Enemy or ally? Senior officials' perceptions of Ministerial advisers before and after MMP

Political Science

Volumn 58, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 3-22

  Eichbaum, Chris ^a   Shaw, Richard ^b  

^a VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON   (New Zealand)

^b MASSEY UNIVERSITY   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

Cabinet; Ministerial advisers; MMP; Politicisation; Public service

Indexed keywords

EID: 33750571397     PISSN: 00323187     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/003231870605800101     Document Type: Review

References (64)

1. See Jonathan Boston, Governing under Proportional Representation: Lessons from Europe (Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies, 1998);
2. Jonathan Boston, 'Institutional Change in a Small Democracy: New Zealand's Experience of Electoral Reform', in Leslie Seidle and David C. Docherty (eds.), Reforming Parliamentary Democracy (London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003);
3. Jonathan Boston and Stephen Church, 'The budget process in New Zealand: Has proportional representation made a difference?', Political Science, Vol. 54, No. 2 (2002), pp. 21-43;
4. Jonathan Boston, Stephen Church and Hilary Pearse, 2004. 'Explaining the Demise of the National-New Zealand First Coalition', Australian Journal of Political Science, Vol, 39, No. 3 (2004), pp. 585-605;
5. Jonathan Boston, Stephen Levine, Elizabeth McLeay and Nigel Roberts (eds.), From Campaign to Coalition: New Zealand's First General Election Under Proportional Representation (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1997);
6. Jonathan Boston, Stephen Church, Stephen Levine, Elizabeth McLeay and Nigel Roberts (eds.), Left Turn: the New Zealand General Election of 1999 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2000);
7. Jonathan Boston, Stephen Church, Stephen Levine, Elizabeth McLeay and Nigel Roberts (eds.), New Zealand Votes: The General Election of 2002 (Wellington: Victoria University Press: 2003);
8. rd edn. (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 2003);
9. Raymond Miller, Party Politics in New Zealand (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2005);
10. Jack Vowles, Peter Aimer, Jeffrey Karp, Susan Banducci, Raymond Miller and Ann Sullivan, Proportional Representation on Trial: The 1999 New Zealand General Election and the Fate of MMP (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2002);
11. Jack Vowles, Peter Aimer, Jeffrey Karp, Susan Banducci and Raymond Miller (eds.), Voters' Veto: The 2002 General Election and the Consolidation of Minority Government (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2004).
12. In New Zealand advisers are variously called 'political advisers' (Michael Wintringham, Annual Report of the State Services Commission to the New Zealand Parliament, 2002), 'personal advisers' (Cabinet Manual, 2001) and 'personal appointees'
13. (Colin James, The Tie That Binds: The Relationship Between Ministers and Chief Executives (Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies, 2002), p. 59).
14. Our preference is for 'ministerial advisers', which is the formal classification most likely to attach to staff employed by the Ministerial Services branch of the Department of Internal Affairs to furnish advice, including advice of a political or strategic nature.
15. Nigel Wicks, Defining the Boundaries within the Executive: Ministers, Special Advisers and the permanent Civil Service (Ninth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, 2003).
16. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Marsden Fund, administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand. The project supported by the Fund comprises two stages. The first entails the administration of tailored questionnaires to ministers in all governments since 1990, to ministerial advisers, and to senior officials in government departments. A series of in-depth interviews with a smaller sample drawn from the same populations is under way.
17. Jonathan Boston, Stephen Levine, Elizabeth McLeay and Nigel Roberts, New Zealand Under MMP: A New Politics? (Auckland: Auckland University Press/Bridget Williams Books, 1996), p. 34.
18. Mel Smith, Proportional Representation and its effects on the Public Service. Report to the State Services Commissioner (report commissioned by the State Services Commissioner, 1995). While ministerial advisers are, in a formal sense, part of the public service, insofar as they are employed by the CE of the Department of Internal Affairs, Smith's reference is clearly to political staff.
19. Paul East, 'How Does the New Electoral Environment Affect the Role and Structure of the Public Sector?' (Address at the Conference MMP: Changing the Way We Govern, Wellington: Plaza Hotel, 1994).
20. Colin James, Under New Sail: MMP and Public Servants (Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies, 1997).
21. Marie Shroff, 'The Operation of Central Government under Proportional Representation Electoral Systems' (Unpublished Report by the Secretary to the Cabinet, 1994);
22. State Services Commission, Working Under Proportional Representation: A Reference for the Public Service (Wellington: SSC, 1995).
23. Shroff, 'The Operation of Central Government', p. 25.
24. SSC, Working Under Proportional Representation, pp. 73-74.
25. Boston, Levine, McLeay and Roberts, New Zealand Under MMP: A New Politics?, p. 34.
26. The MMP newsletter which the SSC produced in the run-up to the 1996 election made sporadic references to political advisers. One such indicated that advisers would probably be employees of political parties, rather than public servants (State Services Commission, MMP Newsletter for Chief Executives (Wellington: SSC, August 1994), p. 3.) In fact, the latter is the case.
27. James, The Tie That Binds.
28. Chris Eichbaum and Richard Shaw, 'A Third Force: Ministerial Advisers in the Executive', Public Sector, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2003), pp. 7-13;
29. Chris Eichbaum and Richard Shaw, 'Is Westminster dead in Wellington? Ministerial Advisers in the New Zealand Executive' (Paper presented at the Australasian Political Studies Association Conference: Otago University, September 28-30, 2005).
30. Neither is the international literature on political staff in Westminster contexts especially exhaustive. Moreover, much of what is available focuses on ethical, accountability and/or media-related matters, rather than on the policy dimensions of the adviser's role. Simon King's Regulating the Behaviour of Ministers, Special Advisers and Civil Servants (London: The Constitution Unit, 2003),
31. for instance, compares accountability arrangements across Westminster nations, while Ann-Marie Tiernan's Ministerial Staff under the Howard Government: Problem, Solution or Black Hole? (PhD thesis, Griffith University, 2004)
32. assesses the conduct and regulation of advisers in Australia. An exception is Maria Maley's 'Conceptualising Advisers' Policy Work: The Distinctive Policy Roles of Ministerial Advisers in the Keating Government, 1991-1996', Australian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 35, No. 3 (2000), pp. 449-470, which analyses the policy roles of Australian ministerial advisers at the federal level.
33. We wish to acknowledge the support extended to us by the Commissioner, Mark Prebble, and by Jeanette Schollum (Manager, Strategic Development Branch).
34. Our considerable thanks go to Helen Coffey (Marketing and Communications Manager) and Bruce Anderson (CE) at the LDC.
35. Data were obtained under the Official Information Act 1982 and apply as at 18 October 2005. Information from prior to 1998 is unavailable in the form requested. While the line of demarcation between the administrative and the political is indistinct at best, Ministerial Advisers/Senior Advisers, Executive Assistants, and Press/media staff tend to engage in political functions. Prior to the change of government in 1999, the designation 'Executive Assistant' captured many of the responsibilities now the preserve of Ministerial Advisers/Senior Advisers. Since the change of government the designation 'Executive Assistant' suggests a relatively lower level of status and responsibility, with duties more of an administrative nature.
36. We used a standard five-point scale (where 1=strongly agree; 2=agree; 3=neither agree nor disagree; 4=disagree; 5=strongly disagree) to assess individuals' views on a range of matters concerning ministerial advisers. Items were coded (and as necessary reverse-coded) such that a high overall score on the scale indicated a positive inclination towards ministerial advisers. As it happens, the mean score of 61.5/105 (with a skewness statistic of -1.722 and a Kurtosis value of 4.680) suggested that our respondents were, on balance, well disposed towards their partisan counterparts. In order to complement quantitative results with respondents' qualitative observations, in this article we have opted to unpack the scale and to group the various items thematically alongside responses to open-ended questions.
37. They were: Department of Child, Youth and Family Services; Department of Conservation; Department of Corrections; Department of Internal Affairs; Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet; Inland Revenue Department; Department of Survey and Land Information; Ministry for Culture and Heritage; Ministry for the Environment; Ministry of Education; Ministry of Fisheries; Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Justice; Ministry of Research Science and Technology; Ministry of Social Development; Ministry of Women's Affairs; National Library of New Zealand; State Services Commission; and Treasury.
38. As at June 2004: see State Services Commission, Human Resource Capability Survey of Public Service Departments. As at 30 June 2004 (Wellington: State Services Commission, 2004).
39. A further 33 officials communicated their inability or unwillingness to participate directly to us.
40. th edn. (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2002).
41. Because there is no precise means of establishing the characteristics of the population from which our sample derives, it is not possible to fully test for sample bias. Given the conditions under which the survey was administered, we accept that sample bias may have occurred (e.g. via the non-participation of some departments, differences in the approaches taken by CEs to 'recruit' possible participants, the distribution of respondents within departments, etc.).
42. The data reported in this article relate only to those respondents in the top three tiers.
43. The gamma coefficient of -0.312 indicates a moderate association between rank and educational qualification.
44. In Figures 1 and 2 respondents were asked to indicate frequency of contact on a five-point scale: very frequent; frequent; occasional; rare; never. The data for (a) 1993-96 and (b) 1996-99 are averages of the contact reported for the following governments: (a) National (Nov. 1993-Sept. 1994); National/Right of Centre (Sept. 1994-Aug. 1995); National (Aug. 1995-Feb. 1996); National/United (Feb. 1996-Dec. 1996); (b) National/New Zealand First (Dec. 1996-Aug. 1998); National/Independents (Aug. 1998-Nov. 1999).
45. To an extent the data in Figure 2 may reflect the increasing seniority of our respondents over time. However, while our data do not allow us to control for individuals' career paths, even when all public servants other than those with 21 years of service or more are excluded from calculations (thereby restricting analysis to the only cohort in the study which has had the opportunity to be in contact with each government since 1990), the trend is clearly towards greater contact with ministerial offices.
46. During the fourth National government there was a weak association between contact with ministerial offices and rank (gamma=0.178). Things firmed up a little in the final FPP Parliament (gamma=0.245) and during the tenure of the National/New Zealand First majority coalition government (gamma=0.346). Since the advent of minority government in August 1998, however, the association between contact and rank has been reasonably substantial: The coefficient for the National-led minority administration (gamma=0.464) is in much the same range as that for the Labour/Alliance (gamma=0.407) and Labour/Progressive governments (gamma=0.425).
47. Chris Eichbaum and Richard Shaw, 'Why We Should All Be Nicer To Ministerial Advisers', Policy Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 4 (2005), pp. 18-26.
48. Eichbaum and Shaw, 'A Third Force: Ministerial Advisers in the Executive'.
49. The efficacy of that regulation is a matter of dispute within the Australian context (see Tiernan, Ministerial Staff under the Howard Government: Problem, Solution or Black Hole?).
50. In Australia, the Department of Finance and Administration provides twice-yearly documents at Estimates hearings which detail the numbers and classifications of government personnel (Tiernan, Ministerial Staff under the Howard Government: Problem, Solution or Black Hole, p. 31).
51. Cabinet Manual. 2001, para. 2.187. The SSC's 'Fact Sheet 3: The Relationship between the Public Service and Ministers' (available at www.ssc.govt.nz) advises on how these guidelines might be operationalised. It restates the relevant contents of the Cabinet Manual and specifies six principles which should underpin arrangements within ministers' offices.
52. Donald Savoie, 'The search for a responsive bureaucracy in Canada', in B. Guy Peters and Jon Pierre (eds.), Politicization of the Civil Service in Comparative Perspective: The quest for control (London: Routledge, 2004).
53. Eichbaum and Shaw, 'Is Westminster dead in Wellington? Ministerial Advisers in the New Zealand Executive'.
54. The data slightly understate the frequency with which respondents referred to 'contestability'. Where participants first indicated that ministerial advisers assisted ministers, and then described an action that might be construed as adding contestability, that response was placed in the category 'assist ministers'.
55. William Plowden, Ministers and Mandarins (London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 1994).
56. Helene Wong, 'Muldoon and the Advisory Group', in Margaret Clark (ed.), Muldoon Revisited (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 2004).
57. Smith, Proportional Representation and its effects on the Public Service: Report to the State Services Commissioner, p. 11.
58. Indeed, the logic of the public sector reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, which cast relationships between ministers and officials as being between principals and agents, suggests the need for such a role. In effect, in addressing the information asymmetries associated with relationships between principals and agents, the ministerial adviser assumes the role of providing the principal with purchase and monitoring advice.
59. In 1995 the SSC had foreseen that ministerial advisers would 'place pressure on departments to ensure that their advice is of a high standard' (Working Under Proportional Representation, p. 31).
60. Boston, Levine, McLeay and Roberts, New Zealand Under MMP: A New Politics?, p. 144.
61. These data, which are accurate as of 2003/04, were obtained by the authors from the Leadership Development Centre.
62. Boston, Levine, McLeay and Roberts, New Zealand Under MMP: A New Politics?, p. 144.
63. One issue that our future research will seek to illuminate is the extent to which ministerial advisers' first order duty of service is to the minister or to the government of the day. There is evidence - and the accountability and performance management arrangements for ministerial advisers in the post-1999 period are of relevance here - that advisers have a key role to play in ensuring that there is an appropriate balancing of 'ministerial' and 'whole of government' policy and political management. In this sense, to some extent the notion of a cabinet system of advisers, responsible in part to the Prime Minister through a Chief of Staff, is deserving of further attention.
64. The next phase of this project entails the collection of qualitative and quantitative data from ministers (and ministerial advisers).