Chris Philp has opened the door to politicising the Civil Service. He told Politico:
“There are essentially about nine or 10 politically appointed people, and there are 50,000 civil servants. And if someone has joined the civil service to work in the asylum department, they’re probably doing that from a perspective of wanting to give asylum to people. So it did, at times feel like like a bit of a struggle… I think more political appointees, particularly at the top, actually would help and people being appointed from outside the public sector who can bring a bit of dynamism to bear.”
He said he wouldn’t suggest anything on the scale of the American system but “in a department like the Home Office … I could imagine a few dozen people coming into a big department would make quite a big difference to ministers’ ability to get things done.” Mooted for a long time and an increasingly popular solution to Civil Service malaise. Not that Labour will ever do it…
