8 – An independent civil service

A functioning democracy needs two distinct layers of government.

The bosses – government ministers – are the political group, chosen by the people in an election on the back of their electoral program.

The staff – from the permanent secretary to the lowliest clerk – are permanent employees who are chosen and promoted on merit.

You need that because apart from loyalty to the government of the day, you also need civil servants to be impartial, loyal to the law, and fair.

And you need them to be experts at what they do. And you don’t want them to be learning how things work every time there’s an election. You want their experience and their continuity. This principle is in our constitution.

But ministers have found a way around it. Ministers should be able to have personal staff they trust. But instead of the half a dozen staffers we used to have, ministers have used the “persons of trust” option to recruit hundreds of people: they’ve become a government within a government.

This has bred incompetence and inefficiency. Just as bad it has cultivated cronyism, nepotism, clientelism, and corruption.

The government should employ no more than a few persons of trust.

Civil servants should be hired through open competition on grounds of competence and experience, not loyalty and proximity to a minister or a party. 

Written by Manuel Delia
Video Production & Voiceover: Michael Kaden