Search Results for: devo

There is life beyond austerity; now give us the freedom to make it happen

By Ed Cox Filed Under: Featured, Westminster Watch Posted: December 3, 2013

During Manchester Policy Week, four leading thinktanks debated what government might look like beyond the General Election and towards 2020. In an abridged version of his speech at the event IPPR North’s Director, Ed Cox (pictured above, standing), says there is life beyond the current austerity measures – but only if there are significant changes to present […]

Hangover from US shutdown will last for months

By Perri 6 Filed Under: Featured Posted: October 18, 2013

With a deal having been struck to end the 16-day shutdown in the US, the wheels of government administration are starting to turn once again. But, writes Prof Perri 6, restarting is not a simple case of ‘picking up where we left off’ and the legacy challenges for those involved in public management are significant. […]

NYT Excerpt: Radical Accounting And The Value Of Ideas

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 […]

In Defence of Quangos

By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: June 22, 2013

This is the written evidence i presented to the PASC back in 2011 on the so-called cull of quangos, setting out why they are an important part of any democratic state: IN DEFENCE OF QUANGOS why arms-length bodies are a vital part of our democratic system of public administration and what should be done to organise them better.

Visions of Subsidiarity and the Curse of the British Political Tradition

By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: May 20, 2013

by Martin Smith (York University), Dave Richards and Patrick Diamond (both Manchester University) There is little doubt that the previous Labour Administration and the current Coalition Government have discernibly different governing projects. Despite a rhetorical appeal to the contrary, Labour substantially increased both the size and role of the state, developing a new set of […]

Measuring Leviathan: Big Government and the Myths of Public Spending

By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: January 14, 2013

The political debate about public spending in the UK is bedevilled by myths and spin about how much we actually spend. So I thought it was time for a little myth-busting primer, with some pretty diagrams, about how we should be discussing public spending….

Jeremy Hunt (DCMS) debacle raises again the issue of Civil Service Reform

By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: April 26, 2012

This week saw an extraordinary outburst from the most recently retired Head of the Civil Service, Lord Gus O’Donnell. He said, on the BBC, “”When governments go through difficult patches you are looking for who you can blame. The issue comes up of ‘well, let’s try and blame the Civil Service’. It does not usually […]

Civil Service Accountability and the CS Code

By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: March 13, 2012

A civil service colleague wrote to me following my previous post about Civil Service accountability, pointing out the role of the ‘Civil Service Code’ in their accountability. He was of course correct to point this out, but the ‘Code’ does not actually go as far as the ‘Armstrong Doctrine’ or the ‘Osmotherly Rules’ I talked […]

Localism: ‘It’s like letting go of your toddler’s bike’ says Mandarin

By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: February 23, 2012

Dame Helen Ghosh DCB is, I’m sure, a very fine civil servant in may ways, but sensitive to others perspectives she’s clearly not. Speaking at the NAO Conference on Performance yesterday (22 Feb 2012) Dame Helen was explaining how the Home office was attempting to devolve more powers to police forces, when she came up […]

Confusion and Denationalisation at the centre of the Health and Social Care Bill

By Colin Talbot Filed Under: Whitehall Watch Posted: November 12, 2011

I reprint below an excellent briefing by Professor Allyson Pollock and colleagues on key clauses of the Health and Social Care Bill. It addresses two critical issues: The removal of legal responsibility from the Secretary of State to prove health services and The confusing mixture of ‘person-based’ and ‘area-based’ arrangements for patients (and consequently funding […]