Summary
Requirement for a Civil Service Reserve.
Although the Covid 19 pandemic put immense pressure on the NHS, it has also put great strain on the wider Civil Service which has had to react to new challenges, spilling over from Covid, while keeping the country running with all its normal needs. The Civil service needs to establish and formalise a Civil Service Reserve of former officials, which it can call on to support, supplement and reinforce existing officials when a similar crisis strikes. These are an increasing likely to occur given environmental and global challenges. Cost for the Exchequer should be low or negligible. Such a system would also mitigate the costs of calling-in civilian consultants, or volunteers, which may nevertheless be needed at some stage.
Proposal
The UK Civil Service should institute a programme among its staff, similiar to that adopted by UK armed forces, so that the Civil Service can in the future call back to its ranks those essential and experienced staff which could be deployed in a crisis to support the existing, full-time staff over an extended period.
Ministers, with advice from senior officials, would decide when the threshold to call on the reserve had been reached.
This would have to be run on a voluntary basis for staff presently coming up to retirement or leaving the Civil Service for other occupations. But in time, the requirement to be deployed in a crisis after leaving the Civil Service could be a condition of service.
Departments would be in a position, by accessing records of service, to identify just which former officials were well-placed to fill gaps that surfaced during the crisis, best to fit requirements.
To ensure former officials were as up-to-speed as practical with new developments, policy and procedures in the department, as well as maintaining necessary clearances to a standard necessary for supporting day to day work, they would attend the department for, for example, five working days a year. During this time they would support the department’s daily operation, but also aim to refresh a working knowledge and familiarity of the Department sufficient to fulfil as best as possible a supporting role in a crisis.
Like the UK’s military reservist programme, the employers of former civil servants would be asked to maintain the salary of those attending their former Department for the annual refresher update of five days, or longer as needed during the crisis up to an agreed time limit, perhaps two months. Former civil servants drawing a pension who had retired could be entitled to travel expenses.
To mitigate travel cost to the exchequer for the annual refresher period, former Civil Servants in the Reserve who lived a distance further than 50 miles from the place of work could be asked either to work from home, or to attend a nearby Civil Service department office from where they could operate. In a major crisis, the Civil Service would retain the right to deploy former staff where necessary, but every effort would be made to minimise disruption and distance from home. If required for longer than the two month period suggested, then HMG would need to consider covering the salary of the Reservists. Not to do so could disincentivise employer firms from agreeing to support the programme and freeing up their staff.
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