Expert insight, analysis and comment on key public policy issues
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: All posts Posted:
Thinks-tanks get a massive amount of (sometimes ill-deserved) attention, but they are small, usually ideologically biased and carry out only very limited research. We are big, neutral and carry out massive amounts of research – which doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. That is partly our fault, for not communicating our research well enough […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted:
Different because we have a new home, and a new family. Whitehall Watch is now part of “Manchester Policy Blogs” – one of several streams of analysis and comment from academics at the University of Manchester and from many other places too. Different too because Whitehall Watch itself will gradually be changing into a “multi-author” […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted:
This is an appeal for a bit of research help from Whitehall Watch’s highly knowledgeable readership….. There is a widespread belief – often repeated in serious academic texts – that any defeat on ‘budget’ or ‘money’ motions in the House of Commons is tantamount to a vote of no confidence. I’m grateful to Prof Philip […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted:
By Colin Talbot, University of Manchester Britain is still a majority social-democratic country. That is, politically, the most significant finding of the latest British Social Attitudes survey published this week. Most people want a country which “gets and spends” about what we do now, or even more, rather than less. The BSA figures seem to […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted:
Today’s NAO Report on Universal Credit implementation is one of the hardest hitting critiques in living memory from a usually restrained institution. I would say “I hate to say I told you so”, but I don’t ‘hate to say it” and I did, three years ago. But first the NAO’s verdict: “The National Audit Office […]
Post written by Colin Talbot for The Conversation. The idea that competition is better than monopoly provision in public services is now established wisdom among the British political elite. Since the advent of something commonly called “New Public Management” in the early 1980s, privately managed organisations have been taken to be more efficient and innovative […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted:
I thought this as interesting enough to share….. especially as an awful lot of public management reform is predicated on trying to replicate in the public sector the sort of outmoded private sector practices discussed below…. July 30, 201312:49 PM In his New York Times Magazine column this week, Adam Davidson writes about the challenges of measuring […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted:
Hi all, I thought I should give you a quick update. Over the summer Whitehall Watch will be changing. First of all, Whitehall Watch will slowly become more of a multi-author blog, drawing on our community of “Whitehall Watchers” at Manchester, and, we hope more widely. We will be inviting anyone who shares our interest […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted:
We, as a country, are failing dismally to provide a proper broadband infrastructure. While debate rages around whether or not we’ll have HS2 sometime in the dim and distant future, right here right now we are lagging behind in our 21st century cyber infrastructure. I suppose I ought to declare an interest. I used to […]
By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted:
FROM: Beyond 2011 Independent Working Group – Save Our Statistics? This is an appeal by the Beyond 2011 independent working group to those who use official population and social statistics in the UK, particularly those concerned with area-based statistics. We are here referring to the rich range of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics which are currently […]