In all of the debate over “partygate” and Sue Gray’s investigation, very little has been said about how civil servants feel about the events that took place in No 10. Yet the consequences for the civil service, from plummeting public trust to Boris Johnson’s plans to restructure Downing Street, could be serious and long-lasting. After all, the prime minister’s term will come to an end at some point, but government will live on.
In my time as head of the home civil service and during a long career of working with civil servants I found that the overwhelming majority believe in doing the right things in the right way. The institution’s core values – integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality – are imbued in every new recruit and are genuinely lived. This, of course, does not make the civil service perfect. It has been criticised, sometimes rightly, for paying too much attention to process, rather than outcome, and not responding quickly or decisively enough in an emergency. But doing things properly really matters.
