UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has calmed the City of London’s market jitters and reset ties with Europe, but the government’s toxic relationship with the civil servants who keep ministries running may prove more difficult to repair.
(Bloomberg) — UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has calmed the City of London’s market jitters and reset ties with Europe, but the government’s toxic relationship with the civil servants who keep ministries running may prove more difficult to repair.
Since vowing in October to restore professionalism after the tumultuous tenures of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, Sunak has been buffeted by a series of allegations of bullying and abusive conduct by Conservative ministers toward their staff. Some predate Sunak, such as allegations of unprofessional conduct by former Business Secretary Alok Sharma, accounts that Bloomberg News first reported Sunday and that Sharma denies.
Others hit closer to home, such as bullying claims against Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, who ran Sunak’s campaign for Conservative Party leadership. Sunak has received the report of a five-month investigation into eight formal complaints against Raab and is considering the findings, the prime minister’s spokesman told reporters on Thursday. A person familiar with the premier’s plans said his decision won’t be made public before Friday.
Raab has denied the allegations of bullying and said he “behaved professionally at all times.”
The controversies lay bare an unprecedented rift between the political appointees who make policies for the UK government and the bureaucrats who execute them. While some of the tension might stem from generational changes in expectations of workplace behavior, it appears to have been exacerbated by the Conservatives’ post-Brexit tilt toward a more populist political stance.
In two briefings on Thursday, spokesmen for Sunak said the premier retains “full confidence” in his deputy.
But how Sunak handles the report on Raab, 49, who sits next to the prime minister on the House of Commons benches and stands in for him in his absence, will signal how concerned he is about easing tensions with the public workforce.
Grievances
“If Raab is found guilty of bullying, Sunak can make a virtue of the decision by acting quickly, getting rid of him and showing everyone he is different to Boris Johnson, which he is so keen to do,” Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University and expert on the Tory Party said in an interview. “On the other hand, if Raab is dispatched quickly, the butchery could worry a lot of Sunak loyalists.”
As reports of civil service grievances proliferate, Tory politicians have increasingly accused the government’s work force of left-wing bias. Johnson proposed cutting 91,000 civil service jobs while while Truss broke precedent by dismissing the Treasury’s top civil servant, Tom Scholar, immediately after she came to power in September.
Conservative ministers have publicly criticized workers’ reluctance to return to the office after Covid-19 rules were lifted. Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg distributed printed cards on empty desks in the Cabinet Office, saying, “Sorry you were out when I visited.”
In that atmosphere, workers have grown more reluctant to file formal complaints against ministers, whose cases ultimately fall to the premier under the Ministerial Code. Johnson’s decision not to punish his then-Home Secretary Priti Patel in 2020, after she was found to have broken ministerial rules discouraged some criticism from coming forward, officials have told Bloomberg.
Bullying
One-in-six civil servants have reported experiencing or witnessing bullying or harassment in government departments in the past year, according to the FDA union of civil servants. The sentiment has borne out in Bloomberg’s interviews with multiple civil servants, who say ministers have grown more willing to shout, insult their work, interrupt their private lives and otherwise make them feel disrespected.
Sharma, for instance, was difficult, unpredictable and could quickly lose his temper, according to four senior officials who worked with him between 2020 and 2022. Both the government and Sharma said they were unaware of any complaints against Sharma stemming from his time as business secretary and climate talks chief.
“I refute strongly these allegations,” Sharma said in a statement.
The referendum on leaving the European Union, which opened political divides across the UK in 2016, marked a “chaotic” turning point in the relationship, with ministers routinely questioning the impartiality of officials, FDA General Secretary Dave Penman told Bloomberg. The situation worsened under Johnson, Penman said, adding that “everybody, including ministers, knew that no one was going to hold them to account” for misbehavior.
‘Cultural Shift’
“There has been a cultural shift in not really respecting the role of the civil service and feeling that they can behave in a way that’s dismissive, rude and aggressive as ministers,” he said.
Sunak, for his part, has pledged to uphold “integrity, professionalism and accountability” in government, a remark that has been cited as an acknowledgment that those characteristics were seen as lacking. In one of his first acts as premier, he scrapped Johnson’s planned cut to the civil service. He said in October that the pandemic showed the “parts of the British civil service at its best,” although he added that the “bloated post-Covid state is in need of a shake-up.”
That’s part of a broader tonal shift by Sunak that has helped reassure voters and investors since the Truss’s departure after an historically brief premiership 49 days. The Conservatives have narrowed Labour’s lead in public opinion surveys in the wake of the government’s largely successful budget roll-out and the “Windsor Framework” agreement with the EU over ties with Northern Ireland.
The Labour Party has seized upon the tension between the government and its workforce as part of its bid to return to power after 13 years in opposition. Deputy Labour Party Leader Angela Rayner highlighted that vulnerability in a pointed exchange with Raab in Parliament last month in which she said he “knows first-hand the misery caused by thugs and their intimidating behavior, lurking with menace, exploding in fits of rage, creating a culture of fear.”
Labour
Labour’s embrace of the workforce’s cause has at times risked deepening suspicions between the government and the bureaucracy, such as when opposition leader Keir Starmer hired senior civil Sue Gray as his chief of staff. Gray had the been high-profile author of a damaging report into parties held by Johnson’s government in violation of lockdown rules, revelations that laid the ground for his ultimate resignation in July.
Such distrust is likely to outlast the controversy over Raab.
“The political division and turmoil of recent years have had knock-on consequences for the relationship between ministers and civil servants,” Institute for Government Director Hannah White said in an interview. “Politicians finding it difficult to deliver contentious policies — from Brexit to tax cuts to immigration — have resorted to public criticism of civil servants and been prepared to sack senior officials they believe may stand in their way.”
–With assistance from Ellen Milligan.
(Updates with Sunak delaying decision on Raab probe in third paragraph.)
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