I appeared briefly on BBC TV nationally and in the NW after the PCC election farce and made some remarks I thought it might be worth just expanding on a little. There were two issues about these elections: were they a good idea in the first place? And were they badly implemented?

What do health care, education, symphony orchestras and hairdressing all have in common? They all seem to get remorselessly more costly to produce. A new book – The Cost Disease by William Baumol and others – sets out to explain why.

The Institute for Government is pleased to bring to your attention the following event hosted by the Better Government Initiative. Good Government – a Mid-Term Review An event to mark the launch of a new report Wednesday 14th November 2012, 18:00 – 19:30

Out first ‘Policy@Manchester’ Week – 29 Oct to 2 Nov – is now finalised with a great set of speakers and events. For more details got to www.manchester.ac.uk/policy and follow the link to the Week. To reserve a place at an event email policy@manchester.ac.uk

I am currently (re)exploring some issues around the nature of the British “administrative elite” – which, for reasons I’ll explain in a later publication, I am restricting to mainly the Senior Civil Service (SCS) for the moment.

The inestimable Atul Gawande (author of The Checklist Manifesto) has done it again with a brilliant little column in the New Yorker.

So, it appears fairly certain now that the Coalition Government is going to announce – sometime next year – Spending Review 2013.

Here’s the summary of my contributions to yesterday’s discussion on the Guardian Public Leaders Network.

I understand something of the frustration and anger of the relatives of the Hillsborough victims because I had a similar experience – albeit on a much smaller scale. British officialdom has a cult of secrecy and cover-up that is still with us, even if is has gotten slightly better. In 1982 my younger brother Gary, […]