Anders Eldrup misses the proactive civil servant: "The civil servant must be the initiator"

Media race, Section 20 issues, spin and zero error culture. Anders Eldrup, former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, sees fundamental obstacles to civil servants being proactive and providing suggestions on how to solve today's wild problems. Eldrup looks back at conditions during his own career, draws lines up to today and points out how we can change the stressful culture. 

"I want to see cranes," said then Finance Minister Henning Dyremose during a trip to Bangkok in the early 90s. Anders Eldrup and Dyremose stayed at a hotel overlooking the Asian city of millions, and they saw a city in rapid development.

As they watched the cacophony of cranes turning on their own axes, the idea arose in Dyremose's head that would lead to the establishment of the Copenhagen metro. The sight was in stark contrast to the Copenhagen of the time, where new construction belonged to the time of Christian IV - and that had to change. 

The cranes in Bangkok were the starting point for the ambitious project to build a metro and finance the construction by issuing plots of land on Amager - the tie-shaped piece we know today as Ørestaden. 

"The whole project started with the civil service coming in and saying that a metro is needed and having a plan for how it could be executed. Then there was a debate with the government and they immediately said yes," says Eldrup. 

This type of proactivity is something Eldrup misses in the civil service today. 

The framework is not in place for officials to be as proactive today as it was in the past, he believes, and he warns that this could have consequences:

"The officials in the ministries don't have the time to think long-term ideas to solve society's wild problems," he says. 

He joins the ongoing debate that Zetland started after talking to 33 civil servants who describe how civil servants' dreams of making a difference die in the face of the stressful reality of Slotsholmen. 

But more time alone will not solve the challenges, Eldrup believes.

INVI spoke to Eldrup about how he sees the role of the civil servant and how we can move the civil service in a direction where there is room for the proactive civil servant to "cast the cannonballs" for politicians. 

Brake pad and starter

"We shouldn't just tweak society here and there. We need a new and sustainable society, and we need an overall plan for the society we are going to build," Eldrup has previously stated at a top management conference. 

Eldrup points out that the civil servant has a key role to play if we are to achieve this plan. He prefers to use the word proactive rather than "activist", which Lisbeth Knudsen, among others, has previously called for in debate posts at Altinget. But the main question is whether to be defensive and wait and see or offensive and proactive, and Knudsen and Eldrup agree on this issue.

"There is a need for officials to parry orders, but there is also a need for officials to play a more active role," says Eldrup and continues:

"Fortunately, we don't have a civil service government, we have a political government, but I think it can be reconciled in many areas."

You have to be a brake pad in the sense that you have to ensure that there is a legal basis and that everything goes right. But the civil servant also has a role in making sure that things happen, Eldrup believes. 

Nowadays, commission work is often the solution to wild problems. In commissions, you can argue that there is space and time to come up with solutions. Doesn't the proactive aspect only live in the commissions today?

"We see a lot of commissions and expert committees today, yes. Typically, they are populated by people outside the civil service. I see it more as a signal that politicians miss the proactive input from civil servants," Eldrup replies.

But as a civil servant, it can be difficult to balance being proactive and not crossing the line into politics. When does the proactive approach tip over and become part of the political?

"The civil service can be proactive when there is a clear political line, for example, that we need to reduce CO2. But we must remember that it is the politicians who set the course."

Media pressure and zero defect culture

Eldrup sees the high speed and external pressure from the media as the main barrier to officials' ability to be proactive. 

"We have a much more stressed civil service today than we had in the old days," says Eldrup. He points out that the main reasons are the media, short deadlines within the ministries and Section 20 questions, which are questions about a public matter asked by a member of parliament to a minister.

"There has been an explosion in the number of Section 20 questions compared to what it was back in the 70s and 80s. Answering those questions takes up a lot of the officials' time," he says. 

"Of course, the questions have to be there, but there has to be a balance. It's a shame if it takes so much time that they don't have time to be proactive and make suggestions on what's needed," says Eldrup. 

The influence of the media will be difficult to roll back, admits the former Permanent Secretary and CEO of DONG. He sees the less media attention during his time as a civil servant as central to the fact that he and his department had the time to create ideas that were in line with politicians' visions. 

"The speed has been increased, there are many more media, and you have deadlines all the time," says Eldrup and continues:

"When I was involved, it was the newspapers that were the big opinion makers, and they had a deadline at some point, so when you had passed their deadline, you were at least at peace until the next day, for roughly the same amount of time. Today, the media calls on politicians and civil servants 24/7, and that makes for a more stressful life."

Eldrup points out that "many consultations" and "a lot of time spent on spin" narrows the time available for officials to be proactive, and he also points out that there is a greater tendency to punish mistakes, which leads to a more defensive civil service. 

And a zero-defect culture has only become more narrowly defined, because the regulation of society has become more complex, Eldrup notes, highlighting GDPR, cybersecurity, AI as some of the reasons for this narrowing.

Is there anything you can do from a political level to create time for the officials?

"You can be less zealous about punishing mistakes. Mistakes cannot be avoided. Cracking down hard, even on minor mistakes, will encourage passivity and restraint," he says.

From the recovery of the Danish economy in the 80s to today's climate challenges

Eldrup's big project in the 70s and 80s was to support the government in restoring Denmark's ailing economy. 

In the 1970s, Denmark experienced economic challenges with lower growth rates and high inflation, and things only took a turn for the worse in the 80s, with people leaving their homes and unemployment skyrocketing. 

The Budget Department, as the Ministry of Finance was then called, became a creative initiator to find solutions. A mission that Eldrup took to you, as you can read in this tribute to Permanent Secretary Erling Jørgensen: 

"The 'new' budget department is not defensive and waiting, but offensive and proactive. We no longer have to wait for the ministries to come to us with their proposals." 

At the time, Eldrup was head of office at the Ministry of Budget, and as something new, the Ministry of Budget had put itself in charge of a number of inter-ministerial working groups. 

"Our initiator role requires us to 'compete' with the ministries to a certain extent," Eldrup stated at the time. 

"We looked into the abyss and there was broad political consensus that the Danish economy needed to be restored," says Eldrup today.

"The politicians set the agenda, but then it was the civil servants who filled in how the reform should be, and that led to a whole lot of changes in the way we made budgets and the way we managed spending. But it was something that the civil servants kind of set the agenda."

Eldrup explains that there were streams of suggestions that no politicians had had time to ask about. 

Much of it was complex and technical, and many of the officials' proposals were adopted, most of which still exist today.

Eldrup points out that we are in a parallel situation with the climate today. 

"We must reduce CO2 by the famous 70 percent by 2030. And again, this is something that has been adopted by a largely unanimous Danish Parliament. Of course, it's up to the politicians to come up with some ideas, but the civil servants must also produce independently. Politicians set out a path, they want to reach that goal, and they're not down in all the details etc. so the civil servants have to produce their own suggestions on how to do it," says Eldrup and continues:

"I'm not saying that civil servants aren't doing it today, but I would like to see more initiatives where the civil service independently proposes how to achieve some of the political visions," he says. 

Think tank's new position

In addition to reducing the number of Section 20 questions and increasing the time given to officials to meet deadlines, Eldrup believes that solutions must also be found outside the administrations. 

"You need new ideas to be brought to the table for politicians to work with. Of course, they can come from the civil service, but they can also come from other places. Fortunately, we're seeing more and more independent think tanks emerging in recent years that are pushing ideas into the political arena in the hope that someone will take them on board," says Eldrup. 

He notes that as the time to be a proactive civil servant has decreased, many more think tanks have emerged over time. 

"Maybe because it has become a more stressful time, others have to contribute some cannonballs," he says.