Featured – Page 17

Continuity and Change in the Civil Service III: Changing Accountability

By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Featured, Whitehall Watch Posted: January 21, 2015

The unwritten British constitution as it affects Civil Service accountability – especially to Parliament – is going through an incremental, but very significant, change, argues Professor Colin Talbot. At the heart of the British constitution lies the concept of separation of the administrative elite from the political elite. This is very different from other countries […]

Civil Service Accountability to the Public part II

By Martin Stanley Filed Under: Featured, Whitehall Watch Posted: January 19, 2015

In the second of three blogs Martin Stanley examines whether senior officials should be more accountable – especially to MPs – for the advice that they give to Ministers. This is the fourth post in our series on the Civil Service. How would officials react to greater public scrutiny? Most of them, I suspect, would […]

Continuity and Change in the Civil Service II: How SPADs and Tsars are changing the Whitehall landscape

By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Featured, Whitehall Watch Posted: January 16, 2015

The UK has had a clear dividing line between its political and administrative leadership. In the third post in our series examining the current state of the Civil Service, Professor Colin Talbot argues that the rise of the SPAD and the Tsar is changing this. Special advisors – or SPADs, to use their common acronym […]

How racism harms health

By Laia Becares Filed Under: Ethnicity, Featured Posted: January 15, 2015

Lifetime experiences of racism damage the health of ethnic minorities from before birth until death, writes Dr Laia Bécares. Racism is toxic for health. This can be taken literally, proven by a vast environmental justice literature that shows how some ethnic minorities are more likely than the white majority population to live within close […]

Continuity and Change in the Civil Service I: Is “Sir Humphrey” history?

By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Featured, Whitehall Watch Posted: January 12, 2015

Over the coming weeks Policy@Manchester will run a series of blogs exploring the role of the Civil Service and how it works with Government Ministers. In the first, Colin Talbot explores whether “Sir Humphrey” is no more. Has the Civil Service moved away from the image of the public school, Oxbridge, pale, male and stale […]

Drug policy: Time for change?

By Michael Donmall Filed Under: All posts, Featured Posted: January 9, 2015

After four people are suspected to have been killed by tablets that may have been thought to be ecstasy over the festive season, Michael Donmall, of the National Drug Evidence Centre at The University of Manchester writes about the dangers of keeping recreational drugs illegal and calls for controlled availability of tested products. Recent deaths […]

Policing the North

By Michael Dawson Filed Under: All posts, Featured Posted: January 8, 2015

Last month Metropolitan Police commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe called for fewer police forces in the UK as cuts in public spending change the way that out services have to operate . Here Michael Dawson, of devolution campaign group Campaign for the North says the region should have a single police force; There are many merits to Bernard Hogan-Howe’s recent […]

Public policy and the hegemony of happiness

By Annie Austin Filed Under: Featured Posted: January 7, 2015

Policy fetishism about GDP is being replaced by an unthinking devotion to simplistic happiness indicators, warns Annie Austin. “In a decade’s time we’re going to be using happiness as the sole basis for judging the impact of public policy.” So stated Paul Dolan recently in the opening sequence of ITV’s Tonight programme, entitled ‘Is Britain […]

Time to ditch GDP as a measure of economic well-being

By Diane Coyle Filed Under: Featured, Whitehall Watch Posted: January 6, 2015

There is nothing inevitable or ‘natural’ about using GDP to measure the economy. The Office for National Statistics has embarked on a journey toward a more rounded assessment of economic well-being, argues Professor Diane Coyle. Just before Christmas, the Office for National Statistics took a giant step, in its normal low key manner: it published […]

Development in 2015

By David Hulme Filed Under: Featured Posted: January 5, 2015

As we enter 2015, Professor David Hulme looks ahead to the next twelve months in international development as the Millennium Development Goals come to an end and plans take shape for the next phase. This year, 2015, will be an important year for ideas and policies about international development. It marks the completion of the […]