Norman Baker interview: ex-minister says high turnover in departments is ‘fault in the system’ of government

A former minister has warned that ministerial churn in key government departments causes significant issues in terms of policy delivery and impedes the running of government.

Speaking to NationalWorld, former Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Department for Transport (DfT), Norman Baker said it is “not a good thing for the government to have all this constant shuffling – you don’t end up with people who know what they’re talking about”.

‘A fault in the system’

Even before the events of last week, when scores of senior and junior ministers resigned from Boris Johnson’s government, there has been a high degree of turnover among government ministers in a number of key departments in recent years, leading to concerns about the impact of this on the development and implementation of policy.

Analysis by NationalWorld has found that some ministerial posts have been held by more than 10 different people over 12 years, and that 38% of all ministerial turnover between May 2010 and July 2022 took place during Johnson’s time in office - despite him only being in power for less than a quarter (24%) of this period.

Former Liberal Democrat MP Mr Baker served under three different secretaries of state in less than four years, but he says there were also too many changes among senior civil servants at the department during that time.

“We saw a huge turnover not just of ministers but also officials. We got to the stage toward the end of my time where officials were writing up briefings and I would have to say: ‘This is wrong’.

“I knew more about things than the civil service, which is a problem.”

Based on his experience both within government and now working in advocacy as director of external affairs at the Campaign for Better Transport, Mr Baker says people in government “get moved around too much”.

“People aren’t allowed to specialise enough, lots of people are very bright but they don’t know their subject enough.

“It’s a fault in the system and it leads to unwelcome consequences, particularly dealing with sharp people in the private sector who know how to get the best out of government.”

Mr Baker cites the creation of Great British Railways as a recent example of the government failing to get the best from negotiations as a result of this issue.

“The chief executives at Network Rail are very bright people and know what they’re talking about - they effectively got what they wanted dealing with spotty 25-year old civil servants and ministers who hadn’t been there very long.”

“I also think the West Coast Mainline agreement with Virgin was a catastrophic error, which came down to not having efficient civil servants, or ministers who had the experience to deal with it.”

Ministerial churn is a ‘big problem across government’

Mr Baker says ministerial churn is a particular problem at the DfT, because it is “seen by ministers as somewhere you go on the way up and on the way down”.

“A lot of ministers see it as a stepping stone, and that’s often how the Prime Minister will see it in terms of where to put people.”

He says another issue is the way that the political leadership in a department must guide civil servants.

“The civil service moves sometimes at a glacial pace, and they have to be cajoled by ministers, but when ministers don’t know what they’re doing they can’t be cajoled, so there is a kind of slowness.”

The IPPR North think tank says turnover is a big problem across government, and that having a lot of ministers in a short period of time, “creates a very difficult policy environment for people to get things done and to push an agenda forward”.

Jonathan Webb, senior research fellow at IPPR North, told NationalWorld that while housing is a particular problem area, many policy areas have complex agendas that require action, which can be hindered by high rates of turnover.

Ministers in all departments have to deal with problems which are technically very complicated, and which, according to Mr Webb, are “very difficult to fix if you don’t have someone who can spend the time that’s needed reading into and coming up with a solution that’s going to work”.

The problem is fundamentally one of specialist knowledge and expertise, with ministers tending to develop a greater understanding of their brief the more time they spend in it, and Mr Webb says that frequent changovers lead to a loss in this expertise.

“Even if ministers aren’t experts when they go into a role they are generally able to build up an expertise quite quickly, thanks to the support of the civil service. But you lose that every time a minister comes in; you’re resetting that.”

Change in PM will lead to ‘challenging’ period for delivering on policy

The government is currently in a period of mass upheaval, following the collapse of Boris Johnson’s support, prompting resignations across almost every major department in recent days.

Mr Johnson is likely to remain in place as a caretaker PM and will pick a number of MPs to fill key roles in government throughout that short period, many of whom likely won’t stay on under a new leader.

According to Mr Webb, this will lead to serious delays in progress on key government initiatives.

“What makes the current changeover more challenging is that we have a prime minister who is going to remain in post for a very short time, he is making appointments for the short term, and the question is if you’re going into a ministerial role for a few months, how much are you going to really get done and how much is just going to be about making sure the department ticks over?

“What you’ll then have is another changeover, when you often see new ministers coming in you have the learning process and then you have people wanting to ‘put their stamp’ on a department.”