A new report from the National Audit Office examines the British governments attempts to reorganise “arms-length bodies” in the UK. One of the central conclusions is that the reorganisation is dragging many of the functions of these bodies back to the ‘centre’ and closer to political control – in other words a big shift from quasi-autonomy back to hierarchical control. This is being achieved by either abolishing bodies and absorbing functions back into Ministries, or changing the status of the bodies. I reprint below the NAO’s own short summary of their findings, but the whole report is worth reading.

One final note: the Report contains nothing about the abolition of the NAO’s “sister” body the Audit Commission (as David Walker has pointed out). A very curious omission. Continue reading →

There is often more continuity between themselves and their predecessors than any new Government cares to admit. One way they seek to disguise these continuities is to change the names of things, with minimal change to the actual thing itself, whether it’s a policy, a system or an organisation. Continue reading →

Tonight (Thursday 22) and tomorrow the BBC Radio 4 PM programme will carry items by reporter Andrew Bomford about how greater Manchester has fared over the past year in the face of a sluggish economy and large public spending cuts. It’s based on a report we wrote for them on the impact of the cuts (which you can get here). Continue reading →

Inequality across the OECD is rising, including in Britain, even before the impact of the current crisis has even worked its way through, an important new OECD report shows. Continue reading →

George Osborne’s “Autumn Statement” is certainly not a Pre Budget Report, as he promised it would not be. Instead, it is much more like a mini-Budget or even, given the timescales involved in many announcements, a mini-Spending Review. Continue reading →

Last week I gave evidence – alongside Professor Lord Peter Hennessy and Professor Tony Dean –  to the Public Administration Select Committee in Parliament on the changes taking place at the top of the UK Civil Service. The uncorrected minutes of the evidence session can be found here.

Other evidence sessions and the terms of reference and other information for the PASC inquiry can be found on their website here.

I also have articles examining different aspects of these changes appearing in Public Finance and Public Servant magazines over the next few weeks.

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 arrangements – something I’ve brought up here before).

Continue reading →

Public Administration Select Committee - Announcement

EVIDENCE SESSION: PASC TO QUESTION ACADEMICS AND JOURNALISTS ABOUT HEAD OF THE CIVIL SERVICE ROLE

Tuesday 15 November 2011 Continue reading →

The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has offered a very interesting twist on the western financial crisis. To summarize, he argues that the problem in the developing world is the translation of real, physical, assets into trabeable paper. This allows the raising of capital through loans, which lubricates capitalist development. The west, he suggests, now has the opposite problem – it has allowed the growth of lots of paper that has no clear relationship with real assets.

In short – the developing world has lots of assets but not enough paper whereas the West has too much paper that has no assets. Continue reading →