Theme video: Political and administrative relations
The Netherlands: no role for General Affairs among senior officials
My question to Benita:
Could you explain your experience with the Prime Minister...
and the Secretary of the Prime Minister regarding the Dutch Civil Service Agency?
Well, not interested. -He?
Not interested.
Not at all? -No.
Can you explain that? -We kept them informed.
We kept them in the loop. Well, Wim Kok had no affinity with it.
I know officially I had to apply for the job to my minister and to him, together.
My minister sat next to me and apparently when I left the room, he said:
Well, she's taken quite a job.
That was all Wim Kok said about it. So I kept them in the loop.
The various heads, of course, I knew, but the Prime Minister wasn't really interested...
and it wasn't the role he looked for in himself.
I've never heard later that... Obviously you made sure that...
Do you think that is good or not so good?
In the Dutch...
How crucial is it for the effectiveness of the system...
that the Prime Minister is playing an important role or not?
I think not, because I think the Ministry of General Affairs isn't equipped.
Quite often people say:
This should be run by General Affairs, by the Prime Minister's office.
I simply don't agree. It's just not equipped for it.
But that could have been organised. You could have been...
But they're not in the business of running things.
Never have been, never will be.
Can't run a speed shop, as we say in Dutch.
They are in charge of running communication. They have a huge communication partner.
But that more or less runs itself. Anyway, we won't go into that.
It's the only thing. -The only thing.
There have been several times that one said...
Many, many times. -The Secretary of European Affairs.
All of them. -A behavioural insight unit, et cetera...
should be at the Ministry of General Affairs.
And the minister and his secretary said: No, keep this ministry and cabinet small.
Communication used to be part of the Ministries of the Interior and Foreign Affairs.
Well, we won't go into that, but your question is, should it be somewhere else?
And should the Prime Minister... The Prime Minister must have the trust.
So obviously, in any delegation of authority, you don't give him any surprises.
And if you think there might be an issue, then you consult with him.
So as long as you manage that properly, it's okay.
Australia: balancing two fires
The right-wing Prime Minister and the left-wing deputy Prime Minister
He said: 'Andrew, the deputy Prime Minister said he wants you to be Secretary of Development.'
I didn't know the man.
The Prime Minister thinks it's a good idea.
'There is nothing to discuss. You're going to be the head of this department.'
I became head of the Housing Department...
which was the deputy Prime Minister's department.
The deputy Prime Minister was the leader of the left-wing element of the party.
A very able minister, did a lot of very good things.
But I had no doubt that the instructions were implied...
that the Prime Minister, who was on the right wing of the party...
wanted somebody he felt would at least try and shape...
what this deputy Prime Minister might do and help out.
So in our system, the Prime Minister makes your appointment.
So you work to your minister...
but you know always that the person who appoints you is the Prime Minister.
So you have to think about your respective responsibilities.
And so I had to learn that pretty quickly.
Does that give any practical problems in your case?
There could easily be a conflict.
It was very interesting. A policy example was...
the left-wing side of the party was a great believer in public housing...
and wanted to have large public housing estates run with subsidies.
And that's all handled by the state governments.
The national government provides rent assistance for those who are not in public housing.
And I tried to influence in saying:
We're never going to get the capital to build these big public housings.
It's just not going to happen.
But we've got a lot of people in private housing, the rent assistance is too low.
They're not getting the poverty support they need.
A lot of them were sole parents and they weren't getting the assistance.
I said: A much better idea would be...
to charge market rents in public housing and have an explicit market-based subsidy.
And that market-based subsidy ought to be the same subsidy...
to provide people who are in private housing.
And the answer will be a big increase in rental systems for those in private markets...
that are more commercial operation of the public housing.
So it's a classic, if you like, neoliberal reform.
Wasn't something that the minister felt comfortable with...
but eventually he accepted that his model was never going to win.
It was never going to happen.
And yet he, like me, was very worried about sole parents and others in poverty...
not getting enough support for their rent.
So he came around and said: I'll go with this.
So we put the reform up to cabinet, got it agreed...
and it got through the Council of Australian governments...
for the state governments to do as well.
But sadly, there's a change of government and they decided not to.
Respect between minister and senior official
One of the questions I get asked most often, is:
What makes a minister successful or a ministry successful?
You just put it... You have a senior civil servant and a minister who really get on...
are honest with each other and respect each other.
It doesn't often happen that people with enough gravitas...
as senior in the public service and as ministers...
and I can think of several examples, we don't want to be naming names...
but it is an important thing and people don't talk about it enough.
You can't do that with everybody...
mostly because the ministers are scared to be open about it.
But it is something that's important, thinking about senior civil service.
It's about chemistry, it's about openness, it's about being brave.
And have you had moments in your career that you could act on this?
Oh, absolutely. -What can you tell us?
I have to think about that one.
What kind of situations?
Well, one of my best examples of when it really went well...
was at the ministry when Jozias van Aartsen was Permanent Secretary...
and Ien Dales, who was the opposite party.
Jozias was right-wing, Ien Dales was left-wing.
And he was really good at his job as civil servant.
She was really good as a politician. She was the laziest person I've ever met.
She can say it now.
But she was a brilliant politician.
And the two of them had great respect. Different parties, very different personalities.
Very different personalities.
But it was a huge success.
Our greatest win was, I have to say this in Dutch:
De Volkskrant kopte: BiZa swingt onder Ma Flodder.
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