70 Whitehall
“Good morning, Humphrey. I see we have a new Chief People Person.” [1]
“I believe her title is Chief People Officer, Minister, and an excellent appointment it is too, if I may say so.”
“Have you met her?”
“Ms Ryland has a long line of people clamouring for her availability.”
“Her predecessor, Rupert McNeil, had the job for six years so I expect you know him well?”
“Well, I am sorry to admit to this but I have never met him either. The joke at the Oxford and Cambridge Club was that he never existed. Not, Minister, a very good joke.”
“Well, you are not really a people person, Humphrey.”
“Very droll Minister. Heading up HR for the whole of the civil service is critical for the whole future of our country. We have, as I am sure you acknowledge, the finest civil service in the world.”
“Of course, of course. Will our new Ms Ryland have charge of quangos too?”
“I take it you are referring to Non-Departmental Public Bodies? They are independent and employ public, not civil servants, so we have no responsibility for them. That would contaminate our core values which are, as you well know and admire, Minister, are ‘integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.’ One way we achieve that is to get the incoming minister to reverse the decisions of his predecessor. That preserves the balance for which we are famed.”
“I’ve been looking through the Centrica annual report, Humphrey, and there are two whole pages reporting their Chief People Officer’s achievements. The 282 pages of ours do not even mention that we have a Chief People Officer.”
“Discretion, Minister, is the better part of valour. Senior civil servants do not appreciate self-aggrandisement.”
“You could have fooled me, Humphrey. Antonia Romeo seems to win promotion by flaunting her credentials. Anyway, I don’t understand why a Chief People Officer isn’t chief of the people; the Cabinet Secretary is.”
“Well yes and no, Minister. He or she may be but ‘the Civil Service Board (CSB) is responsible for the strategic leadership of the Civil Service’ and that is chaired by the Chief Operating Officer for the Civil Service.”
“OK but the Chief People Officer must be on that Board and driving things from there.”
“Well actually, under the civil service grade system, he’s not senior enough to be on the CSB but he does get a seat on some junior board reporting to it. He did read PPE at Oxford albeit at St Catherine’s. Good enough for the Club though.”
“And Fiona Ryland?”
“UCL, I fear, Minister. Nothing we can do about that but she has a challenge on her hands. Our press release said ‘Fiona will be leading our HR function at a time of huge change, as we work in partnership with Ministers to equip our people to deliver Civil Service reform.”
“Well, there are two things wrong with that. If the Civil Service is all you crack it up to be, why does it need reform? Secondly, as you so frequently remind me, civil servants do not report to ministers; the buck stops with permanent secretaries. And that’s you Humphrey.”
“Well, the last Chief People Officer never bothered me and I do not suppose this one will. As we say at the Club, ‘plus ça change, plus the same shows.’”