Civil service 'should remain unified' says senior Scottish Government official

A unified civil service across England, Scotland and Wales is 'vital' to maintaining shared values, a senior Scottish government official has said.

Ian Davidson, deputy director of the Scottish Government’s constitution and UK relations division said there had been a “particular strain” put on civil servants by the Scots independence referendum.

Despite the increasing transfer of powers to Scotland in recent years – with more on tax and welfare to follow in the wake of the Scottish referendum – the civil service in Scotland remains part of the wider UK civil service.

Around 44,000 officials work north of the border, with approximately 27,000 working for UK government departments and 17,000 owing their loyalty to the Scottish administration.

Davidson said it was important for officials working both in Scotland and Whitehall to “stay true” to a common set of civil service values  – ​even though the Scottish referendum had at times made that difficult.

“Throughout all of our careers at different points that’s tested in different ways from different directions,” he told Civil Service Live in London. “And there is no doubt that working in the pressure cooker environment of the referendum is one that put a particular strain on my colleagues…

“That kind of pressure, when you’re trying to balance the politics of working for an administration whose entire purpose is about delivering independence… [and working] alongside colleagues here, working in an administration directly opposed to independence, puts the relationship under real strain. 

“So it is the values, and staying true to your values  – spending the time to have trust in one another, that I think is really important.”

The neutrality of the civil service in the run-up to last year’s Scottish independence referendum was brought into focus earlier this year, when MPs on the Public Administration Committee said the Treasury's top official was “compromised” by a decision to make public his advice on the risks of sharing the pound with an independent Scotland.

MPs also criticised the use of civil service resources in putting together the Scottish government’s 2013 independence ‘White paper’, saying it strayed into party-political territory and “raised questions about the use of public money for partisan purposes”.

Davidson said that while the transfer of more welfare and taxation powers to Scotland would make relations between Whitehall officials and their counterparts north of the border “more complex”, there were significant benefits in avoiding calls to split the civil service.

He acknowledged that there had been “quite a lot of political pressure” to establish a separate Scottish civil service when Scotland was handed its own parliament in the late 1990s.

But he said: “I think the thing we were probably most concerned about in 1998 was to ensure seamless joint working, because whatever the distinctions in political outlook, citizens should benefit from the combined experience and knowledge of the civil service. 

“And actually — culturally, most of my colleagues would say you can only draw strength from being part of a wider civil service… Looking ahead, I think it’s even more important than it was before. A welfare system where there will be different benefits in Scotland, but they will have to talk to DWP systems, makes it really important that they can talk to each other.”

He added: "There will always be tensions and there will always be those voices who will describe it being easier to have a clean break. There’s undoubtedly some merit in those arguments  – but I think the balance, as far as I’m concerned, still tips in favour [of one civil service].

“Even though my own government are no doubt committed to independence, they are absolutely committed, as well, to citizens receiving a seamless service across reserved areas. There’s no pressure at the moment from them to establish a separate civil service.”

“Most of it is about picking up the phone"

Davidson was speaking as the Cabinet Office launched a new “Devolution Toolkit”, designed to help civil servants navigate Britain’s changing constitutional landscape.

Lucy Smith, director of the constitution group in the Cabinet Office, said the new toolkit would stress the importance of building good relationships with colleagues in the devolved administrations – and not simply focus on how to manage “dispute resolution”.

“You shouldn’t have to do loads of work in order to be good at working in a devolved context,” she told the same event. 

“Most of it is about picking up the phone to your counterparts in the devolved administrations. The toolkit helps you to think about whether subjects are devolved or reserved, what kind of considerations you need to take into account, and what that means for your policy. 

“And it offers you a lot of case studies which will help you think about how, in your policy, that mix of devolved and reserved powers will work and who you need to call on when starting to think about what that means for you.”

Last week, the government launched a new “Interchange” scheme to try and boost the number of civil servants with direct experience of working for the devolved administrations.