Sunak urged to condemn Raab’s “sedition against the civil service”. civil service

[ad_1]

The former head of the UK’s civil service has said Rishi Sunak needs to speak out against Dominic Raab’s “torrent of vilification against the civil service” or risk a toxic environment in Whitehall.

Lord Kerslake said Sunak should publicly reject the narrative that the bullying complaints, which were upheld against Raab in an official report published on Friday, are “about millennials and a fifth column in the civil service, and the idea that the civil service is working to bring down ministers they don’t like”.

said Kerslake, who led the civil service from 2012 to 2014.

“In the absence of that, I think civil servants would be concerned about what the consequences would be if they made a complaint.”

It comes amid fears among senior civil servants that Raab will be allowed to publicly condescend to those who have been subjected to bullying behaviour, including the British ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliott.

Some within Whitehall believed that James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, should publicly defend Elliot, still a distinguished diplomat, since he was unable to speak for himself.

There is also concern over the fact that Senek allowed Raab to resign as deputy prime minister and launch a thousand-word defense of his conduct before the official report was published, and resentment that Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, had not been more forceful in defending grievants in the civil service.

When it emerged that he had bullied employees in an independent report by attorney Adam Tolley, Rapp responded by claiming that he had been tipped off that “union officials” were targeting him, and that the standard for bullying behavior was set too low.

Raab also effectively identified Elliott, despite it being a confidential investigation, by alleging that one of the complaints related to his decision to remove a senior official from the Brexit negotiations for exceeding his jurisdiction in relation to Gibraltar.

The former deputy prime minister has distanced himself from those who called civil servants “snowflakes”, but claims he has been targeted by a campaign against him, and other Conservative MPs have questioned the flexibility of the complainants.

Later, Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former Cabinet minister, suggested on Sky News that Elliott was too old to be an ambassador who had been bullied and wondered if he was “a complete wet wipe”.

But Kerslake said it was wrong to blame civil servants for having “the audacity” to complain of being bullied, and that “the angry manner of Raab’s departure threatens to create a toxic relationship between civil servants and ministers and a lasting effect, if we’re not careful”.

David Gauke, a former Conservative MP and government minister, writes in ConservativeHome that it would be wrong to describe civil servants as lacking resilience.

Skip promoting previous newsletters

Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, for free every morning of the week

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertisements, and content funded by third parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

After promoting the newsletter

“There has been some comment that this issue reveals a lack of resilience among younger civil servants and that the public sector cannot handle force as well as it once did. I am sure it is true to say that standards have changed, but this criticism has been missed. Some points,” he said.

Obviously, some of the complaints came from high-ranking rather than junior officials. Yes, the test for what is acceptable behavior for those in positions of responsibility has changed, but this is not limited to the civil service and the public sector, nor is it a bad thing. Where there is an imbalance of power, we should expect high standards from those who might abuse it.”

Although No. 10 called Tolley’s report an important piece of work, Snack never publicly criticized Rapp or made the decision to fire him. Downing Street also hinted that it might consider time-bound complaints from the Civil Service, after Raab’s criticism that the allegations against him took too long to air.

The government also revived the idea of ​​more political appointments to the civil service, advocated by Francis Maude, a Conservative and former cabinet minister.

William Wragg, chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, also announced on Monday that there would be “a new inquiry into the relationship between ministers and officials and whether [the] The state engine room is still operating as intended.”

“It is a fundamental principle that the civil service serves the incumbent government,” Wrag said, “yet growing tensions between ministers and their officials and public criticisms of the impartiality and competence of the civil service have led to questioning the effectiveness of the Westminster model.”

[ad_2]