mistakes were made

Lord (John) Hutton

There's a very good book by the social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson called Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me). It explores the reasons behind the tremendous difficulty people have in accepting responsibility for their own screw-ups. It came to mind when I read this story: Sir Bill Jeffrey, the man who was until recently the most senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence has been given a rap over the knuckles by MPs, essentially for not telling his boss, John Hutton, that he was making a huge cock-up by ordering an unaffordable and useless aircraft carrier:

The Public Accounts Committee takes the highly unusual step of criticising him by name for failing to request a “letter of instruction” from his minister before signing the “unaffordable” aircraft carrier contract. They conclude he did not “discharge his responsibility” as accounting officer. In plain language, it means he failed in his duty to protect value for money.

These “letters of instruction” are the nuclear option in the Whitehall mandarins’ armoury, to be deployed when ministers are pressing for a decision that would waste money or carried big financial risks. It is the point when the mandarin says: ‘Minister, if you want to press ahead against the advice of the department, you’ll have to put that in writing’.

As the FT explains, the aircraft carrier decision was actually the perfect example of when this nuclear option should be used. But it does seem somehow unfair that the civil servant who gets the blame while the man who actually took the decision gets away with no censure. Perhaps Hutton will apologise? Hmm. Here's what he told The TImes (£) this week:

“Mistakes were made. But we’ve got a very good and capable industry and we shouldn’t do anything that compromises the ability of the defence industry to compete effectively in supplying the equipment our troops need."

Comments

[Andrew]

Of course Hutton at the time was MP for Barrow, whats the industry in Barrow? Ah building ships!