time with you. Not least because it has been a quiet week in Westminster so it has been something to look forward to. Even if it had been a busy, bustling week in the Westminster bubble, I of course wanted to take the time anyway to come and spend some time with you and to thank you for your service and all of your work; to talk a little bit more about some of the plans that I and the government have, that we’re rolling out in support of you, for you to support us in delivery for the public. … [Political content - REDACTED] … Whether on the political or civil service side of government, it is often our work which enables our citizens to live healthy, prosperous and safe lives, in communities right across the United Kingdom. And we know the public demands a lot from us. The public rightly expects political promises that I and my political colleagues make to turn into actual delivery and real change in their lives. And together, we have in the last two years had some significant successes. We’ve scrapped the two child limit, helping to lift over half a million children in this country out of poverty. We’ve delivered the Employment Rights Act introducing guaranteed hours and reasonable notice for cancelled shifts for workers. NHS waiting lists in England at their lowest level in three years. And we’ve put 3,000 extra neighbourhood police officers on the streets two months faster than we had planned to do so. But despite those successes, and many others, it’s clear from the public they don’t believe the status quo is working well enough for them. They don’t feel that change is yet real enough in their lives, in a way that can inspire a little bit more optimism that tomorrow can be better than today. And we should be honest that some of the criticisms are true. The outcomes we declare as targets in policy papers, or strategies, or in the processes that we work through in Parliament or in Whitehall, are too often too far away from the lives that people lead. When they walk down their streets, or visit their GP, to the weekly household budget. So to renew trust in politics and our democratic institutions and the values that we all care about, we have to find ways to be faster at delivering and showing, as well as telling the public, the change that is happening. And how it is attributable to your work and the political leadership which our government is providing. So the question is, why do the public have these concerns and what do we think some of the problems may be? I want to start by saying that it is one that is shared between us. Because I think it applies to both the Civil Service as an institution, to you as civil servants, and to us as politicians. Firstly, too often policy development, as important as it is, trumps delivery. Delivery often feels too far away – with a delivery partner or an Arms Length Body or a council or a Mayor, too distant from those of us that work here in the centre. And this is in part a direct consequence of catering for a fast-moving media cycle here in London which incentivises headlines and press releases and announcements, and doesn’t give or create enough space for us to tell the story of change in a way that connects with the public. The other issue that I’ve been trying to help with is to deal with the fact that there are far too many layers of bureaucracy between decisions made by Ministers and those of you that get to deliver that change on the front-line. As Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, one of my jobs that the Prime Minister gave me last September was to try to help with this disconnect at the centre of government – and then to think about how we roll that out across government and ultimately to the voting public. My job was to try and bring No10 and the Cabinet Office closer together, so that they were more integrated, to ensure that the full heft of my department, the Cabinet Office, was deployed as closely as possible to the political leadership provided in Downing Street. And as Chief Secretary to the Treasury before that, I set up a programme to slash the layers upon layers of bureaucracy needed to make an actual decision in government. You will all know far better than me from actually doing it, how often you need to go to another committee or another layer of the government, to get a decision or approval from someone in the management structures, all the way up to the senior civil service to ministers from different departments. And I know that it frustrates many of you, because that takes up more time than actually being able to get on with actual delivery. And so I wanted to reduce those requirements for approvals and give you more authority to be able to act. And this was part of a plan to help you as civil servants to move fast and fix things. This streamlined approach went live last month, giving those closer to real decision-making more freedom and autonomy, in return for more accountability. I hope that you may have seen this in practice already, and if you haven’t, you should ask questions about it in your department. We have also created a new delivery unit in No10, properly integrated with Cabinet Office teams, to turbocharge that work and to help departments – not to drive accountability in a kind of Ofsted way – but to say whether as a priority for the public and the government, how do we come in and help you to unlock the barriers you’re facing to get the job done? And we are also working to modernise our Government Communication Service, to focus less on daily announcements, and more on the process of delivery and the real impact on people’s lives. Not just chasing the next grid slot, but unearthing the stories of people whose lives have been changed by this government and your work. So, we are investing in digital communications and creativity, to talk to people where they are, not where they used to be in the old legacy media. The milestones that I’ve already talked about across the cost of living, NHS, policing and others, show that we are delivering real change to lots of communities across the country. But if people are not feeling that change or seeing it, if they don’t believe us, then they will think we are not going far enough. And this is where I think the political message I have is really important for all of us, even though we have very different roles, because if we fail to get this right in the years ahead, the consequences are greater than simply a Minister or a government being out of office. Because if our service to the public isn’t something that they value, and seen as a means of improving their lives, then the very democratic institutions in which we all work under are, I’m afraid, increasingly under threat. … [Political content - REDACTED] … This is not just about protecting the status quo, this is about recognising that our democratic values, lived and embodied within the institutions in which we work, with appropriate checks and balances and accountability, have for hundreds of years been the bedrock of our stability and democracy. But if we can’t show the public that these institutions are meeting the challenges of the modern age and delivering the change they are voting for, then this all becomes under threat. So we have a shared objective to get this right over the years ahead. And so I want the Civil Service to prize delivery – or rather, real-world change – as much as policy expertise. … [Political content - REDACTED] … That’s a political requirement from the Prime Minister, but it’s a job that all of us have to step up into. Now, for that to happen, incentives, support, training and accountability matters. For you, and me. That is why in January, I announced that all Permanent Secretaries would be set key performance indicators based on their Secretary of State’s and the Prime Minister’s priorities. This was the first of many steps I set in motion to build a cultural, not just structural, change to help our system to deliver. It is also why the No10 delivery unit is making sure that we get the basics right, which governments have often ignored for too long. Such as making sure that there is one source of truth between departments and how we measure success. An example of that is our new shared intelligence platform shared between departments and the No10 delivery unit. Where we have an agreed, shared view of our priorities, our progress against those priorities, where we are coming across problems and what we can do together to fix them. And by extending this delivery expertise across Whitehall as well as integrating it properly into the centre of government, we’re hoping to bring departments and the centre – as well as civil servants and Ministers – closer together. Because as a Minister, too often I have found that if I want to get something done, I have to get the right people in the room every week; to ask for an update and ensure there is hard accountability. But you can only do that on so many issues at a time. So today I am announcing that every department across Whitehall will be setting up a delivery team led by a top civil servant, to do that work on behalf of Ministers and Permanent Secretaries. Some departments have models already, some don’t. There won’t be a one size fits all requirement from the centre, but we have best practice shared between departments about how a senior-led delivery unit can help to identify barriers and escalate to Ministers and to No10 the issues that are needed to be unblocked in order to progress. Because currently, the delivery capacity and capability across departments is inconsistent, which can often lead to things like spending significant sums on external consultancy. I want to build that capacity, reasonably, in-house, within the Civil Service and across our departments. We’ll also be working with Secretaries of State and Ministers of State to bring in people with experience delivering front-line public services or in business, into their Private Offices to scrutinise the pace and ambition of departmental delivery plans. This could involve dedicated non-executive directors on our departmental boards, but also the integration of new delivery advisors into the Private Offices of Secretaries of State and Ministers of State. As a Minister, I have also found that too often, getting stuff done in practical, straightforward ways can be stifled by the constitutional silos that incentivise departments to operate as independent entities – often defending their own interests or trying to defend their position against a different view or a different department within Whitehall. So I was delighted to work with the Cabinet Secretary to secure in the King’s Speech yesterday a commitment to review potential legislative changes to allow a more one-team approach across the Civil Service – which instead incentivises delivery in the public interest, as well as rebuilding trust in government. This review will look at delivery, innovation, and productivity, while also safeguarding the impartiality and core values of the Service. And we reserve the right to legislate to build a governance model in our Civil Service that meets the challenges of the modern day. Because it is only when we are 100% on the same page with each other; when we have the same priorities; sharing the same need to deliver for the public; and the same understanding of the risks we may need to take to succeed, that the relationship between Ministers and civil servants and between departments can be one of complete trust. As Dave rightly raised earlier, that is a relationship to which I want all of us to aspire. Because a strong, effective Civil Service is the foundation for democracy and effective institutions that keep the British people safe, healthy and prosperous. As I said in January, I also want to change how we incentivise and reward that success. That is why alongside our new system of KPIs, I have changed the rules around Senior Civil Service pay and rewards. This month, we will be publishing our response to the Senior Salary Review Body’s recommendations on pay and progression, on which I am grateful to FDA colleagues for their continued engagement. We will be awarding higher, but fewer, bonuses to those exceptional civil servants who do delivery, innovation and go above and beyond for the public. And I am determined that we give civil servants what they need to make that mark. So to make it easier to deliver and to innovate, I announced in January I would be making available a new delivery model based on the vaccine taskforce to break through the traditional restraints on the public sector, to deliver for the public. With faster decision-making, Ministerial risk-sharing, the ability to hire quickly and bring in external expertise, and higher delegated spending authority. I am delighted to confirm today that we started the first two pilots of these taskforces. One that will improve data sharing across the criminal justice system, helping probation officers better monitor and rehabilitate offenders in the community with work taking place between the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. And a second will help battle the epidemic of violence against women and girls which we are seeing across the country, by working to improve and speed up the procurement of support services in communities across the country. And as the FDA’s Adopt, Innovate and Transform report highlights, we must seize the promise of technology to find better ways of doing things too – to not be content with the same processes we have always relied on. The No10 Innovation Fellows have been a fantastic case in point. If you’re not familiar with them, Fellows are recruited through a highly competitive process based on problem-solving and coding – with a success rate of just 0.7% – bringing in the best and brightest in data science and AI from the likes of CERN, NASA and Y-Combinator for a tour of duty in the public service. They have then been deployed across departments to tackle problems in a new and innovative way. An example of which, in the Ministry of Justice, is where a Fellow has been working alongside prison staff on the front-line. He came from San Francisco, we sent him to a prison. To build bespoke AI tools that automate the parts of their job that can be automated with the consent of those prisons officers, freeing up hours of prison officer time to do what only prison officers can do, while making the prisons and prison officers safer in the process. But this approach to innovation should not be confined to particular projects or particular Fellows. I want this approach to innovation and new technology to be available to each and every one of you. And so you will have noted that I previously announced the establishment of the new National School of Government and Public Services. And today, I am proud to announce that all civil servants will be offered AI training through that school, with real AI adoption targets set for departments at permanent secretary level. Because adopting Artificial Intelligence and better technology is not about replacing jobs, it is about recognising that those of us who seize it and use it to their advantage will become more productive and more successful. I am also delighted to be working with the Cabinet Secretary to support the Future Civil Service programme. The success for which will be defined by a culture of excellence, focused on getting stuff done and delivering outcomes, changing how we work by learning from the best, and creating the pride that comes from high performance. To finish I just want to say that we cannot continue with the legacy state. In places, from all of our experiences of it feeling perhaps disjointed, overworked or under-resourced. After years of cuts to public investment, and the lack of support for innovation. You know that better than me we need to do more to help you to succeed. In its place, we need to build a more modern, a more digital, a more nimble organisation. Where technology can help us do the heavy lifting, where we feel closer together, where we work as one team, in service to the public. Freeing you to focus on interactions where your expertise is most needed and having a closer relationship with citizens who rely on us in their times of need. Our job as Ministers is to give you that authority, that mandate, that training, that support, the tools that you need to succeed. So that together, in the face of… [Political content - REDACTED] …a demand from the public that we go further and better, we can come together and build a Britain that is richer, fairer and stronger. Thank you very much.
Speech Brief