Openness in policy-making

The government has refused to publish the risk assessment of its NHS reforms, claiming that doing so "could harm the quality of future advice from civil servants." Andrew Lansley says:

There...needs to be safe space where officials are able to give ministers full and frank advice in developing policies and programmes.

This makes little sense to me. Think of this in terms of incentives: how would openness reduce civil servants' incentives to give full and frank advice? Surely, the knowledge that your thinking will be publicized increases your incentives to do better, simply because it imposes an extra cost - public derision - upon bad thinking.

The counter-argument, I suppose, is that some "full and frank" advice consists of devil's advocate-type arguments - outrageous thoughts intended to clarify issues. But such arguments could be flagged as such in the minutes.

There's some quasi-experimental evidence which I think favours transparency. There's one area of policy-making which, pretty much around the world, has become more transparent in recent years - monetary policy. And whilst lots of people have complaints about central bankers, nobody AFAIK blames their failings upon excessive transparency. If openness is good enough for monetary policy, why shouldn't it be good elsewhere?

In fact, there must be a presumption of openness, simply because it is voters who pay for policy. As Joe Stiglitz said in this marvellous lecture (pdf):

Information gathered by public officials at public expense is owned by the public.

What's more, there are at least four arguments against secrecy:

1. As US Senators Moynihan and Wyden said, it "breeds inefficiency by providing cover for the influence of special interests and opening the door to corruption and bribery."

2. It allows bad thinking to escape scrutiny.

3. It breeds distrust. The public will ask: "what have you got to hide?" At a time when politicians are already deeply distrusted, this danger is especially acute.

4. It is anti-democratic. It supposes that there is some information which is only safe in the hands of an elite, and with which the public cannot be trusted.

On this last point, though, perhaps Mr Lansley is onto something. Maybe the quality of public thinking and of democratic debate is so bad, so debased by cognitive biases or by media manipulation, that the risk assessment would be misinterpreted. And maybe the government's rhetorical and political skills are so scant that it cannot correct such misinterpretations. But this poses the question: do we really want to be governed by people who are both sceptical of the value of democracy and lacking in political skills?

There is, of course, another possibility. Maybe he really has got something to hide.

Comments

[Matthew]

I agree, but is the Bank of England really less secretive than the government? I thought the FoI didn't apply to it, for example?

[Stéphane Genilloud]

Well, it looks like the quality of advice the government receives from civil servants is harmed already.
Bring Sir Humphrey back!

[john king]

On the Today programme this morning the interviewee said they "fully intend" to publish the risk register someone in the future . If so, what difference would a delay make to it's impact on civil service advice?

[Guano]

I agree with you. This line of reasoning makes no sense at all. It is more or less an admission that politicians do not tell the truth about the expected outcomes of their policies.

[Luke]

Out of interest , what, if anything, do you (or readers) think is a suitable area to be discussed in private (other than defence/security matters)? Foreign policy?

And is there a danger that opening up discussions mean that vested interests have longer to shape reforms in their interest (say if you want to reform banks)?

[Perplexed of Portsmouth]

"[W]hilst lots of people have complaints about central bankers, nobody AFAIK blames their failings upon excessive transparency"

I was at a talk a few months ago by a former HBoS bigwig. He was fairly adamant that the financial crisis could have been averted (or at least mitigated) if Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock had been bailed out on the hush-hush, with the public knowing as little as possible.

He explicitly said that excessive transparency caused the sudden drop in confidence that pulled all the liquidity out of the banking system.

I disagree - I find it hard to imagine a confidence-inspiring secretive cabal - but it's worth pointing out that pro-opaqueness isn't just a strawman position.

[gastro george]

"A former HBoS bigwig" is hardly a disinterested observer.

[Account Deleted]

Let us assume the risk register doesn't find that the government's plans entail negligible risk (in which case there would be political advantage in publishing it), and let us further assume it isn't the product of an intern messing about with a flipchart (in which case it might be embarrassing to the Civil Service alone).

The political sensitivity is not that the register will include some scary scenarios. The nature of such a document is usually to identify all possible risks and then grade them by their likelihood and impact.

The sensitivity I suspect is the assessment of likelihood, i.e. some outcomes that Lansley assured us were unlikely have been assessed as highly likely. Of course, this is not necessarily a problem for the government, as they may actually consider some of these outcomes desirable, but it would be embarrassing for Lansley.

[mikep]

I think you are missing the point. Civil servants lay out options with pros and cons. Ministers take decisions. Ministers always like to pretend that there is no alternative to whatever it is they choose. That makes an easily defended line to take. and it avoids an adult discussion in public of the inevitable upsides and downsides of various policies. Publishing advice which shows that, in private, these adult discussions did take place undermines this simple strategy.

[Tim Newman]

"Think of this in terms of incentives: how would openness reduce civil servants' incentives to give full and frank advice?"

For the same reason that when a manager in a large department wants to get some frank advice, he sits down his people and says "Right, off the table now, what is going on?"

There are a multitude of reasons why people do not talk openly and frankly in organisations. In mine, I cannot speak openly and honestly or I will seriously upset the rather powerful unions who dominate the local staff. I suspect there is much truth to be told about the runnings of the NHS, but having seen what happens to whistle-blowers in that organisation most would think it prudent to keep their traps shut. I suspect there are also quite a few opinions and suggestions which would upset the political classes - both left and right - which few ordinary folk would want their name tagged to when the politicos inevitably spit the dummy and lash out in revenge.

I find it somewhat surprising that thus far nobody on here can fathom why people want to remain anonymous when tabling reforms of an enormous, highly politicised organisation.

[Luis Enrique]

I think it's to do with how the press reacts. A civil servant considers possibility X may Y, press writes OMFG! government says X may Y!! and brings down a wholly pointless shitstorm that makes civil servant wish they'd never written it, hence next time they don't.

[Guano]

Indeed, Luis. But that is what the original post deals with in the penultimate paragraph.

"On this last point, though, perhaps Mr Lansley is onto something. Maybe the quality of public thinking and of democratic debate is so bad, so debased by cognitive biases or by media manipulation, that the risk assessment would be misinterpreted. And maybe the government's rhetorical and political skills are so scant that it cannot correct such misinterpretations. But this poses the question: do we really want to be governed by people who are both sceptical of the value of democracy and lacking in political skills?"

Do we have to be kept in the dark about the likely effects of legislation because some newspapers will misinterpret a risk assessment and because a Minister is incapable of putting them straight?

The Health Bill is an obscure and contradictory piece of legislation, about which some ambitious claims have been met (such putting the service in the hands of front-line staff, cutting bureaucracy, reducing the power of vested interests, improving quality of care). It would be fascinating to see whether even the civil servants who have worked on it understand its impications and how they link bits of the Bill with the claimed outcomes.

[Jim]

What Luis Enrique said. I am in favour of publishing everything paid for by the public purse, but be under no illusion as to the potential for the Great British Public to be whipped up into a frothing frenzy by vested interests using 'What if scenarios' produced by civil servants as grist to their mills.

Remember the GBP contains the people who attacked a paediatrician on the grounds 'He's a pedo mate!'.........

[charlieman]

A risk and assessment paper should define known problems. Assume that it does that. Or that it doesn't.

If the paper does not define a problem that is, by definition, unidentified, who gets the blame?

An (unidentified) civil servant may not have knowledge to address a new problem. That is not his/her problem.

Publish the papers, because that is honest. The decision to act in any way is always that of the minister. When it goes wrong, look at the minister.

[Flat Eric]

If the advice is published, Civil servants will find it very difficult to advise Ministers when the Minister's policy is wrong. I am a former civil servant, and it seems to me that this is fairly obviously why the principle exists. Of course it would be better if it were not so, but Ministers do not like to see their staff criticising their policies in public, so it is hard to see how it could be otherwise. If everything is public, no one will ever tell Ministers the truth they need to hear.