Chamber and committees

Another point that has been made by separate groups of people is that there is a lack of consistency in the approach to policy making and implementation across different portfolios. We should bear in mind that we do not have multiple departments in the Scottish Government, which is essentially a single Government department. We might expect such a lack of consistency in Whitehall but not in the Scottish Government. Would you both agree that therein lines the problem? Without consistent approaches to both policy development and implementation, people will always struggle.

We have heard a lot about the lack of consistency between portfolios around policy making and, even more so, implementation. The explanation is that the things that the Government does are so different that there cannot be an identical approach. I would push back and say that, with some of the large organisations with which I have come into contact, they might have different approaches at a technical level, but they typically have common approaches, which somebody from one part of the business would recognise in broad terms.

Is it a lesson from business for the Government that there can be different detailed implementation but very strong core principles with regard to policy design and implementation?

Do you agree with that, Mr Sheerin?

In a sense, I want to carry on the convener’s line of questioning regarding generalism. However, before I do, I thank you both for giving the Fulton report a namecheck—I have also done that in the past because it is interesting how frequently these themes come around—and also for mentioning project management.

Dr Foster, you set out the key stages of decision making as problem identification, agenda setting, consideration of potential actions, implementation and evaluation. That is a really good framework. However, it struck me that, when we are discussing the issue—whether that is with former ministers, civil servants, or others outside the Government—the tendency is always to dwell on policy, whereas our inquiry is about decision making in the round, without being prescriptive. If we push, people might talk about implementation, and if we push a bit further, they might talk about finance, but really only after prodding, and only if we ask about very specific things, such as commercial considerations. That is odd, given the number of external contracts and relationships that the Government has—the state does not do everything; it contracts out a lot. In private sector organisations, that commercial function is key.

When we are talking about generalism, is it that we overemphasise policy—those first two bullet points in Dr Foster’s list—almost to the exclusion of anything else? The issue is not so much about generalism as an area as it is about the need for a bit more focus on those different stages of the life cycle of a project and having specialist skills within those. Would that be a fair summary?

I have just one slight counterpoint here. That sort of assumes that everything in the private sector is neat, orderly and predictable, and it is not. Successful large organisations will have a lot more consistency and standardised methodologies—and I agree that they need to be adapted. We need to be careful, however, about the notion of exceptionalism for decision making in government.

It is an interesting one. Michael Barber’s book "Instruction to Deliver" sits on my bookshelf.

I am interested in the IFG’s proposal that there should be a new civil service bill that clarifies the role. We need to think about more than just function; we also need to think about structure. One of the things that strike me about the Scottish Government is that there is no direct mapping at director general level and cabinet secretary level, and below that, at director level, some directors feed into multiple ministers and cabinet secretaries. I am not arguing that a direct one-to-one system is needed, but it relates to what was said about wiring diagrams; we do not want too many connections.

Critically, there is an issue if there is not a clear line of accountability and delivery at Cabinet level. Does the Scottish Government need to think about that, and are there examples of good and bad practice from Whitehall? I guess that different departments manage relationships between civil service roles and ministerial roles quite differently.

I have found the discussion fascinating. The public sector could really benefit from the twin concepts of the lean methodology—both Six Sigma and the kaizen principles of ensuring that everyone is involved in improvement.

I want to continue with the compare and contrast approach. I take the points about rapidity and the difference in the private sector—or the successful private sector, which is an important distinction, because not everything in the private sector is good—with strategic alignment. Do you agree that there is also an issue with overemphasis on policy? In successful businesses, operations and delivery tend to be much more important than, or at least have equal weight with, idea origination. Do you think that that overemphasis of policy and a lack of depth in understanding delivery and managing that side of things is an issue in Government decision making?

That was very helpful. Dr Foster, do you have anything to add?

Alex Thomas, you were discussing at some length why we should not throw out generalism, but perhaps the question is about how that generalism is acquired. If we look at other organisations, typically someone would be drawn into a particular function when they hit a certain level and, having developed expertise early in their career, they will then start hopping. People come up through a finance function, an engineering function or a sales function, and it is only once they hit their mid to senior career that they start to broaden their skills. Rather than thinking about generalism throughout, is there a need to think about when we seek civil servants to acquire that generalism?

What about the one that you do sit on?