David Cameron’s remark that he sometimes felt like saying to our military chiefs “you do the fighting and I’ll do the talking” has raised some interesting issues.

Back in November 2010, and again in January 2011, I made said that the Universal Credit reforms had insanely tight timescales for implementation, especially given the scale and complexity of the IT developments necessary to make it work – you can read the original posts here: Welfare Reform: It’s the Implementation, Stupid and Great Train Wreck of 2013. And […]

Jill Sherman reports in today’s The Times (16 June 2011) that the Coalition government’s long delayed public service reform White Paper has been delayed, again.

The NHS has traditionally been organized, like most public services, on the basis of place. This has been both a control and a planning mechanism. It is a planning mechanism because it uses available information about the demographic and health profile of an area and seeks to match provision to need. It is also a […]

It is widely recognised, and mostly accepted, that ‘utilities’ provide a public service and not just private services, so it is legitimate to regulate them in ways that ensure the public interest. This is partly because there are always elements of natural monopoly in the way in which these services – power, water, fixed line […]

Back in the early 1990s I was living in London and my then GP was Dr John Dunwoody, ex husband of formidable Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody and himself a former Labour MP. John ran a singleton practice on the edge of Clapham Common. I was visiting John as a patient just after the first wave […]

Sorry for the absence of posts for a while – I have been off-line due to domestic issues involving the health service – hence the next blog!

There has been huge hype in the media about the “collapse” of  Labour’s vote in Scotland and the possibility the SNP will win a referendum on independence, when they eventually get around to calling it (they appear to be in no hurry).

Most the commentariate – as usual – focuses on seats delivered by the elections, and not the actual votes cast. Even those who support voting reform (e.g. Polly Toynbee in The Guardian) continue to use seats, as a proxy for actual support, as the main basis for their analysis.

It is well known that there has been something of a “performance movement” (as Beryl Radin has called it) in western countries in recent years. (I have written an account of UK developments for the World Bank myself here).