THE Peter Principle, named after its originator, says that: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence.” This leads to Peter’s Corollary: “In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out their duties.”

According to the Peter Principle a person who is competent at their job will earn a promotion to a position that requires different skills. If the promoted person lacks the skills required for the new role, they will be incompetent at the new level, and will not be promoted again. If the person is competent in the new role, they will be promoted again and will continue to be promoted until reaching a level at which they are incompetent. Being incompetent, the individual will not qualify for promotion again, and so will remain stuck at this “Final Placement” or “Peter’s Plateau”.

This outcome is inevitable, given enough time and enough positions in the hierarchy to which competent employees may be promoted.

Anyone listening to the evidence provided by Dominic Cummings sees a very extreme version of the Peter Principle in operation at senior British Government level. According to Cummings, the people at the top of the UK administration are inadequate for their positions. Interestingly, he includes himself in this category. He says top civil servants, advisers and ministers are unfit.

As if to clearly demonstrate this poverty of Westminster thinking, the UK’s top civil servant, Simon Case, popped into a House of Lords meeting recently to regale the assembled peers with the following dewdrops of distilled wisdom.

“I think the experience of both Brexit and Covid means that much more of government, so much more of policy, includes consideration of Union questions earlier in the process. IN EVERYTHING WE DO WE SHOULD BE THINKING HOW IT IMPACTS ON THE UNION.”

Not, you will note, the betterment and welfare of the Scottish, or even British people.

The thought may have occurred to you that there is a small flaw in his thinking. What, for example, happens when the interests of Scotland are not advanced by Union considerations?

Remember that all Scottish civil servants ultimately report to him. Case, demonstrating again his keen sense of Scottish affairs, said this arrangement should continue “as there was no need for a separate Scottish civil service”.

In short, the man to whom top civil servants in Scotland look to for guidance and, more importantly, promotion, is saying the Union comes first.

Do they share with their boss details of Scottish Government plans and thinking? After all Case also declares; “there is a new vigour to defend the Union”. So presumably he would wish to know of any matters that may run counter to this drive.

Clearly, Case is a man to watch; not least because he falls within the category of those described by Cummings as “unfit”.

Cummings also said that good civil servants have fallen by the wayside in Whitehall, while other less competent are promoted. So, who is he?

In March 2017, Simon Case was announced as the Director General for the UK–EU Partnership. He took up the post in May 2017. In this role he was “leading the UK Government’s work on exiting and seeking a new partnership with the European Union”.

In January 2018, he was appointed Director General Northern Ireland and Ireland: in this role, he acted as the lead civil servant for finding a solution to the Irish Border issue post-Brexit.

Evidently, he is building on the enormous success of these efforts in Northern Ireland in his approach to Scotland. Case also declares there is “no need for a separate Scottish civil service”. Some reading the above account might beg to differ.

However, we do not always need to look to Whitehall to see the Peter Principle at work. Closer to home we have the example of the Liberal Democrats. Now, Willie Rennie may well be a nice cove. But a successful leader – not so much. Indeed, his leadership qualities, or their lack, are the despair of those within his own camp.

A leading LibDem describes the recent Scottish election campaign as “a disaster”. The Lib Dems lost 50 deposits, compared to 48 in 2016 and 25 in 2011. They now have only four MSPs and are behind the Scottish Greens in the Holyrood pecking order. And those precious few owe more to tactical voting than LibDem appeal, some suggest.

The great constitutional hope of those not wedded to independence or Union is federalism or Home Rule. Whatever form this takes it’s bound to involve control from Westminster, with a structure and people described as “unfit”.

Food for thought.

Scott Davis is this week’s guest on the TNT show. Join us at 7pm on Wednesday on IndyLive