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Policy@Manchester Articles
Expert insight, analysis and comment on key public policy issues
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Welcome to the new “Whitehall Watch” – the same as the old Whitehall Watch, only different.

Colin Talbot By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: September 23, 2013

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” […]

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A welcome message from the Science and Technology editors

Danny FitzpatrickAndrew Balmer By Danny Fitzpatrick and Andrew Balmer Filed Under: Science and Technology Posted: September 23, 2013

Knowledge of science and technology permeates every social space, and is central to the ways we govern ourselves today. This blog focuses on what the current debates in science, technology and environmental science mean for policy and vice-versa. It aims to be a truly interdisciplinary platform seeking to bring together a range of diverse voices […]

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The Political Power of the Business Corporation

Carole Talbot By Carole Talbot Filed Under: All posts Posted: September 23, 2013

The Political Power of the Business Corporation, Stephen Wilks. Edward Elgar. March 2013. In The Political Power of the Business Corporation, the author argues that making corporations accountable is one of the most fundamental problems facing 21st century society along with terrorism, nuclear war and epidemics. It provides both an up-to-date analysis of how big […]

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Government defeats over public money in Parliament (crowd sourcing examples)

Colin Talbot By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: September 13, 2013

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 […]

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Britons say no to smaller state (BSA 30)

Colin Talbot By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: September 10, 2013

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 […]

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‘Universal Credit’ Crunch Arrives (as I predicted it would)

Colin Talbot By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: September 5, 2013

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 […]

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Limit public service competition to non-profits

Colin TalbotJoshua OCock By Colin Talbot and Joshua OCock Filed Under: Featured, Whitehall Watch Posted: August 29, 2013

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 […]

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Has the Office for Budget Responsibility achieved genuine independence from government?

Joshua OCock By Joshua OCock Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: August 21, 2013

Having been established by the government to take the politics out of fiscal and economic forecasting, the independence of the Office for Budget Responsibility is fundamental to its credibility and legitimacy. The appointment of Robert Chote as Chair in 2010 appears to have enhanced the OBR’s standing in this regard, but has not completely swept […]

NYT Excerpt: Radical Accounting And The Value Of Ideas

Colin Talbot By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: July 31, 2013

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 […]

Whitehall Watch is changing

Colin Talbot By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: July 30, 2013

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 […]

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