Dominic Raab’s successor is confident that he will never be branded a bully, despite his past “frustrations” with civil servants, he said on Sunday.
Oliver Dowden replaced Mr Raab as the UK's Deputy Prime Minister on Friday after an investigation into Mr Raab’s behaviour towards his staff prompted his immediate resignation.
The report by Adam Tolley KC found that Mr Raab, who also served as justice secretary, acted in an intimidating and aggressive way with civil servants.
However, Mr Tolley’s report also raised questions about the relationship between ministers and the Civil Service.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Mr Dowden called for a review of how ministers and civil servants work together.
“In the end, senior civil servants and senior ministers are united in the goal of serving the British people,” he said. “I do think that out of the report there is a need to look at our processes around that. That is why we will be looking at it to see whether we can make it simpler, fairer and less complex.”
He added that ministers' standards should not drop over fears of bullying accusations. “Civil servants can deliver but I do not want to see any diminution in the ability of ministers to expect high standards of their officials because, in the end, we are serving the British people and we must continue to do that,” he said.
This echoed Mr Raab's claims in earlier interviews that Mr Tolley's “low” threshold for bullying had left other ministers worried about receiving similar accusations in the future.
On Sunday, Raab described the accusations as a “co-ordinated” and “politicised attack” aimed at the blocking changes he had hoped to make while in office.
In an interview with the Sun on Sunday, he hit out at “activist” civil servants, who had been “storing up” information against him for four and a half years.
He added that his “straight talk” and “direct dealing” did not amount to bullying. “I actively encouraged critical feedback and all the rest of it. But, at the end of the day, when I had given the steer or set the parameters you expect it to be followed through,” he said.
Meanwhile, a Tory peer who is leading a government review into civil service governance called for a more “robust culture” in Whitehall.
Writing in The Observer, Lord Maude argued that ministers should be given more say in the appointments of civil servants.
“Ministers rely on officials to implement policies and run their department,” said the former cabinet minister, “However, they have extremely limited authority to put in place officials of their choice, despite having near-total accountability for what those officials do.”
He added that the political impartiality of the civil service in the UK must not get in the way of decision making. “Impartiality is important, but it must not mean neutrality, still less passivity.”
“We need a much more robust culture, with less groupthink, more rugged disagreement, and the confidence to both offer challenge and to accept it,” he said.
Mr Dowden said that Mr Raab was right to step down, given his promise to do so should Mr Tolley’s investigation agree with the bullying allegations.
“I know Dom is a man of his word and he resigned, and, as the Prime Minister said, I think that was the right thing to have done,” he told Sky News' Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme.
He described the question of whether Mr Raab would still be in office had he not made the pledge as “hypothetical”.
Mr Dowden added that it was for the Prime Minister to decide if Mr Raab could make a return to the cabinet in future.
A report in The Sunday Times said that Rishi Sunak had been inquiring about how he might be able to allow Mr Raab to keep his position, but that his earlier promises to resign had made that impossible.
Mr Raab also faces calls to resign from his position as MP for Esher and Walton, where he was elected with a majority of less than 3,000 votes.
Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said his candidate for the constituency would defeat Mr Raab at the next election, and called for him to resign to contest a by-election.
“If he's not prepared to do that to enable his constituents in Esher and Walton to have the MP they deserve, I think the government should withdraw the whip from him, otherwise they're sending a message that bullying is somehow OK in the Conservative Party,” he told Sky News.
