The civil service’s gender diversity agenda under the coalition: where have the critical feminist actors gone?

Framing the issue

In 2011, gender parity in the most senior grade of permanent secretary in Whitehall was attained for the first time. The date offers a symbolic moment round which to frame the issues set out in this article. The then Cabinet Secretary, Gus O’Donnell was emboldened to declare that the Civil Service had become a ‘genuinely meritocratic’ organisation (Foster 2016a). He did, however, fail to add that it had taken over 150 years since the Northcote–Trevelyan reforms had ushered in open, competitive exams for Whitehall. Fast-forward to the end of the Coalition Government (2015) and O’Donnell’s claim that meritocracy—free of bias (conscious or otherwise)—as the new norm appeared somewhat premature. The headline figure showed that women accounted for more than half of all UK civil servants (at 53.5%). Yet, a more nuanced examination revealed that the most senior policy roles in Whitehall remained predominantly the preserve of white, middle-class men, with only 38.7% of women working in the top four pay bands (ONS 2014; Hay Group 2014). At the highest grade of permanent secretary, the earlier gender parity achieved in 2011 had by the midway point of the Coalition vanished, with only four of the 16 (2013) permanent secretaries being women, rising to six by that Government’s end.

These shifts in the make-up of Whitehall drew accusations that the gender diversity agenda under the Coalition had been deprioritised. A National Audit Office (2015, p. 7) report concluded that ‘momentum was lost’. Labour’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson regarded it as ‘shameful’, while the Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Louise Haigh argued: ‘The top brass of the civil service is now more white and more male than at any time in almost two decades and the glass ceiling which was smashed in 2011 when women achieved parity has now been painstakingly reassembled and reinforced’ (Foster 2016a). O’Donnell’s successor, Jeremy Heywood recognised the figures were ‘disappointing’ and that they did ‘not represent the gender diversity we are determined to achieve’ (Foster 2016b). It prompts an important question: was Gus O’Donnell somewhat presumptuous to claim in 2011 that Whitehall had become both an exemplar employer and a meritocratic organisation?

Theorising representative bureaucracy: a brief overview

To address this crucial issue, it needs positioning first within a wider theoretical context. There is a rich seam of literature on the gendered nature of public bureaucracies, often characterised in terms of both the vertical and horizontal segregations of men and women (Miller and McTavish 2014). The concept of representative bureaucracy posits that public organisations should reflect the demographic composition of the population they serve (Andrews et al. 2014). Moves to enhance the diversity and representativeness of public bureaucracies has become an embedded feature across many liberal democratic states (Newman and Ashworth 2009). Here, theories of representative bureaucracy are crucial in establishing why the promotion of gender diversity is justified not only on the moral basis of its intrinsic merit, but also due to its symbolic effects on notions of democratic inclusion, as well as the ‘business case’ of improved organisational performance via enhanced responsiveness and legitimacy. In so doing, it directly addresses the ‘glass ceiling’ problem within public organisations (see Naff 1994; Soni 2000; Connell 2006; Kenny 2013).

Early studies on representative bureaucracy focused on the descriptive and symbolic representation of women (Krislov 1974; Mosher 1968). Descriptive representation entails a ‘mirroring’ effect, whereby the personnel of the public organisation share the same demographic identifiers (gender, race, disability status, sexuality, social class, religion etc.) as the population it serves. In symbolic terms, the representation of women in the public bureaucracy is depicted as standing for the diversity and inclusion of a democratic polity (Pitkin 1967; Saward 2006; Lombardo and Meier 2018).

More recent feminist scholarship has sought to highlight the gendered aspects of political representation, shifting the focus from descriptive and symbolic representation to a critical examination of the various mechanisms through which women’s interests can be mobilised (both internal and external to the state). The focus in this feminist research is on policy outcomes that address the subordinate position of women in society and the gendered division of labour and unpaid work (Chappell 2004; Lovenduski 2005; Annesley and Gains 2010). As Chappell (2013, p. 614) observes

Underlying this question is the relationship between descriptive (or passive) and substantive (or active) representation. Substantive representation posits that representatives will actively promote the interests of the demographic group to which they are categorised. In the so-called politics of presence (Philips 1995, 1998), a causal link is established between the descriptive representation of women in an empirical sense and substantive representation, in which female representatives prioritise and express different types of values, attitudes, and policy priorities based on their ‘shared experience’ in the home, workplace and public sphere (Mansbridge 1999; Lovenduski and Norris 2003). In the literature on representative bureaucracy, it is contested whether the ‘shared experiences and values, which may not be shared across gender and race division, fundamentally affect the decisions made by and the actions taken by bureaucrats’ (Meier and Nicholson-Crotty 2006). Hypothesising the link between descriptive and substantive representation in the UK SCS is outside the remit of this study; suffice to say, the authors assume that the substantive representation of women’s interests is more likely to follow from a significant and sustained presence of women in the higher grades of the civil service (Stokes 2005).

A review of research on representative bureaucracy reveals that representation at higher levels of office invariably leads to greater substantive representation than at lower levels (Dolan 2001). For descriptive representation to translate into substantive representation, bureaucrats must be able to exercise sufficient discretion to act for underrepresented groups (Marvel and Resh 2015). Research on the relationship between representative bureaucracy and administrative discretion posits a positive correlation between discretion and substantive representation: the link between descriptive and substantive representation becomes stronger as discretion increases (Riccucci and Meyers 2004; Marvel and Resh 2015). Although ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky 1980) enjoy considerable discretion over the implementation of policy and the provision of services due to direct interaction with the public, senior officials have a larger ‘sphere of influence’ (Meier and Bohte 2001, p. 457) on the strategic direction of the department or agency, regarding recruitment; promotion; flexible working practices; staff well-being; and organisational culture. Those officials operating within the SCS have significant managerial autonomy to represent women actively within and sometimes across Whitehall departments (Wilkins 2006; Sowa and Selden 2003). Dolan (2000, p. 525) claims that for women who ‘have already reached the pinnacle of their career service, attitudes or efforts geared towards improving women’s status in the workplace may simply be less risky for them’. The institutional context of the UK SCS, therefore, provides a critical case for both the literature on state feminism and representative bureaucracy.

Yet feminist research on the representation of women in the UK civil service remains under-developed. Those studies that are available tend to focus exclusively on the aggregate level (see for example Andrews and Ashworth 2013, 2015). Crucially, beyond Watson’s (1994) seminal, but now dated contribution, there is limited research on the gendered nature of Whitehall (cf. Waylen and Chappell 2013). This lacuna is even more surprising given the scale of equality and diversity reforms Whitehall has undergone in the period since Watson’s original study.

In the absence of an established canon of literature seeking to contextualise this subject, what instead can be offered is a brief historical overview of the diversity agenda in Whitehall over recent decades. This is framed by two distinct epochs.

1970–1996: An era of reform without much progress

Progress on gender diversity, particularly at senior levels, was limited throughout the 1970s and 1980s (see Richards 1997; Marsh et al. 2001; Kavanagh and Richards 2003). Kavanagh and Richards’ (2003, p. 185) demographic study of the period reveals ‘a high degree of continuity between officials promoted in the 1970s and their successors in the 1980s … the SCS continued to be the preserve of an all-male, Oxbridge educated, upper to middle classes elite’. Formal recognition that women continued to be concentrated in the lower grades of the civil service prompted a series of equal opportunity initiatives by the Cabinet Office over the next two decades (Watson 1994).

In 1996, following recommendations in the 1994 White Paper, ‘Continuity and Change’, the SCS was established, replacing the old unified grading structure at grade level 5 and above.³ The objective was to establish a flatter and more flexible management structure with ‘more scope for talented individuals to make their mark’ (Cm. 2627, 4.6, p. 17). It included a commitment to monitoring equal opportunities for under-represented groups to progress into and through to the SCS. Along with the improving gender balance of Fast Stream recruits (Devanny and Haddon 2015; Wolf 2013; Adam 2017), the introduction of an elite cadre of top officials was linked to a steady rise in the number of women entering the higher grades of the civil service (see Fig. 1). These mid-1990s reforms were subsequently built on by the New Labour Government, where the saliency of the gender diversity rose up the political agenda.

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The New Labour years: 1997–2010

New Labour identified the narrow, demographic make-up of Whitehall as a key issue. It sought to ensure the Civil Service reflected ‘the full diversity of society’ as part of its drive to improve governmental capabilities in policy-making and service delivery (Cabinet Office 1999, p. 56). Labour’s modernisation agenda for public services included Civil Service reforms addressing gender equality and representation.

The extent to which these New Labour initiatives impacted on the diversity agenda in Whitehall are set out below. Here, the empirical evidenced provided offers a comparative analysis of the subsequent Coalition years.

An austerity effect?

An ‘austerity effect’ approach prioritises the specific, historic circumstances under which the Coalition Government found itself, emphasising its response to the repercussions of the 2008 financial crisis. It focuses on a potential causal relationship between austerity and gender diversity in Whitehall. The argument here is that cuts in departmental spending curtail promotion opportunities, which fall harder on the range of opportunities available to women, rendering a negative effect on gender diversity (Rafferty 2014; Blum et al. 1994; Cooper and Austin 2012).

Applying this approach to the Coalition years, the notion of a link between austerity and declining gender diversity in the SCS is a theme borne out by qualitative research. For example, Devanny and Haddon’s (2015) study reveals a number of officials [they interviewed] and commentators claim as a ‘simple fact’ that departmental cuts to staff and the recruitment ‘freeze’ since 2010 had a deleterious impact on opportunities for under-represented groups. This is a view supported by our interviews. So illustratively, one senior official, reflecting on the programme of cuts in personnel, observed that ‘since the election in 2010 … there’s been an active campaign to move out those people who were willing or could be persuaded to go … so it has altered the make-up of the civil service … in terms of its gender balance’. Interestingly though, when prompted, none of the interviewees could be specific about the impact of staff retrenchment on the representation of women. As one female director general commented: ‘I wouldn’t say it’s hit us yet … perhaps because we set out our stall early … but it [austerity] can’t help’.

Elsewhere, the former Treasury Solicitor, Paul Jenkins observed: ‘One of the things we were always very conscious of was that as the civil service shrank in size, the opportunities for promotion into the SCS were going to get fewer—and that’s undoubtedly happened’ (Ross 2014). The lack of officials from underrepresented groups (particularly BME and disabled staff) entering the top grades was seen as an outcome of the ‘restriction in the number of opportunities that are there’ in the last 4 years (Ross 2014). The implication here is that significant headcount reductions create ‘a potentially challenging environment for pursuing a parallel agenda for changing the composition of the workforce’ (Devanny and Haddon 2015, p. 42).

Another theme to emerge from the interview data was the heightened pressure on work–life balance post-2010. One director said that departmental cuts had ‘led to bigger workloads … the need to “do more with less” … which creates real problems for retention’. It can be extrapolated that there were few incentives for women to pursue promotion within the SCS given the increased work pressure and lower financial reward (Brecknell 2013). Evidence from a Cabinet Office (2014) commissioned report supports this view, revealing that 100% of female respondents cited work-life balance as a factor that would deter them from applying for more senior roles in the SCS.

It is difficult to ascertain the impact of austerity on the gender balance of the civil service between 2010 and 2015. The effect of departmental cuts on the SCS as a single cadre was benign; the representation of women also continued on a similar upward trajectory. Departments that bore the most severe cuts, such as DCLG, did not experience a concomitant fall in the proportion of female senior officials. Other departments that grew in size since the 2010 Spending Review, such as the Cabinet Office, still saw a decline of women in senior positions. So while austerity seems to have had a discursive effect on the perception of gender diversity, its impact on the regression in the proportion of women within the Top 200 is not quantifiable.

Beyond a ‘critical mass’ approach

What the aggregate data on the Coalition years reveals is an increase in the proportion of women in all grades of the civil service, except within the Top 200 group. The contrast in these two sets of figures raises questions over established ‘critical mass’ approaches (see Meier 1993). The traditional argument suggests that once critical mass is achieved ‘the relationship between passive representation and active representation is constant’ (Hindera and Young 1998, p. 656). Temporal delays notwithstanding (Lovecy 2007), the point at which critical mass of women in an organisation is reached is portrayed as a step-change for its culture and working practices. Research by Kanter (1977), for example, argues that women must account for at least 40% of an organisation, if there is likely to be any impact upon institutional culture, norms and values.

Women make up more than half of the civil service. For the SCS, in 2015, the figure was 38.7%, rising above the putative ‘tipping point’ of 40% in 2016 (ONS 2016). Yet, despite this, the qualitative evidence suggests the culture and practices of the SCS were far from being ‘feminised’ (Studlar and McAllister 2002, p. 234). Our research supports previous empirical studies that question an assumed relationship between ‘sheer’ numbers of women and discernible changes in outcomes and organisational cultures (Beckwith 2007; Beckwith and Cowell-Meyers 2007).

The increasing proportion of women in the SCS has not been sufficient to prompt a qualitative shift in the gendered norms, rules and practices that characterise the nature of group interactions in Whitehall. The interviews drew varied responses on the issue of the nature of Whitehall culture. One Permanent Secretary said that ‘Whitehall could still be a stuffy place, but is probably as inclusive as anywhere else’. Other respondents viewed it in much more gendered terms, commenting that ‘the culture of maverick still abounds … men are seen as risk-takers, while women’s are … just that … mistakes’. Other studies have identified similar perspectives of a male-dominated environment, particularly within the SCS (Devanny and Haddon 2015; Bagilhole 2002). Respondents to the Cabinet Office (2014, pp. 18, 21) study were more candid, describing the culture of the SCS as a ‘bear pit’; ‘a hideous male macho culture at the top’; and ‘very cut-throat and underhand’. Moreover, a theme of regression is evident. One respondent observed that

The theory of critical mass has been widely contested (Grey 2002, 2006; Childs and Krook 2008, 2009; Lovenduski 2005; Tremblay 2006). Critics claim it oversimplifies the relationship between the descriptive and substantive representation of women by correlating bold numbers with actual outcomes (Lovenduski 2005; Dahlerup 2006). Given the evidence presented here, it offers, at best, a partial explanation of the complex dynamics during the Coalition years in relation to the issue of gender diversity in Whitehall. What is required is an approach that seeks to theorise the relationship between longer-term trends in women’s descriptive representation and the more immediate impact of austerity on the gender-diversity agenda. It is here then that we turn to the contribution by Annesley and Gains (2010, 2012, 2014) as a fuller, more nuanced approach, emphasising the key role played by particular individuals within the core executive as a critical feminist actors.

Bringing in the role of the critical feminist actor

Annesley and Gains (2010) argue that in Westminster-style democracies, power and resources tend to be concentrated within a small group of actors. In the case of the UK, it is the core executive (see Smith 1999). The notion of the core executive aims to broaden the conception of executive power beyond a narrow focus on key central actors, such as the prime minister and the chancellor, to a wider set of institutions, networks and practices at the heart of the British government machine (Rhodes 1995, 2011; Burch and Holliday 2004; Smith 1999). In developing this approach, Marsh et al. (2001, 2003) observe, it is Whitehall departments that are the ‘most important actors in the core executive … given both the resources and influence that they command’ (2001, p. 261). It is claimed that within this particular loci, the dominant resources for agenda setting are located.

From the outset, the Coalition was seen as having a policy vacuum on equality and diversity in Whitehall, evidenced by its failure to develop any coherent strategy. In the light of the Coalition government’s wider political narrative of a smaller state and fiscal consolidation, equality and diversity commitments were downplayed. The issue of austerity was seen as having a key effect, with gender diversity bring framed as a ‘fluffy’ luxury for more prosperous times (Brecknell 2013). Pursuing equality and diversity did not fit with the Coalition strategy on fiscal consolidation and a rhetorical disavowal of centrally driven targets. The previous notion that the civil service should be an exemplar on equality and diversity was marginalised by the imperative for the SCS ‘to show leadership in saving money’ (Macpherson 2010). One senior female civil servant described ‘a little bit of hiatus over the last few years … is [equality and diversity] a priority? Is it not a priority? … that filters down into departments’. Another senior official remarked

The role of agency in challenging and transforming the dominant masculine hegemony of Whitehall’s structure and culture is crucial. As one permanent secretary explained, ‘it is needed for some people to push back … that creates the space for other to follow behind’. The data analysis above reveals that while progress on the gender diversity can be tracked alongside wider societal changes, improvements overtime in the gender balance of the most senior Whitehall roles cannot be assumed. As Devanny and Haddon (2015) state, ‘it can’t be assumed that because progress has been made and important things have landed that they will then stay—people move on, things change’.

A revealing and recurring theme in our interview data was the crucial role played by Gus O’Donnell as Cabinet Secretary (2005–2011). The former director-general of the Government Equalities Office, Jonathan Rees, argued that O’Donnell had been the driving force of the diversity agenda in Whitehall: ‘He talked about it all the time. He was passionate; he was visible; he was out there’ (Rees 2013). Several respondents remarked upon the how his ‘personal commitment’ and ‘drive’ was instrumental in the advances in gender diversity. Yet, in the context of the British core executive, as other studies have observed, this raises the issue of personalism; the reliance on individual actors to the detriment of a more embedded and institutionalised approach to reform (Smith et al. 2011). A problem recognised within our interviews ‘Gus obviously did great work … but everything was through the prism of leadership and capability … the problem is that different people will emphasis different aspects of leadership at different times’.

The relationship between institutional rules (about gender and with gendered effects) and the actors who work within those rules is not mutually exclusive (Lowndes 2014). The relationship between actors and institutions is iterative and dialectical. From a feminist perspective, actors may seek to reinforce or challenge the gendered effects of institutions. The evidence presented here suggests that since 2010, the failure to improve the gender balance at the top of Whitehall is due to the absence of critical feminist actors in the core executive, coupled to a shift in opportunity structures for reform in a climate of austerity.

We argue that developing Annelsey and Gains’s (2010) approach to include senior civil servants is necessary to better understand the gendered disposition of the core executive and Civil Service. We posit an iterative relationship between the ‘presence’ (Lovenduski and Norris 2003) of critical feminist actors within the core executive, the level of descriptive representation of women within the SCS and Whitehall’s concomitant capacity to act as a critical actor to lead diversity agenda across the civil service. Changes in the gendered dynamics of the core executive are likely to have a significant bearing on the descriptive representation of women, in terms of the representativeness of the public bureaucracy, given the core executive is the key site and agent of change.

How can we account for the varied trends in gender representation within the SCS between 2010 and 2015? One approach is to focus on critical feminist actors in the preceding period under New Labour. As discussed above, senior actors in the core executive collaborated to introduce a range of reforms that formalised the recruitment and promotion process to the SCS to improve on inclusion and diversity. Despite austerity, the demographic data would suggest that these reforms and initiatives had some success, although departmental variation remained a key feature of women’s representation in Whitehall (Devanny and Haddon 2015). Promotion to the top, at the level of director-general and permanent secretary, remains governed by informal ‘rules of the game’ (Richards 2008). In this context, the role of critical actors becomes more acute. The position of senior critical feminist actors—whether male or female—to recognise and champion talented women in the Top 200 and the grades below is crucial. The continued importance of informal networks and patronage (Devanny and Haddon 2015) within this elite cadre means that the absence of such actors has important consequences for gender diversity.

What is potentially revealing is the evidence on the gender imbalance of recruits according to the type of appointments to the Top 200. Data compiled by the Civil Service Commission (CSC)—the independent agency set up to regulate the recruitment of senior officials according to selection on merit—shows that while the proportion of women appointed through external competition has increased over recent years, both internal and ‘exceptional’ appointments remain male dominated. Appointments made through open competition (advertised publicly) account for only three quarters of overall recruitment to the SCS. The remainder of top posts are recruited through internal competition (only open to existing civil servants) and through ‘managed moves’, the latter supposedly by exception. Both of these recruitment mechanisms have led to a much higher proportion of men being appointed (CSC 2014). For example, in 2013–2014, 35% of all recruits to the Top 200 via open external competition were female; however, this figure drops to 13% when senior civil servants are recruited by exception to the usual recruitment principles (CSC 2014).

For managed moves—which require a compelling business case to be made for an exception to the CSC’s Recruitment Principles—the gender imbalance is even clearer: of the requests submitted to the Commission in 2013–2014, 87% were requests to appoint a male candidate (Paun et al. 2013). Appointments through managed moves are becoming more prevalent, with 35% of all recruitment in 2013–2014 being made without complying with the legal requirement for selection of merit following fair and open competition (CSC 2014). The increasing use of this more informal method of recruitment can be seen as a consequence of austerity and the Coalition’s cull of public bodies, as former agency and quango staff were transferred back into central government. In 2012 for example, there were 5300 exception appointments related to the appointment of staff who worked for an organisation that was transferred into the civil service (CSC 2014, p. 25). If recruitment by exception becomes the norm, it is likely to have significant implications for the gender balance of the SCS. As the Commission (CSC 2014, p. 20) concluded thus: ‘Departments appear more likely to choose a male candidate when they are appointing by Exception than they are when recruiting through a fair and open competition’. The routine nature of these ‘exceptional’ appointments to the top grades in the civil service serve as an example of institutionalised male bias. Despite the formal rules on recruitment designed to promote transparency, equality and diversity, the implicit and informal gender norms continue to operate to preserve many of the same (old) expectations, relationships, and power structures (Waylen and Chappell 2013, p. 607).