Yes Minister is a documentary

Matthew Hooton reports:

They’re called the “bureaucratic priesthood” – powerful officials in Wellington who ministers must work with to deliver their promises but who think they, not democratically elected politicians, should be the judge of what the public wants and what it’s going to get.

The priesthood is only a minority of officials, according to a new study by the free-market New Zealand Initiative to be published after the election. It’s designed to help new ministers and MPs, on either side of the political divide, deal with barriers officials could put up to stop them doing what they have been elected to do.

Across officials surveyed for the study, about 30% appear to meet the Initiative’s “bureaucratic priesthood” definition. That includes those in operational roles who can’t really influence policy and whose jobs are more about serving the public directly.

More important are the 20% of policy advisors and their managers who apparently aren’t prepared to accept voters’ verdict two weeks from now, or the coalition agreements thrashed out afterwards. That suggests one in five of the most important mandarins don’t really support some of the most fundamental tenets of Westminster democracy.

This is a stunning finding. Now let’s be clear, 20% is a minority of public servants, but it is not a minuscule fraction. It is 1 in 5 policy advisors and managers.

It worries the Initiative that only 60% of those surveyed agreed with the statement that “because ministers are democratically elected, they should decide policy and tradeoffs”. That suggests two out of every five public servants think someone else should decide the elected government’s policies – presumably public servants themselves. Three out of five of those who write advice also think ministers aren’t as well suited as them to determine what the public wants.

This should be of huge concern to the next Government, regardless of who makes it up.