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1. If you're the boss normally if your team refuses to do what you ask you are also your team members' manager or the manager of their managers and you have the ability to reorganise the team and go through disciplinary and performance processes for those not doing their jobs.
2. If their managers don't support this, they too can be put through those same processes and you have the ability to hire replacements.
3. If your directors and shareholders disagree with the things you want doing they can get rid of you. If they think the reason your team is refusing is because you are not up to managing them they can get rid of you.
4. If they think the reason the team is refusing is because they wouldn't do those things for anyone, however good a manager they were, they'll support you.
5. This is how things would work in a private organisation. For a minister in a government department, they're not quite the same.
6. In relation to point 1, you are not the manager of any of your team and you are not the manager of any of their managers. You can try to use the processes but you don't have the power to hire and fire. That's the independence of the Civil Service and generally a good thing.
7. It is a good thing because good governance does depend on being able to rely on the Civil Service to give good advice and to not fear doing so.
8. But, you are still ultimately responsible for delivering the policies you were elected on and which the PM has entrusted you to put into effect.
9. If those policies are possible and legal, in the end, the Civil Service's job is to enable them to be carried out whether they like the policy or not, whether they think it a good one or not.
10. So if they refuse, it comes down to whether point 3 or 4 applies. Why are they refusing? Is it because you're not doing what you've been entrusted to do by the PM, Parliament and electorate? Is it because you haven't asked politely enough? Or is it because they just won't?
11. If point 3 applies it is easy for the PM to just sack you. You're not up to it or you've gone rogue. If point 4 applies, sacking you makes no difference, a valid and democratically chosen policy is just being blocked illegitimately.
12. I think this is why Boris has supported Priti Patel. The investigation found that officials had been obstructive in an inappropriate way. Not because of the Home Secretary's manner or quality of management but because they didn't want to do what was asked.
13. It was wrong of the Home Secretary to shout and swear and cause the undoubted upset that was suffered by some. But against a team refusing to do their job, in the absence of the power to change and the support of the managers who had the power to enforce change.
14. So, sacking the Home Secretary would do no good at all in respect of getting the job done. It would just mean another, presumably more emollient, less abrasive, Home Secretary would face the same unsurmountable challenge, but would be expected to surrender quietly.
15. This is a story of failure on both sides- a failure by the Home Secretary to treat people decently even when they are obstructive, and a failure by Civil Servants to respect the limits of their rightful ability to disagree with what they are asked to do.
16. But in a democracy, the more important of the two things is the ability for Ministers to be able to carry out the work their government was elected to do provided it is legal.
17. And the Civil Service is weakened by any perception that it won't assist in this as it calls into question the good faith of the advice they give if they take upon themselves the political role of making policy choices against their Ministers' and government's wishes.
