What do you think?
Rate this book
Dear Minister, Letters from a Public Servant
Dear Reader
Now that the house of cards has fallen here in Hooseland I am going to share with you the letters I sent to Ministers over the last eight years. What started out as a once-a-month report from the frontlines to a Minister, hoping (in retrospect naively) that if they knew the truth things might improve for public servants, turned out to be the biggest battle of my life. These are the letters from the first four of those eight years, I am trying to recover the letters from the last four from a locked cloud platform after my laptop was stolen in a sting operation. I will share these for all the world to see in due course.
Time and hard experience have taught me that the public service is not just a place, it is also a concept. As servants of the public, we all have moral agency and the ability to make our own choices as to how we respond to things that happen.
Once upon a time the role of the public servant was a more sheltered one in Hooseland, for the most part kept away from the public eye, and our Ministers took responsibility for their Government’s successes and failures. Those days have ended, and in the face of an increasingly 'politicised' public service I decided that it was time the tables were turned, and the political masters were 'publicservantised' so to speak.
Of course, as a public servant that was going to be a bit tricky as most of us don't have any actual face to face contact with Ministers, only the well behaved and important ones get to do that. But I was growing weary of the 'water cooler' conversations and corridor grumblings about what was wrong in our world of work. That is how this book came about.
Now that the house of cards has fallen here in Hooseland I am going to share with you the letters I sent to Ministers over the last eight years. What started out as a once-a-month report from the frontlines to a Minister, hoping (in retrospect naively) that if they knew the truth things might improve for public servants, turned out to be the biggest battle of my life. These are the letters from the first four of those eight years, I am trying to recover the letters from the last four from a locked cloud platform after my laptop was stolen in a sting operation. I will share these for all the world to see in due course.
Time and hard experience have taught me that the public service is not just a place, it is also a concept. As servants of the public, we all have moral agency and the ability to make our own choices as to how we respond to things that happen.
Once upon a time the role of the public servant was a more sheltered one in Hooseland, for the most part kept away from the public eye, and our Ministers took responsibility for their Government’s successes and failures. Those days have ended, and in the face of an increasingly 'politicised' public service I decided that it was time the tables were turned, and the political masters were 'publicservantised' so to speak.
Of course, as a public servant that was going to be a bit tricky as most of us don't have any actual face to face contact with Ministers, only the well behaved and important ones get to do that. But I was growing weary of the 'water cooler' conversations and corridor grumblings about what was wrong in our world of work. That is how this book came about.
- GenresNonfiction
246 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 6, 2022
13 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 26, 2023
This book could have been written about our current government, or any of the ones before. It's a timeless reflection on the push and pull of being and remaining a politically neutral public servant, and a public service who serves the public.
Just what my heart needed.
Just what my heart needed.
March 15, 2023
Told in the form of missives from a public servant to their political master - the Minister - this astute diagnosis of the modern civil service is a beautifully written paean to what public service values are (or should be) and how the realities of working, bureaucratic (and political) life often get in the way.
Any public official will instantly recognise the stories here, told with marvelous clarity and feeling. The joys from having impact, the feeling of making a difference to real people's lives and the sense of being privileged to be on the inside at the heart of policy-making; alongside the daily frustrations from bad IT, bad HR and bad management (from their bad ideas like hot-desking and 'team building' exercises to the near-sociopathic management styles of some obsessed with the rise up the hierarchy). It brought back genuine memories from my own 35-year career in the UK civil service.
This book is clearly written by one who has lived through it all: the accumulations of ‘urgent’ upon ‘urgent’ requests from TOTPs (Top of the Totem Pole), the “six levels of approval from assorted ‘Higher-ups’” and the short turnaround deadlines in order to give seniors “the luxury of a week to look at it”. These will touch the soul (and funny bone) of civil servants anywhere.
This appeal to getting back to some core, common sense, values of public service has some great diagnostics of what (very) often goes wrong in the civil service as seen from the trenches. And some practical thoughts on how we could do better. Most of it’s not rocket science. A genuinely insightful (and funny) salvo against complacency and god awful management that there's so much of.
Any public official will instantly recognise the stories here, told with marvelous clarity and feeling. The joys from having impact, the feeling of making a difference to real people's lives and the sense of being privileged to be on the inside at the heart of policy-making; alongside the daily frustrations from bad IT, bad HR and bad management (from their bad ideas like hot-desking and 'team building' exercises to the near-sociopathic management styles of some obsessed with the rise up the hierarchy). It brought back genuine memories from my own 35-year career in the UK civil service.
This book is clearly written by one who has lived through it all: the accumulations of ‘urgent’ upon ‘urgent’ requests from TOTPs (Top of the Totem Pole), the “six levels of approval from assorted ‘Higher-ups’” and the short turnaround deadlines in order to give seniors “the luxury of a week to look at it”. These will touch the soul (and funny bone) of civil servants anywhere.
This appeal to getting back to some core, common sense, values of public service has some great diagnostics of what (very) often goes wrong in the civil service as seen from the trenches. And some practical thoughts on how we could do better. Most of it’s not rocket science. A genuinely insightful (and funny) salvo against complacency and god awful management that there's so much of.
November 25, 2022
Powerful, poignant and punchy. "Dear minister; Letters from a Public Servant" is a superb reflection on the highs and lows of the current state of affairs of governance world wide. It highlights issues with wit, humor and tablespoons of introspection whilst offering new and novel ideas for moving forward and creating positive change. Whether you work in the public service or not you will find chapters that are personal and resonate with aspects of life and work that we have all lived through for better or worse. 10/10 - a must read for anyone who wants to believe in a world where ethical governance is not just achievable but necessary.
June 16, 2023
If it wasn't so serious It would be hilarious. Amber Guette reminds us that Service needs to be put back in Public Service.
Sadly Public Servants especially those higher up the chain are not renowned for speaking truth to power. Amber takes us on a rollicking ride though the ficticious world of Hooseland's Public Service with lines like "So much for psychometric testing - it never weeds out the actual psychos... Public Servants are often just moved up in Hooseland because they are next in the hierachy."
Public Service should be an aspirational career because it's vital. Regrettably very few Public Servants are held in high regard by the Public they serve. And that's sad.
Whether or not you work in the Public Service if you have a sense of humour you'll appreciate Dear Minister.
It's an insightful book worth a read.
Sadly Public Servants especially those higher up the chain are not renowned for speaking truth to power. Amber takes us on a rollicking ride though the ficticious world of Hooseland's Public Service with lines like "So much for psychometric testing - it never weeds out the actual psychos... Public Servants are often just moved up in Hooseland because they are next in the hierachy."
Public Service should be an aspirational career because it's vital. Regrettably very few Public Servants are held in high regard by the Public they serve. And that's sad.
Whether or not you work in the Public Service if you have a sense of humour you'll appreciate Dear Minister.
It's an insightful book worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews