How seriously should we take the Treasury’s renewed interest in what public spending achieves, asks Martin Wheatley.
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The distinction between different kinds of public servants hinders public sector collaboration. It is time to end it, says former Whitehall permanent secretary Lord Michael Bichard.
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The Commission for Smart Government launched its final policy paper at an event in Whitehall (Monday 12 July 2021), with the Rt Hon. Michael Gove MP in attendance. Watch the full event here.
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To coincide with the launch of our policy report “Strategic, Capable, Innovative, Accountable: Four Steps to Smarter Government”, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, who sits on the Commission, explains in a video message why he is endorsing the proposals.
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A high-level group of leaders from politics, public service and business has today called on the Government to drive a far more ambitious programme of Whitehall reform, warning that without transformative change its policy goals will not be met.
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Civil service reform is not a zero sum game where ministers win and civil servants lose, says Martin Wheatley, the research director of the Commission for Smart Government. Now is the time to make positive change for all.
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The Commission for Smart Government has called for the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury to set up a joint “Office of Strategy, Resources and Performance” to better support the prime minister and improve planning and delivery.
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Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster The Rt Hon. Michael Gove MP delivered a speech hosted by the Commission for Smart Government and PUBLIC, on the launch of the Declaration on Government Reform and ahead of the Commission’s final recommendations paper, to be launched in July 2021.
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An ambitious programme for government reform, to ensure the country builds back better from COVID-19 has been launched by ministers and civil servants today. The programme will ensure that the government has the tools and resources it needs to deliver on its agenda to level up across the UK.
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Boris Johnson is creating a new delivery unit in 10 Downing Street to ramp up policy implementation, following the recommendations of a review by Sir Michael Barber.
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A commission set up to drive reform across Whitehall has dismissed HM Treasury’s Spending Review process a “political scrap over who gets the biggest budget” and called for a complete overhaul of the way government manages its money.
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The new approach to departmental planning can only really succeed if the Government can define properly what its small number of priority goals are, writes Martin Wheatley.
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Commissioners Lord Herbert and Sir Suma Chakrabarti, together with Project Director Sophie Miremadi, appeared on the UCL Policy & Practice podcast to discuss how acute fiscal pressures and technological change require government to be smarter, and they set out the Commission’s emerging ideas to make government more efficient, more capable and more accountable.
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In Reform’s Resilient State essay collection, I reflected on my experiences as a local government leader during the Covid-19 crisis. Whitehall had reverted to type, and gripped departmental levers to try and tackle complex problems rooted in local places. I argued that ‘the centre cannot hold’ and that we needed to think differently.
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Giving local government more power isn’t a zero-sum game for central government. It can help the civil service improve as well. The authors of the new Commission for Smart Government paper ‘Smart Devolution to Level Up’ look at how devolution could be the missing ingredient of the government’s efforts to reform Whitehall.
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Commissioners Daniel Korski and Phaedra Chrousos appeared on The Vaizey View podcast to discuss how the UK Government and the new administration in the United States can digitally upgrade and deliver better public services.
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The appointment of new digital leadership is a welcome start to what – if the UK is to thrive in a post-Covid, post-Brexit world – must become a wholesale reboot of digital government.
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At the core of a new report, the Commission argues that there is no time to lose in re-establishing the UK’s former position as a world leader in digital government. As the UK prepares for the post-Brexit, post-Covid-19 world, implementing these recommendations will be vital if the Government is to address the twin challenges of improving public services, and improving the UK’s standing in a competitive world where countries like China and Russia use digital innovation to gain comparative advantage.
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The Government is set to fail if it cannot link spending credibly with its intentions, and drive remorselessly for getting best value out of every pound, writes Martin Wheatley.
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The Commission for Smart Government today publishes a report diagnosing serious dysfunctionality in Whitehall, warning that the British machinery of government is “no longer world class”. The discussion paper, entitled “What’s gone wrong with Whitehall?”, argues that weaknesses in the system and structures of government undermine strategic coherence and leave it unable to deliver effective change.
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