The Cabinet Office today published the IPPR Report on how senior civil servants are held to account, and their relationship to Ministers, from several other countries – with recommendations for change in the UK. You can also read IPPR Director Nick Pearce’s piece in today’s Times. (And if you want a rather different ‘take’ try this – […]

As the Spending Review (26 June) draws closer, speculation is rife about whether or not, and how, George Osborne will achieve the extra £11.5 billion in savings from welfare and departmental spending in 2015-16 that he is said to want. So far only about £3.6bn has been agreed, and the rest is the subject of […]

by Martin Smith (York University), Dave Richards and Patrick Diamond (both Manchester University) There is little doubt that the previous Labour Administration and the current Coalition Government have discernibly different governing projects.  Despite a rhetorical appeal to the contrary, Labour substantially increased both the size and role of the state, developing a new set of […]

I reproduce here the Press Release issued today by the Public Administration Select Committee – it speaks for itself. Here is the link to the actual Report: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubadm/77/77.pdf

Lord O’Donnell, former head of the civil service, has put forward some ideas for better scrutiny of proposed government policies. According to a report in Civil Service World: Among ideas to prevent “bad policies” from being introduced, [O’Donnell] said a new Office of Taxpayer Responsibility (OTR) should assess policies, requiring the government to specify their […]

UKIPs undoubtedly successful showing in the (mostly) English local elections has left many analysts speculating over whether this is a sustainable political shift to “four party” politics or not?

We are organising a series of debates and discussions about how Britain manages public money.

So, it is now official, we are going to have Spending Review 2013. First, let’s clear up some confusions – as far as we can – about where SR2013 “fits”.

The Chancellor delivered this year’s Budget with a lot of shouting – but the sound and fury disguises the essentially dolittle nature of his proposals. The main, modest, changes he proposes mostly do not kick in for 2, 3 or 4 years, when most agree what we need is action now to kick-start the economy. […]

I have just created two new news feeds using the rather useful *Scoop.It*. One is a newsfeed counterpart to Whitehall Watch with all the news stories I come across that are worth reading if you are into *Whitehall Watching* and is called – surprisingly – Whitehall Watch: http://www.scoop.it/t/whitehall-watch The other is more narrowly around the topic […]