Rishi Sunak needs to speak out against the “torrent of invective against the civil service” unleashed by Dominic Raab or risk a toxic environment in Whitehall, the former head of the UK civil service has said.
Lord Kerslake said Sunak needed to publicly reject the narrative that complaints of bullying, upheld against Raab in an official report published on Friday, are “all about snowflake millennials and a fifth column in the civil service, and the idea that the civil service are working to bring down ministers they don’t like”.
“In an ideal world, the prime minister would declare his support for the civil service and its values and what it does for government and recognise that what this is really about, which is a particular minister and his behaviour,” said Kerslake, who led the civil service from 2012 to 2014.
“In the absence of that, I think civil servants will be worrying about what the consequences will be if they complain.”
It comes amid concern among senior civil servants that Raab has been allowed to publicly traduce those who were subjected to his bullying behaviour, including the British ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliott.
Some within Whitehall believe that James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, should publicly stand up for Elliott, who remains a high-profile diplomat, given that he is unable to speak out himself.
There is also disquiet about the fact that Sunak allowed Raab to resign as deputy prime minister and release a 1,000-word defence of his behaviour before the official report was published, and dismay that Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, has not been more robust in standing up for the complainants within the civil service.
When found to have bullied staff in an independent report by barrister Adam Tolley, Raab reacted by claiming he had been tipped off that “unionised officials” were targeting him, and that the bar for bullying behaviour had been set too low.
Raab also effectively identified Elliott, despite it being a confidential inquiry, by claiming that one of the complaints related to his decision to remove a senior official from Brexit negotiations for going beyond his remit in relation to Gibraltar.
The former deputy prime minister distanced himself from those calling civil servants “snowflakes”, but he has claimed to have been targeted by a campaign against him, and other Tory MPs have questioned the resilience of complainants.
Subsequently, Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former cabinet minister, suggested on Sky News that Elliott was too senior as an ambassador to have been subject to bullying and questioned whether he was “a complete wetwipe”.
But Kerslake said it was wrong that civil servants should be blamed for having the “temerity” to complain about being bullied, and that the “angry manner of Raab’s departure risks creating a toxic relationship between civil servants and ministers and a lasting effect, if we’re not careful”.
David Gauke, a former Tory MP and cabinet minister, also wrote in ConservativeHome that it was wrong to characterise civil servants as lacking resilience.
“There has been some commentary that this matter reveals the lack of resilience amongst younger civil servants and the public sector cannot cope with robustness as it once could. I am sure it is correct to say that standards have changed, but this critique misses a few points,” he said.
“Clearly, some of the complaints came from senior, not junior officials. Yes, the test of what constitutes acceptable behaviour from those in positions of responsibility has changed, but this is neither unique 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 could potentially misuse it.”
Despite No 10 describing the Tolley report as important work, Sunak did not publicly criticise Raab or take the decision to sack him. Downing Street has also hinted that it might looking at time-limiting complaints from civil service, after Raab’s criticism that the allegations against him took too long to be aired.
The government has also revived the idea of more political appointments to the civil service, advocated by Francis Maude, a Tory peer and former cabinet minister.
William Wragg, the 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] government’s engine room still functions as intended”.
“It is a fundamental principle that the civil service serves the government of the day, yet growing tensions between ministers and their officials and public criticisms of civil service impartiality and competence have called into question the efficacy of the Westminster model,” Wragg said.
