Kudos to Jon Boutcher for drawing attention to the inertia of management and the civil service

I once worked with a man named James B. King. He was a larger-than-life figure who had served as director of President Clinton’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM). OPM is the equivalent of civil service, but Jim was an operator who could combine public service with politics.

Jim worked for all three Kennedy brothers, Senator John Kerry, and Presidents Carter and Clinton. He embodied everything about the purpose of public service, both as a politician and a public servant.

Jim could walk into a pub and within an hour have an instinctive ability to sense what motivates the locals. One of the many pieces of good advice he gave this writer was: “If you don’t want to see it, never write it down.”

This is the golden rule in giving advice. It should be the sacrosanct rule for a senior civil servant. It is the advice that Hugh Widdis, the permanent secretary in the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland, should have followed when he decided to issue a written reprimand to Chief Constable Jon Boutcher.

Police Federation chairman Liam Kelly (no relation) was right in his assessment that this was an attempt to “gag”, “embarrass” and “punish” Mr Boutcher.

In my opinion it was arrogant, clumsy and stupid.

Justice Minister Naomi Long said: “This type of correspondence is entirely appropriate and it is regrettable that private correspondence has been released.”

Technically, Long is right in the first part. But tragic circumstances require drastic action.

The police in Northern Ireland are in a desperate situation and the Prime Minister should know how bad it is.

If the Executive is deaf to the needs of the police, the welfare of officers, the recruitment of new candidates and the safety of every citizen in Northern Ireland, then someone directly involved in the matter must speak out. Long live Jon Boutcher!

The regret that not entirely private correspondence has been disclosed is ridiculous.

Widdis did not write a single private letter to the Chief Constable about procedures and channels of communication. He copied the Prime Minister, First and Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Justice, Justice Commission and Policing Board.

If it were not for the fact that the contents of the letter were pinned to the door of the Stormont building, it would certainly have entered the public domain.

The police in Northern Ireland are in a desperate situation and the Prime Minister should know how bad it is.

How normal is it for permanent secretaries from the devolved administrations to copy their private correspondence to the Prime Minister? Perhaps that is a question the chairman of the justice committee could ask Mr Widdis.

Text messages between senior government officials shared with the COVID-19 inquiry revealed the dysfunctional nature of NICS.

The ability to respond to a major existential crisis is part of the remit of civil servants. In Northern Ireland, the preparedness of the emergency planning centre seems to have escaped the attention of several former permanent secretaries.

The Northern Ireland Civil Service requires an external, fundamental reorganisation from top to bottom.

Public servants often want to please their political masters and be loved for it. They prefer inaction to change. The current NICS boss simply does not work. The board needs a CEO like Scotland who can be held accountable for failures and who is responsible for delivering across departments.

The Department of Infrastructure is a case in point in terms of systematic management failure. There are enough damning reports in HQ about the need to reform the planning process and invest in water and sewerage infrastructure to absorb the green algae on Lough Neagh.

Yet the response from ministers and senior officials has been essentially to continue as before, using the same resources.

No wonder ministers want to be agents of good news. They want to cut ribbons, meet and greet dignitaries and be feted at lavish dinners at chambers of commerce. But that’s just window dressing, not work.

Politicians and senior government officials must stop making excuses for each other in the face of inertia.