Senior government officials are sounding the alarm because of an “increased tension” in political-administrative cooperation. NRC (11/1). Civil servants feel threatened in their professionalism because they are drawn into the political debate. This politicization is at odds with the space that civil service professionals should be given to do their job, as is apparent from the interviews in the same newspaper with two senior civil servants.
The far-reaching political interference with the civil service is not of today or yesterday. In recent decades, distrust of the ‘fourth power’ has prompted ministers and MPs to emphasize that politics is the boss. There are three areas where this is clearly visible.
Firstly, coalition agreements have increasingly come to function as the political reins for the civil service. Coalition agreements have become increasingly extensive and more binding in the cooperation between ministers, and between the ministers and the House. But the senior civil servants also have to conform to the government’s political agenda. According to research, senior civil servants in the Netherlands take their commitment to the coalition agreement very seriously. Coalition agreements leave little room for ambitious senior officials to develop policy themselves. Politics rule here.
Job carousel
A second area in which politics has become increasingly dominant is the selection of ministers and senior officials.
There used to be lawyers at Justice, soldiers at Defense and engineers at Transport, Public Works and Water Management. Where professional knowledge used to be a desirable quality, political experience and administrative sensitivity have become increasingly important in the selection of both ministers and senior civil servants.
This more political approach has resulted in a growing number of confidants assisting the minister. In response to the increasing media violence and the political bustle in traffic with the House of Representatives, a ‘fur collar’ of political assistants, advisers and spokespersons has emerged.
The establishment of the job carousel of the General Administrative Service (ABD) thirty years ago, intended to improve the mobility and quality of the civil service, not only curbed the power of top civil servants who had served too long. It made political competences more important in the selection process.
Also read this opinion piece: Civil servant, dare to speak out against administrators
Being a top civil servant is no longer a matter of having some time to sort things out and to advise calmly. It requires more and more empathy in the short-track shift and in forging changing coalitions. Top civil servants need to know what political parties think and what the political margins are. They increasingly act as shadow politicians who, in the absence of the ministers, take over part of the political role in order to get their colleagues to follow the course of ‘their’ minister.
Much official energy has gone into the political survival of the minister and the maintenance of coalitions
Thirdly, we also see a much more political interpretation of the role in the field of public accountability by the minister.
The House is asking more and more questions, adopting more motions and organizing more parliamentary inquiries and inquiries. The risk of premature resignation for ministers has increased sharply. At the end of the 1990s, people could still talk about a ‘sorry-democracy’, because virtually no ministers resigned for political reasons during the Purple cabinets, but that has changed considerably since the Balkenende cabinets. For example, in Rutte II and III alone, fourteen of the twenty ministers who resigned prematurely have resigned for political reasons.
It has ensured that a great deal of official energy is devoted to the political survival of the minister and the maintenance of coalitions. ‘Keeping out of the wind’ of the minister has become a primary official task.
European Commission
This politicization of the civil service is understandable. Political support and advice is indispensable for ministers in gaining support for their policy plans in a highly fragmented political landscape. It is at the expense of official professionalism and policy expertise. Good policy development and quality legislation benefit from a certain depoliticization.
This calls for a better separation between political and substantive support. A clear institutional delineation of political and administrative professionalism benefits the effectiveness of a department and government policy.
The Netherlands could take an example from the European Commission. It is striking how many ambitious policy plans have come our way from Brussels in recent years. Various reforms in the European Commission have led to a stronger definition of the roles of the European Commissioners and their political cabinets on the one hand, and their senior officials on the other. The political manual work is done by the political cabinets. This gives the senior civil servants peace and space to concentrate on the substantive quality of the policy. Among other things, it has ensured that the Commission has been able to continue to play its strategic policy role within the EU system, despite growing politicization.