Time for a change in dysfunctional Whitehall? Yes, minister…

Away from the name-calling and mud-slinging by political big beasts, the Covid inquiry has at least performed one meaningful function – detailing the myriad ways in which the civil service is hobbled by a silo mentality and not fit for purpose, writes Andrew Grice

A very uncivil service: Derek Fowlds, Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne in the Eighties BBC Whitehall farce, ‘Yes Minister’ (Rex)

The phase of the Covid inquiry about the government’s decision-making, which ended this week when Rishi Sunak gave evidence, has been dominated by personality clashes, who hates whom and who swore the most in their WhatsApp messages.

While this is highly entertaining, it obscures the real lesson: the need to reform a dysfunctional system at the centre of government, notably at the Cabinet Office.

I think it would have struggled to cope in the uncharted waters of a pandemic, no matter who was prime minister. Boris Johnson’s character flaws and unfitness to be PM compounded the problem but any PM would have floundered; the heart of government was “not fit for purpose”, as the former Labour home secretary John Reid once described the Home Office.