Tag: Public Service Reform

On the woeful Work Programme

Information on the performance of the private contractors responsible for delivering the Government’s Work Programme is beginning to leak out, seemingly despite the best efforts of the Department for Work and Pensions to keep us all in the dark. And the news is not good. It appears that […]

Adam Smith writes … on NHS Reform?

Yesterday I was rereading a paper by George DeMartino entitled The economist as social engineer. DeMartino’s main argument is that economics needs a professional ethics because the prescriptions it offers to policy have the potential to do great harm, as well as deliver benefit. In the course of […]

A last desperate throw of the dice?

Is that it then? Has the single transferable vote system allowed the Liberal Democrat leadership to breathe a huge sigh of relief? The motion to drop the Health and Social Care Bill won the first round of the ballot to select an emergency motion to debate on Sunday […]

Privatising Policing: A Step Too Far?

[Originally posted at Dale&Co., 03/03/12] This week’s instalment of the Leveson Inquiry has raised some pressing questions about inappropriate relations between members of the police and corporate interests. We were presented with argument that highly questionable, if not corrupt, practices were commonplace among public officials. It’s therefore unfortunate […]

Public service reform and liberal democracy

[Originally posted at LSE British Politics and Policy, 01/03/12] Last week on the LSE British Politics and Policy Blog, Will Tanner argued that the government needs to change direction on public service reform. Tanner makes three points that flow from his frustration with progress. Mainly, he claims the […]

Appraising health reform

Blogging is a fantastic medium for providing a brief statement of your views. Or for building an argument involving a small number of points. Or, perhaps, for giving a high level summary of a more complex argument. But it’s not a great medium through which to appraise complex […]

… but words can never hurt me

The Coalition’s big economic idea is that significant cuts in public sector employment will be more than compensated by a veritable blossoming of the private sector. Displaced public sector workers will find themselves rapidly migrating to new private sector jobs. There are plenty of reasons for thinking that […]

Has local democracy passed its Selby date?

It appears that Selby District Council has restructured its whole organisation into a small group of commissioners – a core group of 14 staff – and a multifunctional provider organisation – Access Selby. We move a step nearer to realising Nicholas Ridley’s vision of the Enabling Authority. We’re […]

Choice, public services and the predatory state

I have recently had cause to reread CentreForum’s Your Choice: how to get better public services, published back in the summer. Don’t ask. It’s for a thing. The resonance between the sorts of prescriptions that emerge from Queen Anne’s Gate and the policy prescriptions within the subsequent Open […]