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Colin Talbot is professor of government at the University of Manchester. He writes 'Whitehall Watch' in a personal capacity.
Colin’s Tweets
- RT @instituteforgov: Extract from @jon_trickett speech on future of Whitehall @guardian bit.ly/16Jo0gA Video here http://t.co/fD4JE… 3 hours ago
- Bernard Jenkin MP, chair of Public Admin Select Cttee, calls for commission on future of the civil service bernardjenkinmp.com/Parliament/jen… 3 hours ago
- Visions of Subsidiarity and the Curse of the British Political Tradition wp.me/pnkIs-Kc via @colinrtalbot 4 hours ago
- Interesting Dashboard for the PM. Not sure he'd think so. cameronsdashboard.co.uk 4 hours ago
Colin’s latest book
Comment is free…
Please feel free to comment and especially to add your own analyses or experiences. Just click on a blog and go to the comment section at the bottom. Or you can email me at colin.talbot@mbs.ac.ukTop Posts
- Visions of Subsidiarity and the Curse of the British Political Tradition
- Lies, Damned Lies and Government misuse of official statistics: Select Committee Attacks Government
- Lord O'Donnell Suggests .... that someone rather like him should be put in charge of vetting government policy. Seriously?
- The Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything? It’s 43.
- UKIP: Building a Party when the "Party" is Over?
- Why Spending Review 2013?
- Spending Review 2013 – politics trumps planning, again.
- The Scrutiny of Public Spending: Margaret Hodge, Robert Chote, and Amyas Morse, amongst others, to discuss how Britain manages public money.
- Andy Coulson and and his non 'Developed Vetting' - why on earth did the Civil Service let this happen?
- It’s Purely Academic…..
Discussion
- colinrtalbot on Visions of Subsidiarity and the Curse of the British Political Tradition
- Brat on Lord O’Donnell Suggests …. that someone rather like him should be put in charge of vetting government policy. Seriously?
- Inquisitive Practitioner on Lord O’Donnell Suggests …. that someone rather like him should be put in charge of vetting government policy. Seriously?
- Chris Wilson on UKIP: Building a Party when the “Party” is Over?
- brian carr on UKIP: Building a Party when the “Party” is Over?
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Category Archives: Performance
Top Twenty Whitehall Watch blog posts
Here’s the top twenty Whitehall Watch blog posts (so far) and the number of views. This doesn’t include numbers for posts that have been republished by Public Finance, Public Servant, LSE Policy and Politics and the Huffington Post.
Targets? What targets? Change and Continuity in the performance regime in Whitehall
We were told, when the new Coalition Government came to be, that it would put an end to “New Labour targetry”. The use of targets for public sector performance had become a bête noir of both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in … Continue reading
Posted in Performance, Politics, Public Administration, Public Management, Whitehall
7 Comments
policy@manchester launches
Public policy community comes together 12 Jul 2012 The University of Manchester has established Policy@Manchester as a network bringing together a range of academics working in a variety of public policy areas.
David Cameron’s iPad “Dashboard” App
As someone who’s been writing and working with performance measures and dashboards for longer than I care to remember, I found this post on ‘False Economy’ (link below) just so funny I had to reproduce it…. ———————- A preview of … Continue reading
Posted in Performance, Politics, Whitehall
1 Comment
The Civil Service Reform Plan – Mostly Old Wine in Very Old, but relabelled, Bottles.
The Civil Service Reform Plan announced yesterday mostly rehashes old solutions, some sensible, others of dubious worth – but mostly renames stuff and proclaims it as if it was ‘new’. The cry of ‘cultural change’, for example, towards greater managerial … Continue reading
Posted in Performance, Politics, Public Administration, Public Management, Whitehall
4 Comments
Lies, Damned Lies, and Government ‘Efficiency’ Savings (Again)
It is nice to see that the new lot are just the same as the old lot, at least when it comes to reporting so-called “efficiency” or “waste” savings. Today Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude was telling anyone who would … Continue reading
Posted in Performance, Public Administration, Spending, Whitehall
1 Comment
What do 25% cuts look like? Like this…..
The BBC radio 4 ‘Today’ programme asked me if I’d give them an analysis of what a 25% cut in Departmental budegts would actually look like by applying it to one department: the Home Office (the interview is here if … Continue reading
Posted in Performance, Politics, Public Management, Spending
3 Comments
The Budget and Public Services: it really is worse than we thought
Spending on public services is set to reduce by 25% in real terms by 2014-15 (apart from Health and International Development). One quarter of all other public services could go – that is the equivalent of around a fifth of … Continue reading
Posted in Performance, Politics, Public Management, Spending
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Half a Million Public Sector Jobs To Go?
The CIPD has estimated that up to half a million public sector jobs could go within the next 5 years, whoever wins the next Election. Is this realistic and how does it sit in historic trends?
Posted in Performance, Politics, Spending, Whitehall
1 Comment
Lib Dems – a mysterious £860m saving?
The Liberal Democrats are making a great deal of how honest, detailed and clear they are being about the needs for ‘tough choices’ in public spending. And by and large they do seem to be, but there are some areas … Continue reading
Posted in Performance, Politics, Spending
1 Comment
NIC ‘jobs tax’ versus ‘Efficiency’ jobs cuts – NICs wins
Posted in Performance, Spending
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How Big an “Ask” Are the Tories Efficiency Plans?
Today David Cameron has been saying all day that the Tories efficiency savings amount to asking the government to save ‘£1 in every £100 that it spends’ and this is obviously ‘do-able’. On one level this is true, but only:
Posted in Performance, Politics, Spending, Whitehall
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What Did You Do in the Efficiency Wars, Daddy?
The Election campaign was almost completely dominated by efficiency issues yesterday, as Labour tried to dis the Tories plans to pay for not raising NIC by even more “savings”. As a result, I ended up doing radio, TV, and several … Continue reading
Posted in Performance, Spending, Whitehall
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NHS Efficiency Puzzle Solved – well, sort of
With a little help from my friends (see below) I’ve finally got a handle on how the Government manages to claim “£15-£20bn” of annual efficiency savings for the NHS by 2013-14. Unfortunately, the answer seems just daft as the Tories … Continue reading
Posted in Performance
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The Great Ignored? That’ll be The Big Deficit and The Big Market then.
The launch of the General Election campaign yesterday was most notable for what was not said, rather than what was.
Posted in Performance, Politics, Whitehall
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NHS Efficiency Target: Confusion Reigns
Confusion reigns in government over what the efficiency targets are for the NHS. To recap: in the Budget (para 6.14) it says that by 2013-14 the health service will be making annual efficiency savings of between £15bn and £20bn – … Continue reading
Posted in Performance, Spending
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Efficiency Wars (again)
see my latest post on Public Finance website
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Efficiency Wars
Efficiency Wars, by Colin Talbot Public Finance The first Efficiency Wars occurred in 2004, in the run-up to the last General Election the following year. Labour’s Gershon £21.5bn was pitted against the …
Posted in Performance
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NHS Efficiency: official – Chancellor misled Parliament
It’s official – the Budget ‘red book’ contained a glaring error about NHS efficiency savings and thus the Chancellor (obviously inadvertently) misled Parliament. The Budget stated: “Budget 2010 confirms that the NHS will deliver annual efficiency savings of £15 to … Continue reading
Posted in Performance, Whitehall
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