AS THOSE toiling in the public sector grapple with how risk-averse they should be, are there any lessons they can learn from their political masters? Before we examine the words of Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden, who is trying to make this important subject his own, let us judge his peers.

There is no doubt that reputation management is the overwhelming priority at the top of government. The focus of a minister under fire is on the public and media perception of what has happened. If that can be managed well, ministers will survive the risk to their position, irrespective of the cost of what has gone wrong.

When I worked for Peter Mandelson one of his favourite sayings was “high risk, high reward”, and although he took political risk-taking to an extreme degree – and paid the price – I have no doubt that politicians take far more risks than voters suspect, and not just in their high-profile misdemeanours.

They also regularly back policies that are not worked through and put out messages that are far from the whole story. A great deal of a politician’s life is spent cutting corners and crossing fingers. And mostly they get away with it.

I think this contrasts with what happens lower down the public sector. That is not to say that public sector managers and workers never take risks – there will always be cavalier spirits in any job. But I think the culture in schools, hospitals, local government and the like is much more risk-averse. The higher you go, the more this is true, until, paradoxically, you reach the top. For example, look at the detailed evaluation that takes place before an army unit makes a move in southern Iraq, and compare it with the huge leap in the dark that Tony Blair made when he ordered the invasion in the first place.

We could argue about how necessary the taking of such risks is to effective leadership, but the truth is that we probably need a bit less risk-taking at the top and a little more throughout the rest of government. There is certainly a relationship between risk aversion, creativity and front-line autonomy.

Interestingly, one of Blair’s closest, if more sceptical advisers, Pat McFadden, is doing a lot of thinking on this issue. In his latest speech he called for a “thriving enterprising economy where people are not afraid to take risks so that both they and Britain benefit”. The same could be urged upon the public sector. It is a little riskier for a minister to do that, but McFadden has opened up a serious debate. Is the balance right between caution and creativity?

But if those lower down the hierarchy are to be confident enough to change, they need to know that those higher up will back them when things go wrong as well as they do when things go right. That would be risky for a politician’s reputation, so I wouldn’t bet on it. Derek Draper is a psychotherapist and director of Presenting Edge, a media consultancy

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