King's College London

Britain’s new government does not lack ambition in what it wishes to achieve. From schools, to prisons, to the health service, to economic growth, the government’s language reflects an understanding that there is much to do to return the UK to the kind of country, with the kind of public services and living standards, that the populace expect.

Despite the scale of these challenges, the government has been cautious in its spending commitments – reflecting a view that the UK’s financial position is not strong enough to “turn on the taps” of public spending, and that there is limited tolerance for increases in taxation.

While this needn’t be contradictory, it will be hard, and much has been made of the greater challenge faced by this government compared to its predecessor in 1997. The government is also staffed by ministers and secretaries of state who have never been in high office before. Although their mostly fairly lengthy apprenticeships shadowing their departments will be useful, this is very different to the task of actually overseeing thousands of civil servants and budgets in the billions.

With the British system only permitting a comparatively small number of politically appointed special advisers, the government will be dependent on its civil servants, not just to execute their policies, but to shape strategy, formulate policies, and articulate the trade-offs that they face. Mrs Thatcher was right that advisers advise and ministers decide, but the quality of those decisions depends a lot on the quality of that advice.

We are extraordinarily lucky in our civil service in the UK, which takes its responsibilities to be professional and impartial incredibly seriously. Civil servants are the engine of policymaking, and as Francis Maude once reflected, that is a Rolls Royce engine.

But even the best engine requires maintenance, and the civil service has been running hot for quite some time. The extent of this can be seen in our new paper, part of a series that looks at how civil service wellbeing has changed over time, using data from the Civil Service People Survey.

Although the recovery across the public service in wellbeing is continuing, it remains substantially below pre-pandemic highs, and strong upwards trends in wellbeing across the service – which remained positive even in the face of political instability and Brexit – have yet to return post-Covid.

No central government department has yet recovered to its post-pandemic levels of wellbeing, and anxiety remains higher across every government organisation for which data is available than in 2019.

Perhaps most troubling for the government is that the biggest hits have been felt in those departments that are going to be most crucial for its missions. The Department for Education; the newly renamed Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; the Department for Health and Social Care; the Ministry of Justice; and the constituent parts of what is now the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, all remain stubbornly below pre-pandemic levels of wellbeing, by considerable margins.

We understand that focusing on civil service wellbeing may seem, with the rest of the challenges the government faces, like a distraction from bigger issues closer to the front line. Instead, it should be a key priority, as without a well functioning civil service, reforms elsewhere are unlikely to be well designed and well implemented.

With a massive majority in parliament, passing laws will not be difficult – but ensuring they are well written and implemented will be if officials are struggling.

Michael Sanders is Director of the International School for Government and a Professor of Public Policy at the Policy Institute, King's College London. Julia Ellingwood is a Research Associate with the Experimental Government Team at the Policy Institute.