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 […]

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 […]

Many of us who study public policy academically often discuss just what impact our work has – do we influence anything? With the Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise fast approaching, academics across Britain are busily putting together ‘impact’ statements to show just how much impact they have had. And one crucial area of ‘impact’ is […]

I have heard some ludicrous claims by politicians in the past but the claim that this government is launching one of the biggest programmes of public investment in our history is breathtakingly ridiculous.

 by Dave Richards and Martin J. Smith[1] In penning this review of the IPPR’s newly published report on Accountability and Responsiveness in the Senior Civil Service: Lessons from Overseas we’d like to invoke the spirit of Frankie Howard by starting with ‘The Prologue’.

The Chancellor, we are constantly being told, has stuck solidly to “Plan A” – the spending reductions set out in SR2010. And today’s “Spending Round” was only about 2015-16. Really?

(This is the second of a series of comments I’ll be making addressing different aspects of SR2013 over the next few days) SR 2013 has been agreed, we are told today. And some are claiming it was all settled amicably in the end (see Benedict Brogan at the Telegraph), without even having to convene the […]

(This is the first of a series of comments I’ll be making addressing different aspects of SR2013 over the next few days) It is striking that not a single political commentator has even asked the question: why is the Government tearing itself apart over a one-year Spending Review that doesn’t need to happen until next […]

This is the written evidence i presented to the PASC back in 2011 on the so-called cull of quangos, setting out why they are an important part of any democratic state: IN DEFENCE OF QUANGOS why arms-length bodies are a vital part of our democratic system of public administration and what should be done to organise them better.