Whitehall in 2040
Chief Executive
It's the year 2040, and Dame Louise Casey has been asked to lead a taskforce to tackle the [insert institution failure]. This is her 234th review/taskforce in the past 15 years. Her commission on social care is now due to report in 2042.
I briefly interacted with Dame Louise when the Coalition was launching the Troubled Families programme, and I have had the privilege of chatting with her several times since. She is, without doubt, one of the most impressive people you’ll meet – her record and reputation confirm that.
But I can’t help wondering what it says about government, and Whitehall specifically, that when there’s a Big Problem, Troubleshooter Casey gets the call up, like a sort of Marvel character for bureaucratic failure. Because it feels like an admission that no-one, across the entirety of the government machine, is capable of fixing the stickiest issues. It can only be Casey.
There is, of course, good reason to appoint external people to lead reviews. You obviously don’t want the institution requiring the review to be undertaking it, and an independent, neutral individual lends credibility and perspective. In some cases it is absolutely essential to securing the confidence of the public, for example in the case of the Casey Review into standards and culture at the Met. Though, as the BBC says after referencing a particular product, “there are other brands available”.
The latest Casey call up, however, is in response to the collapsing grooming gangs inquiry. She has been asked to “support the work” and, presumably, get the inquiry back on track. Surely, surely, this is something that skilled civil servants should be able to do. Are we saying there are no sufficiently skilled mandarins? Or that the PM doesn’t trust them? Or have we got to the stage where a Casey intervention is in fact an exercise in communicating ‘we are serious about dealing with this issue’?
Another example would be Boris Johnson tasking Casey with fixing homelessness during the pandemic – which really does seem something that Whitehall should have been able to solve itself. We shouldn’t need to bring external people in, however brilliant they are, to do core civil service business.
There are rumours that Casey could be set to replace the current Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald if he steps down. Who then will be on the end of the bureaucratic failure hotline to save the day? Perhaps we won’t need that because she’ll apply her JFDI approach to actually rewiring Whitehall. We can hope.