Bringing the public into public service

I attended an event recently with a mix of small to medium sized London-based charities, educational professionals and community leaders. One of the speakers suggested that she had recently ‘joined the dark side’ by taking a role within her local council.

Throughout the rest of the day participants jokingly referenced Star Wars and ‘the dark side’ when describing their frustrations with local government, detailing complaints about poor communication, negative interactions with staff, inadequate funding and a lack of transparency.

Though I have my own frustrations and criticisms of bureaucracy, I am a proud public servant and believe in the critical importance of hard-working, diligent bureaucrats to make thoughtful decisions about shared resources. Despite my convictions, being compared to a maleficent intergalactic force gave me cause for introspection. Surrounded by passionate charities and activists, I wondered at the chasm that exists between bureaucracy and community, and whether it is possible to build a space where public servants are not seen as separate from the public.

Radical bureaucracy under the Greater London Council

I work at the Greater London Authority and have recently been interested to learn about experimentations in bureaucracy under its former incarnation, the Greater London Council (GLC). The GLC was created in 1963 and led by Ken Livingston from 1981 to 1986 when it was controversially abolished by Margaret Thatcher. Under Livingstone, the GLC fostered a radical organisational culture and recruited employees from outside the traditional civil service cadre, bringing in the labour movement, community leaders, LGBT+ and feminist activists into the realm of ‘Officialdom’. Many staff saw little delineation between their new administrative function and their daily lives within these communities. One worker recounted:

I live in this sort of feminist bubble, nearly separatist … I spend every waking minute working for women. Either paid work or voluntary work. Or lesbians and gay men, or black people. So I’m a living activist, I’m running from producing a newsletter to answering the phone at [London Lesbian and Gay] Switchboard to doing a shift at Women’s Aid.

A ‘Public Planning Unit’ was created, described by one employee as a ‘radically democratic approach to an economic policy that had at its centre the transformation of production’. Officers were largely union organisers, now with an official state function to organise workers and defend jobs. They spent their time visiting workplaces across the city, identifying campaigns and bringing proposals to relevant administrative committees. Thus, through state salaries and resources, political power and funding was shared more widely and activist and community perspectives sat at the heart of City hall.

Politicisation vs Impartiality

Officials in the Public Planning Unit described their time at the GLC as working ‘in and against’ the state. Many of these activist, communitarian bureaucrats were explicitly political. This sits uncomfortably with traditional ideas of bureaucracy as merely a tool for implementation, with policy decisions flowing from the democratically elected Executive. Such politicisation would appear to push against the central principle of impartiality in the Civil Service code.

However, it is worth questioning both the concept of impartiality and democratic accountability. In reality, policy and implementation are closely connected, moral decisions and value judgments are taken at all levels of government. The way we organise a bureaucracy is, in itself, a political act; ‘Politics is decision making in an organizational context and through organization'. By separating policy and delivery decisions and limiting staff autonomy the State has, time and time again, shown itself to be capable of great institutional violence. The potential ‘dark side’ of bureaucratic organisation should therefore not be taken lightly.

From this perspective, the grey area between activism and bureaucracy at the GLC is worth examining. If civil servants truly serve the public, their roles should require work across organisational boundaries into a wide range of public spaces, connecting with local people, organising to improve working conditions and collaborating with advocacy groups to ensure rights are met.

Experiments in new forms of administration

There are obvious arguments in favour of limiting the power of officials. A Weberian structure of administration emphasises the importance of roles awarded on merit rather than political affiliation and depersonalising tasks to ensure continuous, standardised delivery of services. Robin Murray, when Chief Economist at the GLC, however was critical of Weberian theory, identifying it as lacking flexibility in the face of unforeseen events, discouraging risk taking, producing outputs insensitive to the particular requirements of users. The culture in the Public Planning Unit was an explicit attempt at a new organisational structure. Murray described his staff as “Civil civil servants”. This fluid approach between movements and administration appears to have had an impact on City Hall’s relationship to communities. According to Helen Wainwright, an Officer at the time, the Unit’s ethos was underlied by a focus on inclusion and equality which manifested as a rejection of ‘the ends justifying the means’. Policy and implementation were closely aligned, teams were executing the Mayoral manifesto whilst simultaneously involving Londoners in shaping future strategy. She described how they “saw our relationship to the London citizens with whom we worked as facilitative, educational and animating rather than ‘delivering”.

Towards a civil, civil service

The GLC example offers some inspiration for a diverse, fluid and adaptable bureaucracy which encourages distribution of political power to communities beyond the election cycle. Though innovative, the GLC has been characterised as a ‘messy experiment’. Murray himself wondered about the scalability of “how a diverse and autonomous network of actors pursue shared goals in the interests of maximising public benefit.” Further, the concerns with an ‘activist’ civil service are valid and should be acknowledged. We may be more concerned if such an approach opened the doors of administration to members of xenophobic organisations or misogynistic influencers. There is a balance to be struck. A more diverse and integrated public service will not negate the need for strong transparency requirements, fair recruitment procedures and extensive public consultation processes. However, more experimentation and creativity is needed and the potential for innovation could be substantial.

Local government teams should recruit staff with a broader breadth of experience, design initiatives where staff are given autonomy to innovate and encouraged to develop deep links into communities. Perhaps this might break down the ‘dark side’ and strengthen bridges between civil society, VCS, unions, charities, frontline staff and policy officers. It is worth recognising on-going efforts in this space. In my current role at the Mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit we convene a Young People’s Action Group to inform key decisions. Through YPAG, young Londoners with relevant lived experience are supported with salaries, laptops and access to extensive training, pastoral support and mentorship. Through this programme we shift power over resources and decisions to young Londoners themselves.

Across the Unit, many of my colleagues do not come from traditional commissioning backgrounds, rather, they bring extensive experience from grassroots charities or frontline youth practice. Much like the GLC officials of the past, they spend their days in the office managing City-Hall funded programmes and evenings mentoring and supporting young people impacted by violence. In many ways following in the footsteps of Murray’s ‘Civil Civil Servants’.

Alison was an MPP student at the School in 2016.