Volume 15: Government and Public Administration
4. Integrating professional advice into policy-making
Introduction

4.1 This chapter describes the ways in which MAFF and DH sought to integrate the distinctive contributions of their own professional advisers with those of 'generalist' administrative policy-makers, and how they made use of external expert advisers.

4.2 The policy-making process described in the preceding chapter involved the submission to Ministers by administrative civil servants of timely warnings about issues arising and of considered advice on options. Much policy-making also required the input of specialist advice: from lawyers, economists, statisticians and many other disciplines. In DH, an internal management review noted that:

. . . a major tenet since the Ministry of Health was founded in 1919 has been that professional input should be fully integrated into policy making. ¹

4.3 Each Government Department had to consider the best way, within its particular area of responsibility, to assimilate such professional and technical advice for Ministers. Sir Kenneth Stowe, Permanent Secretary of DH (then the DHSS) until March 1987, commented on the problems of integrating such advice into policy-making. He saw it as 'a universal and perennial source of difficulty' experienced worldwide. Workable integration could only be achieved by staff gaining 'mutual awareness and confidence' of the responsibilities and expertise of their colleagues. ² For Sir Kenneth, the question was not one of organisation but of ensuring that all relevant disciplines were identified and brought to bear on any given issue. ³

4.4 BSE raised policy issues on animal health and human health, including food safety. To handle it, the Government needed two specialist streams of advice - on animal health issues and on the implications for human health - and also a wide-ranging programme of research. This approach required the involvement of veterinarians, doctors and other medical specialists, and a range of other scientists (including epidemiologists and microbiologists). As with legislation generally, lawyers had to advise on and draft all the BSE-related Orders and Regulations introduced by MAFF, the Scottish Office and the Northern Ireland Departments.

4.5 Both MAFF and DH depended heavily on the advice of their own specialist staff - respectively, the veterinarians in the State Veterinary Service (SVS), who reported to the Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO); and the medical staff who until 1995 reported to the Chief Medical Officer (CMO). DH also relied heavily on a network of external expert advisers and committees.

4.6 One other group of specialist advisers played a significant role in the BSE story. These were the scientists: those in the Departments who advised on policy and identified and commissioned what they concluded was appropriate research; and those in the research community (the funding bodies and the laboratories and institutes) who provided it. The principles that underlay the commissioning and funding system, the system itself, and how it was used in the case of BSE, are described in vol. 2: Science. The relevant organisational arrangements within MAFF and DH are illustrated in Annex 1 to this volume.