When the Cabinet Office advertised their “outsourced” project to get advice about how some other countries manage the relationship between Ministers and Mandarins they made it clear they wanted a think-tank or University to bid for it. This is the (brief) version of how I was part, and then not part, of the winning bid.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 54,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 12 Film Festivals Click here to see the complete report.

I’ve just been on the sharp end of HMRCs rather dodgy tax computers. I read stories about them spitting out incorrect tax codes and causing all sorts of mayhem, but I never thought it would happen to me.

One of George Osborne’s favourite mantra’s is the above one. Unfortunately it’s based on a rather school-boy understanding of economics. Of course everyone is familiar with the personal debt spiral. Adam and Eve enjoy the good life. They spend a bit more than they earn and make up the difference with credit card debt. Once […]

The final point I want to make is about the “dog that didn’t bark” in Mr Osborne’s Autumn Statement. What could, and should Britain look like After Austerity?

The second major thing wrong with today’s Autumn Statement was the usual political spin embedded in Mr Osborne’s “it weren’t me guv” plea. According to the Chancellor, supposedly aided and abetted by the OBR, the poorer than expected economic results, and knock-on poorer than expected public finances, is all down to those rotten Continentals over […]

George Osborne delivered his Autumn Statement today to general critical declaim. Let me begin with a rather geeky gripe about the Autumn Statement. It was a mini-Budget, indeed a mini-Spending Review, rather than an Autumn Statement. In this George Osborne has gone one up on his predecessor, Alistair Darling, who has famously said he delivered […]

In a couple of weeks I’m attending a (private) seminar on Lessons from the History of Whitehall Performance Measurement Systems. I have fairly well developed views of my own on this already, but I’d be very interested to get any input from colleagues, especially those with “insider knowledge” of how these things have worked and evolved.

Please see below for details of available funding for PhDs starting 2013. If anyone is interested in applying to research in the areas of public sector performance, civil service reform, general public management, etc I would be willing to consider supporting an application and being named as a potential supervisor. But please note these schemes […]

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?