The head of the union of senior civil servants wrote to . Keir Starmer He was urged to rethink his “frankly insulting” criticism of Whitehall for falling standards.
The general secretary of the FDA, a union of senior civil servants, had invoked Starmer’s “Trumpian” language, stating that he did not want to “drain the swamp” but when he said that “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in a warm bath of managed declines.”
Dave Penman told Starmer that he feared it was “much more damaging than you thought when you chose those words” after years of attacks on the civil service by previous governments had already damaged morale.
The guard understands Starmer’s speech Insinuating that civil servants were partly to blame for obstructing reform in public services, and Whitehall also made some of its own officials uncomfortable.
On Friday, Matthew Pennycook, the minister of local government, said that he had not experienced any particular civil servants “in a lukewarm bath of declimatization”.
“Our partners are ambitious. They are working hard to make the changes in the accounting system that you have already introduced and will continue to do.”
However, some in Downing Street are frustrated at the slow pace of making changes and bringing about reforms in government, with the prime minister’s speech on Thursday a “plan for change” alongside concrete targets for reform.
Starmer appointed new cabinet secretary Chris Wormald earlier this week to work for “nothing less than the full recovery of the British state”. A senior of labor the source said the prime minister’s speech was about the whole of government, not just the civil service, and about “setting the right direction and pulling the whole of Whitehall in the same direction to deliver”.
The governing body said on Friday that Starmer was “disappointed with the support he is getting from the system”.
“Starmer’s training should be applied to the civil service to find his design creativity and passion that can distinguish the official service relationship,” he said.
However, Starmer said “care must be taken not to alienate and disillusion the workforce, and the approach of some ministers in the last government has been shown to be rude.” Drop it, bashing doesn’t work“.
In his letter to Starmer on Friday, Penman says he represents 20,000 senior civil servants who are as impatient for change as the prime minister, and want to improve and reform public services to make a real difference.
But he said: “Why was your language so disappointing in your speech yesterday?” You, above all, understand the challenges of civil servants in the last 15 years.
“They have been asked to respond to the biggest administrative task that any government has faced since the Second World War by delivering Brexit, a once-in-a-century pandemic, and now a war in continental Europe. All this was followed by more than a decade of austerity, where they were asked to surrender more or less.
Post Newsletter promotion
All this was done against the backdrop of political chaos under four prime ministers and literally hundreds of ministerial changes. You, as a former civil servant, will understand that the ability to deliver, reform and improve vital public services does not lie solely in the hands of civil servants. Ministers’ frustrations with peace and efficiency are shared by many civil servants, whose ability to address them is often limited by political choices and limited resources.
Penman emphasized that Starmer, a former director of the Crown Prosecution Service, was now a minister for the civil service and that civil servants should be “moved and inspired, not mocked and maligned”.
Paralleling the speech between the prime minister and the previous Tory ministers, he said: “The words you used and the briefs that accompany them, only five months after coming to power promising to rule differently, are strongly reminded of the approach of civil servants. ministers in the last five years.”
He ended the letter urging the prime minister to “reflect urgently on the impact your speech yesterday” had on the government’s relationship with civil servants, which he said was based on a strong partnership of trust.
“If you want to successfully deliver your plan of change, you must make an effort to immediately restore trust with the civil servants who carried out its implementation,” he said.
Asked if the prime minister understood why the FDA’s general secretary had accused Starmer of using Trumpian language against civil servants, the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “I don’t want to point it out that way. The PM is directing the direction and pace of what the British people expect from their government and the scope of their ambitions. He made it clear in that area.”