Commission for Smart Government calls for radical Whitehall reform in light of pandemic

This article was originally published in NS Tech on 12 August 2020.

The coronavirus crisis has renewed the need for a radical overhaul of the way Whitehall operates, according to a new commission consisting of business leaders, MPs and former government officials.

The Commission for Smart Government, launched by the Project for Modern Democracy think-tank, has been established to provide guidance to ministers on ways to transform central government.

The commission, which includes the government’s lead non-executive director Lord Nash, the former Labour minister Margaret Hodge and the CEO of Onfido Husayn Kassai, claims that Whitehall machinery “is no longer equal to the challenges facing the country”.

The former Conservative MP Nick Herbert, who chairs the commission, said the private sector “is a long way ahead of government” and we “need government to catch up”.

“People are talking about the need to improve the delivery of government in a way they haven’t before,” Herbert told NS Tech. “Previously it was mostly about policy rather than delivery. Those of us who talked about delivery were regarded as an eccentric minority. Now it’s mainstream and that’s because of Covid-19.”

Herbert said the pandemic had exposed the best and worst of Whitehall bureaucracy, pointing to the successful of digital transformation projects within HM Revenue and Customs and the Passport Office, while calling out the “lamentable failure” of offender monitoring.

There is a greater appetite within Downing Street to transform Whitehall now than in recent British history, Herbert added, noting Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings’ enthusiasm for reform.

Gove, the minister for the Cabinet Office, welcomed the launch of the commission in a speech in late June. “We should always be receptive to bold new policy proposals. And now in Government we must listen to ideas on transforming how we deliver, such as those from GovernUp and the Commission for Smart Government which it will shortly launch, because we surely know the machinery of government is no longer equal to the challenges of today. We owe change to the people we serve.”

Herbert said that during the course of its work, the commission would consult experts, publish discussion papers and seek to inform Downing Street’s thinking on the matter.

Daniel Korski, the CEO of the govtech-focused venture capital firm Public and one of the commissioners, said: “The first task of government is to deliver for people – but its machinery has become gummed up, it struggles to compete with the private sector for talent and isn’t innovative enough. The Commission will aim to highlight good and bad practices and recommend a way to improve the cogs and wheels of government.”