Reds under the Bed?
The strange promotion of a Civil Servant with close links to Reeves is raising eyebrows. And is the Government using public resource to further links between Business and the Labour Party?
Since starting The Whitehall Project (and its sister account on Twitter/X, WhithallWatch_), I have received multiple messages from civil servants past and present. These are not the people with whom I worked in Government, but individuals who have got in touch interested in and keen to support my work. I have promised to treat any information passed to me anonymously.
One message caught my eye.
It suggested that a civil servant in HM Treasury was promoted almost immediately after the General Election. I started digging, and corroborated this with further sources, including in Business.
Louise Tinsley has - according to her LinkedIn - been a Civil Servant in HM Treasury for the past seven and half years.
She was until July, the Deputy Director of Personal Tax, Welfare and Pensions.
But it was the earlier parts of her CV which caught my attention.
Tinsley spent nearly seven years working in the House of Commons, as an adviser to shadow ministers.
From May 2010 to October 2013 Tinsley was ‘Political Advisor to Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury’. Reeves was Shadow Chief Secretary from 2011 to October 2013.
From October 2013 to February 2017 Tinsley was ‘Economic Advisor to Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions’. Reeves was, of course, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from October 2013 to 2015.
In May 2016, Tinsely was still listed on Rachel Reeves’ Register Of Interests Of Members' Secretaries And Research Assistants. She is listed here in March 2017.
Shortly after, Tinsley entered the Civil Service.
Earlier in her career Tinsley was an ‘Economist’ at the Bank of England (2000 to 2003). Rachel Reeves worked at the Bank, according to PA Media, from 2000 to 2006. I am told they knew each other then, but have no way of corroborating this.
I am told you can see Tinsley (who clearly looks emotional) welcoming Reeves to the Treasury in this video posted by the Chancellor on her Twitter account. It’s visible from 26 to 31 seconds in to the video. Another official told me that Tinsley’s actions on that day ‘raised eyebrows’.
As Professor Anand Menon has observed:
‘civil servants made a bad mistake in the way they welcomed new Ministers in. The obvious delight will be grist to the mill for those who see them as biased and left wing’.
I have no way of knowing exactly what has gone on with Louise Tinsley.
It is clearly, however, suspicious that a promotion was awarded to someone who had an obvious (and extensive) history of working for Reeves in a previous political role. It is true that Tinsley has spent many years in the Civil Service and I have no reason to think she did anything other than act with impartiality. But the cloud of suspicion will be there.
Business Engagement
Tinsley’s new role is ‘Director of Special Advisers and Chancellor Engagement’. That’s a SCS2 grade (ie. the third most senior rank in Whitehall).
Directors are big jobs. For example, most Principal Private Secretaries (who run a Secretary of State’s Private Office) are more junior - deputy directors. A Principal Private Secretary can manage dozens of staff. In most departments the entire Communications team (with a large cohort of officials) is run by a Director. Directors might also be responsible for large areas of policy - eg Homelessness or Social Housing.
The Times was briefed that Reeves has:
‘set up a new team in the Treasury to oversee business relations with Louise Tinsley, a senior civil servant, appointed director of special advisers and engagement. Her seniority is significant, a former Labour adviser says, adding that day-to-day engagement has tended to be handled by more junior staff, both in Whitehall and in some companies. “It is important for more senior people to be involved regularly on both sides. It doesn’t work for the chief executive to focus on it just once a year for a meeting with the secretary of state.”
‘Also working on engagement in the Treasury is Oliver Newton, who handled business relations for Reeves in opposition, and Ian Corfield, whose appointment has caused a row over whether his previous donations to Labour had been properly disclosed. A bright young thing in New Labour circles in the 1990s, Corfield then spent more than 20 years in retail banking before being hired by Reeves to help to deliver the government’s international investment summit on October 14’.
So Tinsley, Corfield and Newton are all working together on improving business relations. That’s a legitimate function for civil servants but it’s notable that all three of them have a Labour political pedigree.
The problem is that this is starting to smell funny.
Rachel Reeves courted business before the election and Labour won new donations from prominent business people, linked to this engagement activity.
Obviously, the new Government wants to work closely with business. But that’s not a new thing. Every Government does. And there are existing business engagement functions in Downing Street, HM Treasury and the Business Department, including the Office for Investment (see my previous blog on the Corfield role).
So why place party-aligned people in business-engagement roles? And how will they manage conflicts of interest? What happens, say, if a business person who meets Rachel Reeves in her work as Chancellor says they want to donate to the Labour Party? What happens if current or prospective donors raise questions with HM Treasury about, say, trade union relations or state aid?
These boundaries are usually ‘policed’ by civil servants. But three of the key Civil Servants (two of them at Director level) which are working on this area have personal connections to Reeves and the Labour Party.
How can the public have confidence that official resource is not being used to strengthen links between the Labour Party and business, rather than the Government and business? And that advice is being provided in accordance with the Civil Service code - with honesty and integrity?
Special Advisers
Tinsley’s title is also ‘Director of Special Advisers’.
This is bizarre.
Special Advisers should not be line-managed by civil servants - they work to their ministers.
But even if Tinsley’s role is just to support them, that’s an extremely senior level of support. In each of my special adviser roles [in Justice, the Cabinet Office, Housing and Downing Street] I had some support - but this was never a senior civil servant, let alone a Director.
And the Head of the Special Advisers’ office also has an important function in checking on the propriety and ethics of what special advisers are up to. That individual may need to seek advice from the department’s Permanent Secretary or the Cabinet Office’s Propriety and Constitution team (where - incidentally - Labour have appointed a Deputy Director, Jess Sergeant, who used to work for Labour Together).
It’s a bit messy to have someone who formerly worked for Reeves running the department’s large Special Adviser team.
Promotions
Civil Service promotions are supposed to happen on the basis of merit. Given the rapidity of Tinsley’s jump to Director, this was presumably done as a Temporary Promotion (TP in the Whitehall Jargon).
I am told the role of Director of Special Advisers and Chancellor Engagement did not exist previously. So the job was created and Tinsley appointed to it.
For Tinsley to be permanently promoted, the role will need to be advertised and competed. But such a competition risks being seen internally as a stitch up - a fait accompli. Why would anyone apply, when it’s clear that the Chancellor’s former adviser is being lined up to get the position?
Tinsley had spent many years as a Deputy Director. A promotion to Director is not necessarily undeserved. But how can people have confidence that things are being done fairly, rather than at the personal request of the Chancellor?
Declaring her interests?
I have already written about whether the Chancellor may have breached the Ministerial Code over the appointment of Ian Corfield.
But did she declare to HM Treasury her previous connections to Tinsley?
Presumably she asked for the role to be created and for Tinsley to fill it. And therefore she did not recuse herself from a decision involving a former employee.
And if she did declare her personal connections, why on earth did James Bowler, HM Treasury Permanent Secretary agree to it?
Reds under the Bed
This growing scandal of cronyism and donations is endangering of jeopardising the very status of an impartial Civil Service. That status is protected by statute, ironically passed by the last Labour Government. I have never subscribed to the idea that Whitehall is full of reds under the bed.
But won’t any future Government, of a different political complexion, look askance when presented with policy suggestions from, say, Jess Sargeant? Won’t they now wonder about any advice given by Louise Tinsley? What if something leaks? Or if officials recommend a particular course of action?
The problem with the mess that the Labour Government has got itself into over cronyism and Donorgate and so on, is that people quickly become paranoid.
With every new revelation it becomes a little harder to believe that the Civil Service senior leadership is doing enough to protect the political impartiality which is supposed to be at the very core of the Civil Service. I will write more on how this confidence can be restored, and the steps the Government needs to take to control this scandal, in due course.