Politicians blame civil servants for failures (David Blunkett complained to me about his reforms being “swamped by the history and practices of the Home Office”), while senior and middle-ranking civil servants feel they are given impossible demands. Both groups blame workers in the department’s operational divisions who, in turn, feel that politicians and senior civil servants look down on them. Home Office civil servants fixed the official dates for Easter, oversaw race equality laws and accompanied members of the royal family on overseas trips. The Home Office has introduced new “face behind the case” training for civil servants, “so that everyone involved in casework thinks about the individual”. Civil servants were particularly angered by the use of the Home Office Twitter account – part of the supposedly non-political comms operation – to pursue the attack on lawyers.

Source: The Guardian May 13, 2021 04:52 UTC