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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
40 July 2021
(clearly a good thing), has gradually become
ossified and prone to manipulation that clears
the path for preferred insiders to monopolise all
the top jobs.
There is a number of reasons why this has
happened, including the accretion of the power
of appointment into the institution of the civil
service with only nominal political oversight.
Ministers used to be centrally
involved
For all its defects, the system before 1984 at
least made elected ministers’ partners in the
decision-making process. Secretaries general
due to retire would consult their minister about
a possible replacement while retiring assistant
secretaries would discuss their successors with
their secretary general. Only candidates with a
genuine chance of success would be discussed
at this stage: two or three assistant secretaries
within the department for a retiring secretary,
or, up to half a dozen principal ocers in the
case of an assistant secretary general position.
The ministers would be personally familiar with
the candidates under consideration and could
exercise their own judgement to evaluate the
ocial recommendations before submitting
their decision for the Cabinet’s formal approval
in a Memorandum for the Government.
It was open to ministers to consult more
widely by discussing the matter with the Taoise-
ach, but, in essence, ministers made the
decision in a system keen to underline demo-
cratic legitimacy and political accountability
Nyberg and groupthink
Because it’s annoying, let’s start with the 2011
report of the Commission of Investigation into
the Banking Sector in Ireland (Nyberg Report).
“The Commission considered that this perva
-
sive pressure for consensus may explain why so
many dierent parties in Ireland simultaneously
were willing to adopt specific policies and
accepted practices that later proved unsound.
At the same time, the apparent consensus of
banks and authorities around the view that mar-
kets remained sound and prospects remained
positive gave further comfort to both. A number
of banks essentially appear to have followed the
example of peer banks in a “herding” fashion;
there is little evidence of original critical analy
-
sis of the advantages and risks of the policies.
Widespread lack of critical discussion within
many banks and authorities indicates a ten
-
dency to “groupthink”; serious consideration of
alternatives appears to be modest or absent”.
Never has the Irish body politic paid more
‘homage’ to wisdom than its utterly insincere
applauding of these nuggets.
So where do we stand now?
Inexplicable elevation of Watt to position on inflated
pay.
The evidence recently given by the Secretary General
of the Department of an Taoiseach to the Oireachtas
Joint Committee looking into the dubious way Robert
Watt arrived at the secretary-generalship of the Depart-
ment of Health at an inflated salary is pertinent on a
number of counts. While Martin Fraser was able to out-
line in granular detail the process by which
appointments to the top levels of the civil service are
made, he was, by his own admission, frustratingly
imprecise about how the remuneration package for the
position of Secretary General of the Department of
TLacking independent
and imaginative thinking
By J Vivan Cooke
The Top Level Appointments Committee
(TLAC) long since succumbed to groupthink
Wtt groupthink?
POLITICS
Health was set. Furthermore, his testimony entirely
ignored the deep flaws that are inherent in the process
to fill such appointments as carried out by the Top Level
Appointments Committee.
Civil servants don’t like TLAC
The highest levels of the civil service have a
vested interest in continuing to ignore the flaws
in both the design and the practice of TLAC. Dis
-
satisfaction with the current system is revealed
in the government’s annual employee engag-
ment surveys and Village‘s own discussions
with informed sources. Both quantitative and
qualitative data reveal deep dissatisfaction and
frustrations with how senior appointments are
made and expose the problems at the heart of
the current system.
Purpose of TLAC
The purpose of TLAC “is to recommend candi-
dates to ministers and government for the most
senior positions in the civil service – at assistant
secretary level and upwards. By carrying out this
function in an independent manner and by
making its decisions strictly on the basis of the
relative merit of the candidates for the positions
concerned, TLAC aims to strengthen the man-
agement structure of the Civil Service, and to
provide a means by which the best candidates
can aspire to fulfilling their potential”. Inde-
pendence looking for merit, then!
Merit was intended to replaces
seniority
TLAC was created in 1984 as part of an eort to
reform and invigorate the civil service by replac-
ing career advancement based on seniority,
with a merit-based promotion system. What was
intended to infuse the civil service with dynamic
and eective leadership, including from outside
July 2021 41
that is the essential feature of representative
government.
Not only this, but, in practical terms, a supe
-
rior political authority stood outside the
structure and operation of the state bureaucracy
exercising a degree of political oversight over
that bureaucracy. Ministers, and, by extension,
the cabinet have now been reduced merely to
the nominal roles of giving formal approval to
the decisions taken by unelected civil servants.
The transfer of power and authority to make
senior appointments that TLAC represents is a
clear statement to our elected politicians that
the civil servants fully intend to run the civil ser-
vice in a manner that they see best without
control by ministers.
Sec-gen-dominated
committees now do the job
Now, the Commission for Public Service Appoint-
ments delegates the role of in eect selecting
the heads of government departments to a
number of committees that operate within the
Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
The committees are a combination of serving
secretaries general, and independent members
with commercial executive experience, formerly
non-entities to the civil service.
How it really works
In practice, TLAC operates at a remove both from
political oversight and the independent mecha-
nisms of the Commission for Civil Service
Appointments. TLAC’s reliance on the Depart-
ment of Public Expenditure and Reform, (DPER),
is highlighted by the fact that it draws sta
resources directly from the department, with the
current secretary to TLAC, for example, also
working in Robert Watt’s private oce when he
was Secretary General of DPER.
From my own experience when I was on inter
-
view panels for An Bord Pleanála and it was
always clear the advantage the Departmental
representative held simply by drawing up the
criteria, booking the room and arranging the
bottles of Ballygowans. This was even though
the panels were chaired by the President of the
High Court. Nearly everyone on the interview
panel deferred to the department.
It was interesting to note Robert Watt’s role in
promoting the competition for the secretary-
generalship of Health at an inflated salary. He
had extensive involvement in drafting the book
-
let relating to the new post.
Emails between ocials emerged in which Mr
Watt’s handwriting is clearly visible, with
detailed notes on the front of some of them, and
in others, he has written notes for Michael
McGrath, who was then his line minister.
Another note shows Watt’s email informing
unspecified persons about the forthcoming
position and asking whether they wished to
apply for it. Presumably, favoured candidates
might benefit from a judicious word in the ear of
the TLAC committee. Though, perhaps in this
case presumably Watt did not push them too
hard.
The institutional elevation of secretaries gen-
eral to arbiters of the fate of their subordinates
has had unseen detrimental eects on the qual-
ity of advice oered by ocials generally. Fraser
said at the committee meeting that practically
everyone he had interviewed on TLAC was
someone he already knew. Under TLAC, the civil
service (eectively) gets to decide who, from
within its own ranks, is to be promoted to assis-
tant secretary general or secretary general.
That has altered the dynamics of the service
and has created a self-perpetuating cadre that
fills vacancies from within its own ranks. Any
principal ocers seeking career advancement
are fully aware that their prospects of promotion
rest with the secretaries general who will form
the TLAC considering any applications they
make.
TLAC oends the principle that seniors should
not promote their direct juniors.
Village asked the former head partner of a
leading accountancy firm if the managers of his
firm selected who, among their number, was
oered a partnership. He laughed at me. That
was what I expected.
I know of no other country that allows its
bureaucrats, rather than their political masters,
to decide (in eect) who will join them as top
civil servants.
Tlac damages the civil service
Inevitably, therefore, ocial advice given to
ministers is drafted with one eye to how a pro-
spective secretary general chairing the author’s
possible future TLAC could react to that advice.
The current system encourages self-censorship
and mutes criticisms. This renders the civil ser
-
vice more conservative and cosy.
The civil service has evolved so that promo
-
tions occur across departments. A civil service
old-timer told me: “You can argue it both ways
but, broadly speaking, I would compare it with
dentists, doctors, lawyers and accountants. You
don’t ask your dentist to do your annual accounts
and you don’t ask your lawyer to look after your
teeth”.
Under the current regulations, secretaries
general are appointed for a single seven-year
term, after which they should retire. This
deprives the state of the experience and
expertise of precisely those ocials it has
deemed to be the best among their peers. Not
only does this weaken the institutional capabili-
ties of the bureaucracy, but it is a waste of talent
and people, especially in cases where secretar-
ies general are appointed at a relatively young
age.
An example of this perverse outcome was
related to Village by a retired civil servant.
During the early life of TLAC, an assistant secre-
tary general left his department and the civil
service at the age of 42. The country was worse
o for the loss of his experience and ability. He
was an excellent assistant secretary but his
fellow assistant secretaries felt he was too
young for his promotion which undermined his
authority. Unfortunately he was unable to make
an impact as a secretary general. It was an
unfortunate appointment but it was a sign of
things to come. TLAC was sending a statement
to the cabinet that it knew better than the politi
-
cal class how to appoint a secretary general. It
didn’t.
Seven-year limit
The limit on the length of time any one person
can act as a head of a government department
has also tended to shorten the state’s policy hori-
zons. Secretaries general are likely to consider
themselves less responsible for failings of policy,
legislation, or administration if they will have
moved on before the mistakes come to light.
Where once the civil service was seen as a job
for life, the limits imposed on the tenure of heads
of government departments mean that increas-
ing numbers of senior ocials are obliged to
leave government service at a relatively young
age. As a consequence, many of them must con-
template a working life after the civil service.
Rather than being the culmination of their
careers, appointment to secretary general is now
a stepping stone to more lucrative private-sector
appointments.
There is always a tension in government
between short- and long-term factors. Such
clashes of opinion are, in fact, healthy, but, they
require that both sides of the argument are prop-
erly represented. Previously, the civil service
urged caution and the long view, to counterbal-
ance ministerial enthusiasm; now, both ministers
and their ocials might be tempted to rush to
precipitate action. Decision-making has become
a system with many accelerators but no breaks.
Since 2011, TLAC has sought ways to evade
Widespread lack of critical discussion
within many banks and authorities
indicates a tendency to ‘groupthink’; serious
consideration of alternatives appears to be
modest or absent.
42 July 2021
the 7-year restriction, but, this has only intro-
duced contradictions into an already flawed
process. Existing secretaries general are habitu
-
ally oered contract extensions, or are shued
around among themselves to dierent depart-
ments in order to reset the clock to zero. When
John Boland introduced TLAC this was not what
was envisaged. Enhanced pension entitlements
encouraged bureaucrats to go early. Those enti-
tlements have been withdrawn.
Despite the intention to limit the time served
as a secretary general, Fraser will have spent ten
years as a secretary general by the time he retires
later this year. Meanwhile Robert Watt will have
spent sixteen years as a secretary general in one
government department or another when (or if)
he retires according to schedule. At the time of
writing, of the government’s eighteen secretar
-
ies general, seven have evaded their term limits
through the mechanisms of contract extensions
or moving as an existing secretary general to
become secretary general of a different
department.
Because the circle of benefit and decision is
so small, TLAC is open to manipulation. Or, at the
very least, is so closed that there can never be
certainty that individual decisions have not been
manipulated.
The appointments process consists of inde-
pendent testing with robust and exacting
assessment including: psychometric testing;
work place simulations; and a number of panel
interviews and presentations.
But, given that secretaries general control the
process of defining the criteria of those assess
-
ments, preferred candidates will have an inside
track - if only because of the advantage of incum-
bency or through unconscious bias.
However, within the civil service, there is a
feeling that the pitch for senior appointments
process has been queered in advance.
Staff survey
A 2020 survey of sta across the whole civil ser-
vice reported high levels of frustration about the
fairness of the promotions system. Only 64% of
sta believe that there is a “clear and fair promo-
tion process”. 58% of staff expressed
disillusionment because they do not believe that
they will have the opportunity to be promoted if
they perform well in their jobs.
If internal applicants feel deprived of a fair
chance of advancement, applicants working out-
side the public or civil service must be thoroughly
discouraged when they read that only 14% of all
public sector appointments are made from the
private sector.
Such resentment fomented at the preferential
treatment received by Watt in his lucrative
appointment as permanent Secretary General of
the Department of Health.
The most incisive critique is that the civil ser
-
vice is incapable of nurturing and developing
junior sta who are capable of succeeding the
current crop of leaders whom the civil service, if
not necessarily everybody else, deem Homeric.
At worst, it could be said that leadership in the
civil service has become self-referential; self-
perpetuating and self-interested.
Groupthink
The conditions described fit (nearly) all the crite-
ria that conduce to bad decision-making because
of groupthink. Research into the eects of how
enclosed groups arrive at poor collective deci-
sions because of the psychological processes of
social cohesion could use Fraser´s testimony on
his colleague Watt as a case study.
A precondition for groupthink is the existence
of a highly cohesive cabal who share a belief
about the inherent value or worth of their organi-
sation and where a strong leader gives direction
to the group. TLAC consists of a panel of perma
-
nent members, of which seven are specified
secretaries general. Not only do these ocials
carry numerical weight, but, by virtue of their
jobs, they have greater knowledge of; interest in;
and influence over, individual appointments.
A risk of groupthink is
that research will be
inadequately wide-rang-
ing. Fraser admitted that
he was unaware that the
heads of the WHO, the
NHS in England and the
heads of the health
departments in Scotland
and Finland all earned
substantially less than
the new salary set for the
secretary general of the
Department of Health
(unsurprisingly, the
head of the HSE, a man
of little overt distinction,
commands twice the
sum).
In Fraser’s own words,
the decision-making
involved “no big pro
-
cess”, relying, instead,
on his own personal
assessment of the
labour market, insulated
from any expertise in, or
curiosity about, the
field. Selectivity was
compounded by the evi-
dent confirmation bias
demonstrated to the
Oireachtas committee.
The impetus to keep
the proposed new salary
below €300,000 was
described in evidence as
a political calculation to
avoid bad publicity but
left a nasty taste of
arbitrariness that failed to connect the decision
to the desired outcome.
In Fraser’s opinion, to advertise the position
of Secretary General of the Department of Health
at the standard salary for all other secretaries
general would result in applications only from
assistant secretaries or their “lower private-sec-
tor equivalents”. However, the inflated pay
package that was eventually advertised only
attracted three applications from outside the
state; was not enough to induce the acting sec-
retary general, Colm O’Riordan, the ocial Watt
replaced, to apply for the post; and did not per
-
suade the previous secretary general, Jim
Breslin, to remain in the job. For all the tens of
thousands of euro being thrown about, the suc-
cessful candidate was the one already doing the
job for a lower salary. Clearly, then, the justifica
-
tion for the massive pay hike delivers the
ultimate failure of groupthink – its central
assumption was wrong.
Politicisation of the civil service
The changes described above weakened the
July 2021 43
tacit trade-o between ministers and their
departments: former civil servants made every
eort to present their minister in a good light and
the minister in turn took political responsibility
for the actions of the department. Here the blame
was all shouldered by the civil service with nei-
ther the Taoiseach nor the Minister for Public
Expenditure and Reform deigning to accept the
Oireachtas committee’s invitation to give
testimony.
Reflecting this deflection, opposition – and
some government - TDs have developed spleen
for bureaucrats and now regularly submit secre
-
taries to the indignity of rigorous questioning in
committee (unless, like Watt did in 2019 with
children’s hospital costings and the Public
Accounts Committee, they simply refuse to
appear on grounds a counterpart ocial holds
responsibility. A tactic that he repeated again
when he claimed that, in his capacity as head of
the Department of Health, he was not required
to answer questions about actions he took in his
capacity of Secretary General of DPER.). However
much opposition TDs get under its skin, there is
an extent to which the civil service, by aligning
its interests so closely with the political fate of
their ministers, have brought this on
themselves.
The civil service was always conscious of the
political colour of the government of the day but
as we move farther and farther away from 1922
with no prospect of a move towards a govern-
ment meaningfully of the left, the culture of the
civil service begins to move closer to that of our
two-party-but-one-ideology-system. Civil serv-
ants line up with the political class against (at
times) the interests of the State.
Report documents discontent
DCU Business School’s 2019 report: ‘Shaping
the Future of Work in the Civil Service in Ireland:
Enriching Involvement, Innovation, Perfor-
mance, and Citizen’ found that discontent
among the civil service’s lower grades was ram-
pant, and, in particular that: “the current
hierarchical grade structure is not compatible
with the current or future needs of the Civil Ser-
vice.” A “them-and-us” attitude was reiterated
in a remark made by a former civil servant to Vil-
lage that his work was his assistant secretary
general’s bonus. The example set by senior o-
cials in deciding to grant one of their own a
monumental salary increase can only serve to
deepen this divide. Within the Department of
Health the dierence between its highest-paid
ocial and the salary scale of its lowest paid
grade has increased by a factor of 12.
Furthermore, the report’s finding that tenden
-
cies to use avoidance behaviours; to marginalise
the opinion of other sta; and to resist innova-
tion or change became more entrenched with
longer service – from whose ranks, by definition,
senior civil servants are drawn.
Fair process
While findings in relation to promotion have
improved on those set out in previous surveys
“they are still challenging”.
“Only 36 per cent of sta report that their
department/oce has a clear and fair promotion
process. Fewer than half of sta at CO to principal
ocer level believe that if they perform well they
will be promoted. More experienced sta are less
satisfied with the promotion process compared
to less experienced colleagues”.
Only 20 per cent of sta reported they feel
poor performance is being addressed within
their organisation.
“Less than half of all sta feel that senior man-
agers are ‘held accountable for achieving results’
(40 per cent) and that their ‘department
DCU recommendtions
measures job performance to ensure all sta are
achieving results’ (38 per cent ).
TLAC as it operates today, represents a failure
of imagination by Ireland’s political and adminis
-
trative classes: a failure to imagine that the
current generation of top civil servants could be
replaced by capable and qualified successors
from within the ranks of their subordinates and a
failure to imagine any alternatives to the current,
broken system. A failure to imagine an outside
appointment could successfully run a govern-
ment department. These failures of imagination
have diverted the organisational culture and
ethos of the civil service from public service. The
long-term interest of the country risks being sac
-
rificed to short-term self-interest. It is a poor
reflection on the civil service but, also, an accu-
rate reflection of our own political culture.
