Gove, Cummings, and the revolving door at the heart of British politics

The “revolving door” phenomenon of former ministers getting jobs in the private sector, sometimes associated with the work they did as ministers, is hardly new. Nor is the occasional appointment of a businessperson to a civil service position or them entering politics themselves. The door certainly did revolve, but usually just the once.

What seems to be novel is how some individuals are now moving from the public to the private spheres, and then back again, and with extremely weak levels of scrutiny and accountability. To this may be added the way that personal relationships seem to be of such importance in the Johnson administration; some might term it a culture of cronyism.

The obscure board of the Cabinet Office is the current focus of attention. Four of the five recent external board appointments of non-executive directors just happen to have been former colleagues of Michael Gove, the minister responsible for the Cabinet Office. One of them, Henry de Zoete was a special adviser to Mr Gove at the Department for Education, leaving government in 2014, when Mr Gove was sacked as secretary of state. Mr De Zoete went on to be a successful entrepreneur, and no doubt will want to bring that free thinking spirit of the start-up into the supposedly fusty corridors of Whitehall. Or at least ask some sharp questions about the way the cabinet office and the wider civil service goes about serving the public.

Mr Gove’s other special adviser from his time at the DfE is a chap by the name of Dominic Cummings, whose reputation goes before him, and who has also popped in and out of public service. The three old musketeers find themselves, in varying degrees, reunited at the very heart of government. It’s difficult to predict what such brilliant men might do next – a return to the private sector or going into politics in earnest. The door may revolve again. It is also maybe worthy of note that another member of the board overseeing Mr Gove’s department is Lord Nash, who has donated a reported £400,000 to the Conservative Party. Overall, eight of 13 new appointments to boards made this year have been to close Conservative allies of ministers. They are supposed to be selected through “fair and transparent competition” of people “with experience of managing complex organisations”.

This is relatively new in public life. The independent boards, complete with non-executive directors, were introduced in 2010, yet another experiment visited on the civil service. Their remit was to “fundamentally transform the way government operates, scrutinising decisions and sharpening accountability”.

They were modelled on corporate governance, even though there’s plenty of criticism about how non-execs operate in practice. The late Tiny Rowland, a prominent businessman not given to delusion, called non-execs “baubles on a Christmas tree”, and they have no separate legal status – they bear the same fiduciary burden as the so-called executive directors.

The question is whether whatever good these appointments might do is hindered by the familiarity and links they have to ministers. It might be more difficult for them to act independently. On the other hand, a trusted non-exec director with a known track record might be more able to speak their mind, and disagree with whatever agenda a minister might have. There are arguments that cut both ways, but the “optics” might not always look great.

The links between business and government have been vexatious for a very long time. A chancellor of the Exchequer was once embroiled in a legal case about insider trading – Lloyd George back in the Edwardian era. In the 1980s concerns began to be raised about the ease with which ministers who had privatised industries were rapidly appointed to the boards of directors of those same concerns – the potential conflicts of interest were rather blatant.

Since then former ministers of all three main parties have found roles in the private sector sometimes linked to their old jobs – it is by no means confined to Conservatives.

Some new rules have applied that prevent ex-ministers taking private sector work soon after leaving office, but they still only have to wait three months (in the case of former cabinet ministers). The Ministerial Code states that: “On leaving office, ministers will be prohibited from lobbying government for two years. They must also seek advice from the independent Advisory Committee on Business Appointments about any appointments or employment they wish to take up within two years of leaving office.”

The ACOBA, chaired by former Tory cabinet minister Lord (Eric) Pickles has been derided as toothless, but it is still at least something. The oversight in the other direction, of persons entering into quasi-managerial positions in government, of which the apogee must be Mr Cummings, is simply non-existent. Only sporadic parliamentary inquiries by opposition MPs and select committees pay much attention to the revolving door, whichever way it’s spinning. Perhaps someone should appoint a committee to oversee all these new boards and oversight committees?