The First Division Association (FDA), the organisation which represents about 18,000 senior civil servants, diplomats and advisers has referred to the present government as “utterly dysfunctional”.
According to Jonathan Baume, General Secretary of the FDA, the primary reason for this brutal assessment appears to be “indecision” from Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister.
It is said that several of the more fatalistic Ministers have more-or-less accepted that the current government’s ”sell-by” date is just about to expire and have either fallen asleep at the wheel or are exhibiting more extreme symptoms of the moribund apathy which has always dogged this government’s foot soldiers in the post-Blair era. Mr Baume said that some ministers had “given up”.
Presumably, the sight and sound of the civil service non-too subtly gearing-up for a change in administration, is doing little to motivate an already head-bowed Labour team.
The cause of the government’s “dysfunctionality” is said to be “partly political and partly organisational”.
Whatever the causes, the buck stops with Gordon Brown. Unfortunately, he has never been able to fully demonstrate his Chief Executive’s capabilities and the more subtle shades and nuances of the leadership game continue to elude him. There are rumours that his approach to leadership owes more to volume than persuasive discourse.
Mr Baume added: “No-one is clear how the Treasury, the prime minister’s office and the Cabinet Office actually loop together and come up with a coherent policy initiative.”
“When Gordon Brown became prime minister, no clear direction ever emerged from him,”
He said there was a “government by announcement”.
According to him, new policies and initiatives have always been announced by No 10 Downing Street with little indication as to how they would be paid for. That is never an issue during boom times but difficult when government expenditure is about to be cut.
Having said that, there has never been any real government follow-up on proposed cuts in public spending - possibly because such news would inevitably affect voting patterns.
The FDA is finding the whole thing very unsatisfactory and says that there is “sense of malaise at the political level”, with some ministers already focusing on what may happen after the election.
In fairness, it must be difficult to run any government office with one eye on the department and the other on the Situations Vacant page.
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