What begins with mutuals could end with privatisation
It is not controversial to observe that, under this government, the UK’s public sector is in rapid retreat. The coalition’s massive reductions in departmental expenditure and civil service operating costs ensure that public spending as a proportion of GDP is set to fall for years to come. Hammering away in the media, ministers endlessly portray this as a rebalancing of the economy – repeating statistics designed to show... Read full post

We need a fall-back plan in case the cuts prompt a double-dip 
 
Reading through our Permanent Secretaries’ Round-Up, it’s striking how many express their pride in the civil service’s rapid response to the radical policies set out by the coalition. To the surprise of some new ministers, the civil service has demonstrated the strength of its commitment to serving the elected government – and in the process, won the trust of the prime minister, the deputy PM... Read full post

Secret info is best dispensed by a tap, not a tsunami
 
With intelligence information, it seems, it is flood or drought. For decades, Britain’s intelligence agencies operated so deep in the shadows that their public profile was defined largely by George Smiley and James Bond. Since 1994, they’ve crept slowly onto the public stage – in part thanks to the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) – and we now have a more accountable set of agencies... Read full post

From the reporters’ eyrie up in the rafters of the House of Commons, MPs’ hairstyles are more obvious than their faces. Unless the press pack are trying to identify – to name a couple at random – Michael Fabricant or William Hague, this is more handicap than advantage. But the vantage point can provide the odd interesting tidbit; and the reporters couldn’t help noticing, as Ed Miliband sat awaiting his first Prime Minister’s Questions as Labour leader, that a... Read full post

Public finances crisis may persuade HMT of the need for reform
 
Every solar system needs a fixed point to revolve around – and in the solar system of government, that immutable object is the Treasury. For centuries, HMT has laid down the spending rules and distributed the cash, defining the orbits of the spending departments. Secretaries of state may govern their own little worlds, but it’s the Treasury that determines their climates.
 
Those climates are now, of... Read full post

A report that claims to defend taxpayers cost them £650k
 
Conference season is upon us, and this year all three really matter. With the Liberal Democrats in government, Nick Clegg’s defence of the coalition was occupying the news media last Monday – until a report on public sector salaries suddenly rose up the bulletins and spread through the news websites. Launched ahead of a BBC Panorama programme on the topic, the report won lavish coverage across the... Read full post

Labour's redundancy plan was the best we've heard so far

Given the new government’s determination to cut spending, its radical reform agenda, and its Tory members’ traditional antipathy to the union movement, a serious clash with the civil service unions was almost inevitable. I say ‘almost’, because while job cuts and public service reforms were always going to be flashpoints, the previous government nearly pushed through a compromise on redundancy payments that... Read full post

So far, councils have given a lot more than they’ve received
 
The coalition government came to power loudly proclaiming its commitment to localism. Local authorities, said David Cameron and communities secretary Eric Pickles, would reclaim their authority and suck powers back from Whitehall. The era of an overweening, over-centralised UK government was over.
   The idea won support across the coalition. The Liberal Democrats have long supported devolution, while the... Read full post

The coalition is winning on redundancy; it should be generous
The wrangling between the government and the unions over the civilservice redundancy scheme is slowly turning into a full-scaleindustrial dispute – and one with the potential to cause misery all round.
    The government doesn’t want this argument: it has enough on itsplate without seeing public services seize up in a series of strikes anddemonstrations. The public, scarred by their own... Read full post

 
A squeeze this tight risks asphyxiation
 
At the Budget all the debt chickens came home to roost in a large and ugly flock, darkening the skies above Westminster before settling in a screeching, squabbling mass on the Treasury. These birds, George Osborne told us, are now set to feast on Whitehall’s budgets.
 
The coalition presents these debts as the result of both Labour’s profligacy, and a credit crisis rooted in poor governance. That is certainly half of... Read full post