Ministers and their Mandarins

Extract

TYPICAL STATEMENTS ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CIVIL servants and ministers include the following which I have come across myselc ‘it is the Civil Service mandarins who really run the country’, ‘a strong minister must frequently reject his department's advice to prove he is master’; ‘all decisions by government are based not on the merits of the case but whether they are likely to attract votes at the next election’. The first of these implies that a minister is powerless in the grip of his department and the last that a minister ignores all departmental advice unless it suits his short-term political objectives. The actual relationship between politician and civil servant cannot be explained in such simple and extreme terms. It is also in most cases a relationship which develops and improves as those concerned get used to working together. This is fortunate because if any of the above statements was entirely true, it would be difficult to have much confidence in the future of our particular democratic system.