Interview
Championing change
Kay Hender talks to the Head of the Government Legal Service and
Civil Service Diversity Champion Sir Paul Jenkins, about shared legal
services, the importance of diversity at the top of the sector – and why
there’s a meerkat statue on his desk.
“I’m a huge fan of the FDA, I’ve been a
member of the FDA since 1979 and I’m very
proud of the fact I’m a member of the FDA.”
Sir Paul Jenkins is also a fan of the bold
statement. In previous interviews where a
press officer has attended, it’s usually to
make sure I behave myself. In this case, I feel
that the press officer’s here to keep an eye on
Sir Paul.
As the longest-standing head of a
department – seven years – the Treasury
Solicitor seems as comfortable in his role
as he is in his own skin. While he is now
the Civil Service Diversity Champion and
most senior openly gay civil servant, Sir
Paul admits that that when he joined, “even
though I was working in a very liberal
organisation I was still very nervous and
quiet, and then Section 28 came along and it
made us even quieter”.
24 Summer 2013 Public Service Magazine
Being gay is not just for
Elton John and Stephen Fry
– it’s about ordinary people doing
ordinary jobs, and that’s why
[The Independent on Sunday
Pink List and The Guardian
World Power List are] important
to me
“I’m very, very conscious that there are
still people throughout the civil service
that don’t feel as empowered as I do now…
One of my jobs is to make sure that they
can see that they have champions at the
top of the organisations, and that the top
of the organisation values – and doesn’t
discriminate against – someone who’s gay.”
When I ask how he feels to have been
Above: Sir Paul Jenkins speaks to
his staff at a Treasury Solicitor’s
Department event
named the 17th most influential LGBT person
in the UK – according to The Independent
on Sunday’s 2012 Pink List – he gives a wry
smile and tells me that “in the Guardian
World Power List I was 71st in the world…
I had quite a lot of fun at home when it
happened – my partner said to me ‘So you’re
a minor celebrity now, that’s fantastic’.
Managing me down, quite right.”
While on a personal level he sees the lists
as “pretty meaningless”, he thinks they’re
“a very powerful signal to the civil service as
a whole, to the LGBT community in the civil
service and to the vast numbers of ordinary
LGBT people, that being gay is not just for
Elton John and Stephen Fry – it’s about
ordinary people doing ordinary jobs, and
that’s why it’s important to me.”
He’s eager to show me his award from
a:gender – the support network for
transsexual, transgender and intersex staff
in the civil service – which for reasons
I’m still not sure about, is shaped like a
meerkat. Sir Paul explains that he was
presenting awards at an a:gender ceremony
and was gifted with his own. For someone
who must have received many accolades
throughout his career – including a
knighthood in last year’s Queen’s birthday
honours list – he seems genuinely delighted
and moved by this.
As Diversity Champion he’s got a difficult
job on his hands. Two years ago, then-
Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell publicly
boasted that of the top 16 civil service
departments, eight had female Permanent
Secretaries. Today, of the 37 Permanent
Secretaries listed on the civil service
website, only six are women and, even more
worryingly, none are BME.
At this, Sir Paul is “disappointed but
not disheartened. I think it was entirely
understandable that Gus made a huge thing
about that because, goodness me, it was
a massive achievement. As a Permanent
Secretary I see a very healthy pipeline,
which is why I’m not disheartened.
“There are still a lot of very powerful
women [in the civil service]. You’ve got
Ursula Brennan running the Ministry
of Justice – that’s not an easy job – Una
O’Brien running health – blimey! I couldn’t
do that in a million years! – and Lin [Homer]
running HMRC. HMRC, health and justice:
that’s three quite powerful role models.
We’ll have more.”
As Head of the Government Legal
Service, Sir Paul has long championed
shared services, which is now a reality as
departments integrate their legal teams
into the Treasury Solicitor’s Department
as part of the Civil Service Reform Plan. He
believes, “passionately, that sharing legal
services is absolutely the right way forward
for delivering legal services to Government…
Not only is this my biggest challenge, it’s
probably one of the most exciting things
that’s ever happened in the Government
Legal Service in its 20-plus years.”
By the middle of 2014, all the core
Government legal teams will be part of the
single shared service, with the exceptions
of Business, Innovation and Skills and HM
Revenue and Customs, whose futures “will
be decided further down the track.” To Sir
Paul, this is “a no-brainer… the Treasury
Solicitor’s Department is historically a
shared legal service – that’s all it does…
Over the last five years we have delivered
roughly 40% efficiencies in TSol. That’s
a huge efficiency gain, and we’ve done it
The rise of Sir Paul
1977: Called to the Bar of England and Wales
1979: Joins the Government Legal Service
(GLS) from the self-employed Bar. Brief
period spent on the Treasury Advisory
team and at the Monopolies and
Mergers Commission before returning
to the GLS
1992: Becomes the first Legal Adviser to the
Department for Culture, Media and
Sport
1998: Legal Adviser to the Lord Chancellor’s
Department. This becomes the
Department of Constitutional Affairs
— appointed as Director General of the
Legal and International Group
2004: Legal Adviser to both the Department
for Work and Pensions and the
Department of Health
2006: Becomes HM Procurator General
and Treasury Solicitor; Permanent
Secretary and Chief Executive of the
Treasury Solicitor’s Department; and
Head of the GLS
2009: Appointed Queens Counsel
2012: Receives a knighthood in the Queen’s
birthday honours.
with a powerful mix of business drivers and
public service values. You have to have the
public service values because that’s why
people come and work here.”
But in the current climate, are public
service values enough? Following the
substantial pensions changes, an ongoing
pay freeze and a continuing review of terms
and conditions, is Sir Paul worried about the
civil service “exodus of talent” predicted by
bodies like the National Audit Office? His
response is emphatic: “People join the GLS
not to be very rich, fat-cat lawyers, they come
from the world of fat-cat lawyers; they come
overwhelmingly from the city law firms. They
take big pay cuts to come here. They come
because they think the work is absolutely
fascinating [and] we offer the widest range of
alternative working patterns.
“When I first got this job, I said to the
senior partner in a very big city law firm:
‘The day you boys’ – and it is boys – ‘sort out
your work/life balance issues, I’ll be stuffed.’
And he said: ‘Don’t worry, it won’t happen in
our lifetimes’, and it hasn’t.”
He recalls the mid-eighties, when people
left the department after the economic
boom: “After the crash they all came back,
some of them didn’t succeed because we
were getting even better people at that point.
If someone goes off to a big city law firm then
fine, good luck – you know why you left and
you’ll remember it when you’ve been there
for 5 minutes.”
On the FDA’s recommendations for change
in public services – our alternative White
Paper – Sir Paul fears the evolutionary
approach could be seen as “complacent and
too slow” but has praise for other areas:
“Some of the stuff you’re recommending,
if we did it quickly, would be fantastic – all
the stuff about learning and development,
increasing professionalisation.”
In his own career, Sir Paul admits that “it
would be very easy for this job to take up 24
hours a day, 7 days a week for the entire year
[but] you’d burn out and you’d be a terrible
role model for your staff.
“When I came here I was asked by my
private office how much work I wanted
every weekend. I said: ‘Let’s start from the
assumption that I’m not going to take boxes
home every weekend and we’ll see how we
get on.’ That worked really well. Then we got
to Christmas and I noticed a pile building up
of things I have to do – why did they think
Christmas is any different from a weekend?
I’m even less likely to do it then! That was
year one, it’s never really been a problem
since… If you didn’t get it right you’d crash
and burn, and do I look as though I’m about
to crash and burn?”
Right now it’s hard to disagree. Whether
this is still the case next year, once the
shared legal services agenda is practically
complete, remains to be seen.
Public Service Magazine Summer 2013 25