Blowing A Whistle or Blowing Hot Air?

 

In evidence submitted today to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, a former FCDO official has made a variety of damning claims into the conduct of the FCDO during the evacuation from Kabul. His 39 pages of evidence suggest a variety of deep issues going wrong, and that the entire process was a disaster.

Naturally this story has dominated the headlines – there is nothing better to read than a whistleblowing account of someone highlighting incompetence and ineptitude, and particularly when it seems written in a manner designed to offer ‘red meat’ to the tabloid press in terms of vivid imagery of incompetent working from home civil servants unable to do the right thing.

There is, of course, an alternative perspective to this, which is that this evidence is the result of an individual becoming deeply disaffected with their employer and choosing a very public way to try to make their point in a manner designed to grievously wound.

The individual confirms that they were a Faststream civil servant, and had been in the system for under 3 years, and were employed as a Higher Executive Officer (HEO). This is a relatively junior grade, and one increasingly used for entry level work. The individual had prior limited experience in the FCDO in policy roles, but it is unclear whether they had been posted abroad, or only worked in London.

The first point to note, and this is one that generated a strong view on Twitter when it was made, is that the individual was a junior and inexperienced official. This is not to do down the role of the HEO grade, or to dismiss junior staff as having views not worthy of consideration, but in a hierarchy, particularly an organisation like the FCDO known for having a strongly hierarchical grading system, it is important to understand that people do not always have the ‘bigger picture’.

Within their areas of expertise it is possible to speak with informed knowledge on issues inside their span of control, but the span of control of an HEO working on one specific part of a vast and incredibly complex operation involving thousands of people around the world is by its nature going to be limited.

Similarly experience matters – when Humphrey was a junior HEO, with a couple of years under his belt, he worked on a variety of very complex issues. It was easy to possess the instinctive confidence and arrogance of a new and junior member of staff to assume that it was all easy, and why did the system do X or Y, when if it did Z everything would be so much better.

It was hard to work out why older longer serving members of staff rolled their eyebrows to some suggestions – they seemed to be inert change blockers, not people wiling to do things in a seemingly better way.

It was only years later, with the benefit of experience and a wider strategic horizon that you realise that sometimes things are done for a very good reason and done that way because that is the best way to get them done. It takes time, experience, and a wider perspective to understand that things don’t always work the way you want them to be worked.

Therefore, it is reasonable to describe this person as both ‘junior and inexperienced’ and in turn to ask whether this calls into question the content of their submission. To some level, no it does not – the lived experience is undoubtedly a valuable context setter, but equally there are statements in the submission which are not only incredibly naïve, but also demonstrate a mild arrogance of assumption that the FCDO got it wrong, and that he alone got it right.

The challenge with crisis operations is that by definition, they are occurring when things are going very badly wrong and an emergency response is called for. These responses are not, and never will be beautiful and elegant, they are messy, dirty and complicated and will with the hindsight of time and distance contain many failures that were carried out because it was better to do something than nothing.

In evacuating Kabul the global community had to identify a way in a very small timescale how to determine who was entitled to be evacuated. The UK was not alone in this task, and every nation had to work out in different ways its criteria for who it could get out and why.

Dealing with this required both an ability to make difficult and tough decisions, and an ability to be prepared to leave people behind knowing that they were facing an uncertain future. After many years in Afghanistan there were many who the West owed support to, or who felt they were owed support by the West.

There is no doubt that the failure to get all those entitled, or who wanted to get out of Kabul out in time is something that is deeply felt by all who were involved in the evacuation operation. This is not some victory, this is an event where despite the best efforts involved of all who took part, not everyone got to come back. There is no denying this.

The procedures the individual describes were clearly not ideal, but if an ideal system existed then it would have been used. The challenge in trying to create a system practically from scratch after 20 years of engagement in a nation, where you have an overwhelming level of data to absorb is not easy. But that does not mean it failed.

Reading the evidence the author is struck by several facts. Firstly the inexperience shines through – the submissions author spent a total of 5 shifts working in the crisis management team handling this issue. They only played an exceptionally small part in the response, and did so only in one specific area.

This inexperience perhaps explains their views on working patterns – much of the media coverage unfairly attacked the FCO for its ‘work life balance’ views (a phrase that could have been invented for the delight of tabloid readership), focusing on how they were told to do 8 hour shifts and then encouraged to go home.

This sounds terribly lazy but in fact is good operational practise. If you are going to be running a sustained 24/7 shift pattern for an enduring period then you need to keep your team rested and able to perform for the long term – it is a marathon and not a sprint.

While it may be a great idea to want to stag on and do 10-12-16hr days, and in a short term opening stage of the crisis this makes sense, as you settle into a routine you need to keep the rhythm going. Working your shift, being rested and then able to turn up again later on a night shift is key – you may want to do a week of 17hr days at work, but if then you are rostered to do nights the week after, and you are broken, are you able to make the right life or death decision at 0400 because your brain is fuddled by lack of sleep.

One of the hardest things to do in a crisis is to actually accept the best thing you can do is if not rostered to work on a shift pattern, go home and get your head down, because you need to be rested. Its not about working a Mon – Fri 9-5, its about adapting your body to working a 24/7 pattern for the long haul so you are fit for duty.

Later in his career this author was responsible for creating a crisis management roster for another situation -the same 8 on model was used precisely because it made sense. Its one thing for a few days, but when doing it for an unknown period of time, once the initial ‘crisis surge’ first 48hrs is done, you quickly want to establish a normal battle rhythm, and not rely on broken staff. A campaign mentality, not a sprint matters here. 

To moan about this demonstrates the sort of lack of experience that working a few crisis operations would quickly stop – its easy with the benefit of 4 whole days doing something to think ‘this is silly’ – a wider perspective would have proven that actually it is an eminently sensible thing to do.

In another note, the individual seems to have demonstrated a limited understanding of how security works. They complain about the need to escort soldiers around, due to the lack of clearances being confirmed – yet this is actually standard procedure. Anyone who has visited the MOD without their clearance being known to the MOD will find themselves escorted – not because people think they are a spy, but because it is not confirmed what they are, or are not, cleared to know.

In this case, working in what appears to have been a secure area, where there is potentially extremely sensitive ‘need to know’ information available, it is not foolish to wait until certain that all the military present had the correct clearances. Again, something that the benefit of a bit of experience would have taught is something that is done for very good operational security reasons.

There is also a naivety about activity which is deeply concerning – the report complains about the fact that they got into trouble for asking around for desk phone log ins, including messaging the British Embassy in Washington, asking for log in details. The Embassy reported this as a potential Russian phishing breach and it was treated as a security breach.

This is absolutely the right thing to do, and the authors sense of grievance at being breached does not seem to take into account that the idea of sending an unsolicited email to an overseas embassy, asking in direct contravention of all standing instructions to the contrary to ask for passwords that provide access to voicemail and phones, and then doing so without going through the right channels is at best dangerously naïve.

Given the scale of the espionage threat and the risks posed by hostile actors, this was a very foolish thing to do and interestingly seems to have landed the author with a security breach (which may explain a great deal).

Again, a more experienced member of staff would know why asking people for their passwords in an open email is not a sensible idea, and is in fact contrary to well established procedures and processes. That this clear sense of grievance is a core part of the submission seems to suggest that this is less about whistleblowing, more about settling what are seen to be as unfair scores.

Similarly the author bemoans the move by the Foreign Secretary to have submissions to him edited into a more consistent format. This can easily be read as an aloof out of touch approach that sounds like someone not understanding lives are at stake. But there is equally a strong case why he asked for this.

Ministers are incredibly busy people, required to make decisions on large submissions quickly and under pressure. This calls for the ability to process huge amounts of information, draw out the key facts and exercise judgement before deciding what to do in a hurry.

If you submit 10 different cases, each of which is laid out differently, in different formats and no clear sense of advice, recommendations and decisions sought, then it slows down Ministerial decision making – they need longer to read it and draw out the information, and in turn have less time available to make the right call with the information to hand.

Asking for standardised submission formatting, using information in a way that can quickly be read and understood, and where the FS knew what he was looking for and why makes sense – its also a much better way to get a fast response.

An experienced Civil Servant would know why Ministers like a standard submission template, or know to speak to the Private Office and find out how the Minister likes submissions sent to ensure that it goes in a format that lands with them to let them do their job. It’s the little things like this, the lived experience and practical understanding of how Whitehall works at its best that is needed to ensure things work in the way you want them to.

A constant theme running throughout this submission is a sense of ‘I know better than the system’ and an unwillingness to use established procedures and channels to do things the right way.

Sometimes a gentle disregard for rules and a willingness to turn a Nelsonian blind eye can be helpful to shape things in a productive way. At other times working outwith the system, rather than around it, can be dangerous.

Perhaps the most concerning parts of the evidence comes in the authors confession to in their desperation for processing, sending the passport photos and data to both members of the Faststream whatsapp group (essentially an informal whatsapp chat group for civil service fast stream members) and also one of their siblings to share hugely sensitive personal data electronically to try to process it.

This local initiative constitutes a potentially massive breach – the idea that the passport details of Afghans applying for asylum in the UK, during a crisis were being willingly sent by this person to a vast whatsapp group and shared without any consideration of the consequences beggars belief. The media has rightly attacked breaches in other areas, this one would seem to be of equal concern.

Much of the submission deals in faith and belief in a near religious context. Paragraph after paragraph is prefaced with “I believe” or “I understand” – the actual definitive statements based on lived practical experience are in short supply.

One of the most arrogant and borderline offensive statements in the document was the moment when the author arrogantly states that he believed that the military team sent to work with him had never used Excel or Outlook professionally before. 

There is a significant disparity between the factual evidence and clear objective statements of “I did”, “I saw” and the like, and lots of “I believe” in the manner of a quasi-religious text written in a manner that is both non-libellous and full of lovely content for the media and Parliamentarians to digest.

What emerges is a lengthy document full of little more than gossip, rumour and supposition. Yet despite this, the author draws on the full extent of his four or five shifts in one specific area to attack the FCO corporately for its conduct of the Kabul evacuation, in a damning attack blaming planning, poor co-ordination and a failure to work properly.

It is very easy to do this, after all particularly when Kabul did not end with everyone leaving, sending in a criticism that the FCDO had failed is an easy thing to do. The problem though is that this person is attacking based not so much on their lived experience, more what they have heard and believe – a subtle but important distinction.

Without doubt there will have been things that could have been done differently or better in the Kabul evacuation. Show me a crisis where there wasn’t a lengthy list of Lessons Identified and I’ll show you an event that wasn’t a crisis. The nature of the work means that you are dealing with rapidly changing circumstances, a situation that was changing by the hour and a wide range of political and military challenges that were constantly impacting what was happening.

Had the author sat in COBR meetings, or been involved in the first-hand discussions with Ministers on the range of options open, then this criticism would have been more legitimate. Instead reading it, one is struck by the sense of an organisation trying to do its best, under trying circumstances and where there is a huge amount going on that needed to be dealt with.

Staging a full crisis response is always hard – particularly for an organisation like the FCDO where the majority of their staff are globally based, and not easily in reach of London. Doing so at a time of COVID travel restrictions and associated challenges and in the middle of the nations main summer holiday season makes it even harder still. This is not an excuse – but a statement of fact.

It is often forgotten just how small the FCDO is as an organisation, with very few staff based in London, compared to their global footprint. Trying to pull a crisis response on this scale and timescale together is not easy – there are no pools of bored mandarins loafing around King Charles Street waiting for the crisis button to be pressed so that they can charge into action. Instead it relies on who happens to be available at the time – one can only imagine the outrage if FCDO staffing insisted on having lots of contingent crisis pools good to go ‘just in case’ and sitting around without much to do.

There is no doubt that things could have been done better. There is no doubt that people we wanted to get out could not get out. But was that due to incompetence at Whitehall, or was it due to the practical complexities of an incredibly difficult fast moving and challenging situation that stretched every participating nation to the limit of the possible?

What is perhaps most telling is that it is clear the author is a very disaffected individual. Reading it, they admit to having made a complaint to the Permanent Secretary about breaches of the Civil Service Code linked to OP PITTING, and in turn had the chance to discuss these concerns with the Permanent Secretary in person, and had an independent investigation conducted by a Senior Civil Servant into their concerns.

What is notable is two things- firstly the SCS found no breach of the Civil Service Code occurred, but offered apparently some recommendations for change. The author of the submission confesses to not having bothered to read the report written into his concerns – in other words, because he did not get the answer he was seeking, he chose not to read and understand why there was no breach.

Secondly, the author justifies his actions as whistleblowing on the grounds that he thinks he knows better than both the Permanent Secretary and the individual who conducted the investigation into his claims. He is open about this in his submission.

We thus have the situation emerging where an inexperienced junior Civil Servant who spent a few shifts handling one specific part of a crisis response, and in the process  has admitted to committing a number of very serious security and personal data breaches involving Afghans applying for asylum in the UK, then raised his concerns and was given both the chance to have the most senior individuals in the department listen to them and have them properly independently investigated, and then when not validated, chose not to read the report and resign instead.

Some whistleblowers do so for incredibly noble reasons, and put themselves at significant personal risk to do the right thing. Others step up and do so in order to do what they think is right based on experience and understanding of a situation and where they can see it would make a material difference to do so.

To seek to claim to be a whistleblower on the basis of such highly limited experience and exposure, and then to make a series of sweeping and grandiose claims about the totality of the FCDO and wider HMG response to the OP PITTING situation is, to put it mildly, a bold move.

Were one feeling immensely cynical, then based purely on what was laid out in the statement and no other information, a narrative can be formed that indicates the author was a civil servant who appears to have had a short FCDO career, and was undergoing language training.

During their short stint on PITTING, they conducted a series of extremely serious security breaches which could potentially have had career ending consequences, and when it became clear that they faced potentially very serious consequences for their actions, which may have included loss of their posting, chose to step aside, potentially rather than face internal consequences, which could have been career ending in scope. They then chose to reframe their conduct and actions as that of a whistleblower to suit their own personal narrative. Such a view would be immensely cynical of course…

To try to make out that the author is a noble whistleblower is perhaps wide of the mark – at best they were an inexperienced official, out of their depth, struggling to cope and probably not the right fit for the role they were in.

It is reasonable to ask whether it is appropriate for someone using a pseudonym to criticise someone who has gone public. That is entirely fair and reasonable challenge – the response would be a simple, the blog is written under a pseudonym as that is what it has become known for. As many readers will know, I have enjoyed many happy coffees/beers with readers over the years, and formed many lasting friendships as a result of this blog.

There is though a point when it feels appropriate to present an alternate perspective, and not accept without question evidence provided without contextualising it, and offering an alternative viewpoint. That is not to defend without question, but to offer reasonable challenge to what is being reported and present an alternative point of view.

To assume the narrative of failure, and that because one person saw things they felt were wrong means that the FCDO has corporately failed is neither helpful nor appropriate. There is no doubt that there will be many lessons emerging from PITTING – it was an operational success and a strategic defeat. But we must be careful to draw the right lessons, and ask the right questions – and compare how the UK did to others in the same circumstances.

No other nation did better, many did far worse – to imply that the FCDO has failed is to do a grave disservice to many people who did all they could to make the best of a bad situation. PITTING saw the very best of the Civil Service and Armed Forces in giving their all to help make things better – they deserve better than this as a legacy of the operation.