Designing government for a better Britain

Discussion paper

The structure of UK government has changed little, in fundamentals, over the last century:

“the centre”, consisting of a small Prime Minister’s Office, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. Perhaps the main enduring change in this set-up has been the migration, after some to-ing and fro-ing, of responsibility for HR and organisational improvement from the Treasury to the Cabinet Office.

Some twenty strongly differentiated departments, typically reporting to a Secretary of State. All have policy responsibility, many also include large delivery functions. Staff are employed by departments, not the Civil Service, likewise technology and finance are largely managed separately, though recent years have seen attempts by the Cabinet Office to bring about more direction and consistency. Despite the name, they are really separate organisations working together in a highly confederal structure, not sub-divisions of a single government machine.

A highly complex structure of organisations delivering public services, some of them formally part of departments and staffed by civil servants, and others ‘arm’s length bodies.’ Other public service functions are the responsibility of local government, with its own democratic accountability. The last thirty or so years have seen increasing outsourcing of public service activities to the public and third sector and the removal of functions, independence and resources from local government. That a tax inspector is a civil servant working in a government department, and a care worker typically nowadays works for a private company under contract to a council – both funded by the taxpayer – is the result of historical accident, not of any principle.

While the fundamentals have not changed, the detailed picture has been subject to almost constant flux. Responsibilities have been moved around between departments, which have been created, merged, renamed, broken up and abolished. Other public service organisations have likewise been subjected to frequent renamings, mergers and splits.

This paper explores what improvements could be made to current government structures to make decision-making more effective and less bureaucratic.