Where does the buck stop?– Ministerial Resignations and Operational Responsibility

In her book, “Diary of the Kirk Years”, Margaret Haywood refers to an incident involving a family who was having problems with their State House rental.  Norman Kirk, who was the Prime Minister, had apparently heard about the situation as he had been listening to the radio in his office.  Kirk’s solution was simple.  He picked up the phone, called the Minister of the relevant state department and sorted the issue.

The reason that Kirk and the appropriate Minister could intervene in such a manner is because there was direct Government oversight over Departments and assorted state agencies.

Shift forward to the present and the situation is dramatically different.  There is no actual Ministerial oversight for Departments or Ministries.  Operationally, Public Sector Departments are run as commercial entities all headed by a Board and by a CEO.  The entire system of state agencies, Departments and Ministries are all answerable to the Head of the State Services Commission.  The State Services Commissioner is their employer, not the Government.

Government has little, to no, role in the current system. Ministers are kept at arm’s length. They are governance and, subsequently, they have no control over, or responsibility for, operational processes.

How did such a state of affairs arise?

Prior to the 1980s, the public sector served the public.  Hence, the term “public servant”.  Regardless of political persuasion, heads of public departments and ministries provided advice to their Ministers and acted on the policy directives that Governments passed in Parliament.  Ministers were ultimately the final authority.  “The Buck” as US President Harry Truman used to say, stopped with them.

Ministers, were of course, chosen from their responsible political party and were the representatives of the people having gained their mandate through the liberal democratic process which included manifestoes, elections and of course, Parliament. If there was an issue with how a Government was preforming then there were recourses open to the public – petitions, marches, rallies, other political parties, unions, etc and, of course, the ultimate recourse in the form of a general election.

However, after 1984 this process was effectively turned on its head.

The reason was because there was a deliberate move to get rid of public control over the state sector by the “free market loving” fourth Labour Government.  That Government’s state sector reforms were consciously conceived to remove political influence and insert more “independent” management.  Independent management was an important component in making sure that the public sector operated as efficient state-owned enterprises and fulfilled their new commercial roles. As Roger Douglas observed at the time, special interest groups should not be allowed to interfere in the running of the marketplace.  And, what is democracy except one large special interest group.

This separation of control was not just limited to state agencies. Various acts also reformed local government in the late 1980s.  They saw local council-controlled organizations being separated from the Councils.  When people complain that the local councils are unrepresentative and do not listen to their concerns and that the democratic councilors appear to be incapable of controlling their own councils, the reason is, like central government, local councils have no control over their businesses.

(A recent example was amply demonstrated in Dunedin with the decision by Dunedin Railways to mothball their trains and lay off their staff despite the local council being opposed to the move

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/union-claims-%E2%80%98sabotage%E2%80%99-dunedin-railways ).

Further, the new public sector CEOs were not public servants in the traditional sense of the term. They were mostly appointed from the business and commercial sector.  They were not accountable to the Ministers in the traditional sense and getting rid of them proved to be difficult.

The new public service is responsible to their “stakeholders”, of which the public is merely one group.  The public are there to simply fund the public sector, which neoliberals tolerate but do not actually support.

Simply, the modern public sector acts as a commercial entity with little democratic oversight and, as a result, little responsibility to the public that it supposedly serves.

That is why I have found the calls for Ministerial resignations, from National and its allies, interesting.  National knows that the current framework precludes actual responsibility.  Ministers do not have operational oversight. The buck no longer stops with them.  (Do I think that the Minister in question should resign?  Yes, I do. But, for his failings as a Minister overall, not for one specific reason).

Additionally, while, National and their allies call for ministerial responsibility it is important to remember that they are committed to upholding and maintaining the framework that allows the current situation to continue.   National has never attempted to amend the State Sector Act (and the other Acts) to ensure more direct ministerial oversight and it has not indicated a desire to do so. While, people could say that they are hypocrites, I would respond that they are merely following their class interests.

Modern democracy is a fragile system which has been hard won.  The unrepresentative nature of the modern public service is testament to the strength of those who seek to undermine democratic traditions.  People need to ask themselves what is more important – the ability to have control of the departments through their elected representatives or to allow the system to continue with little political or democratic oversight as commercial entities? If people really want responsibility from their public sector and their Ministers, then they need to strongly say so and pledge their support accordingly.

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