Creating public value in the policy advice role: a reflection from the front line

Abstract

As a public servant I live with the tension captured in Richard Mulgan’s question: ‘How much responsiveness is too much or too little?’ (Mulgan, 2008). On the one hand, my job is to be responsive to portfolio ministers and to the prime minister and Cabinet. On the other hand, Westminster conventions of public service imply that I ought not to become over-responsive and merely reactive. The role of a permanent, politically neutral civil service is to be loyal to the government of the day, yet with sufficient independence, knowledge, expertise and experience to influence and shape government priorities and policies, not only to implement these.