Councils need to build individual relationships with Whitehall civil servants if they want to achieve positive outcomes, a former senior mandarin has advised.
Speaking to The MJ’s Future Forum North in Manchester, Stephen Jones, who recently became director of Core Cities after almost two decades in Whitehall, said viewing the civil service as a singular collective was a mistake.
He said the civil service should instead be viewed as a collection of individuals and teams with different agendas.
Mr Jones’ advice was that working with this reality was key for local government getting the most out of opportunities presented by Whitehall and councils should look to develop individual relationships with civil servants.
While he admitted civil servants were risk averse - and Whitehall only really welcomed innovation when faced with a crisis – there was a commitment from mandarins to levelling up to address regional inequality.
Mr Jones added the instinctive risk aversion of many civil servants meant examples of failure in local government were likely to colour their overall perception of councils.
He also said it was an unfortunate reality that civil servants rarely stayed in specific roles long enough to become experts.
But Mr Jones added: ‘While the civil service is riddled with generalists they are willing to learn.’
This article was originally published by The MJ (£). Learn more about Future Forum here.
