The Week 15 November 2024

Never a slow week in Westminster, is there? International diplomacy, NHS league tables, a climate conference and bat tunnels have kept headline-printers in business this week, supplemented by news this morning that growth had slowed to 0.1% between July and September.

All eyes were on the Chancellor for her Mansion House speech, the first major set piece on the economy since Autumn Budget a fortnight ago. Pension reform, a private investment market, and supply-side reform were all on the table.

But a less-well reported bit of the speech, spotted by eagle-eyed public service reformers, was a section on reform of the public sector. The Chancellor was clear that the investment promised in the Budget comes with the “clear expectation of better value for money, and higher productivity”. How will those expectations be translated into outcomes through actual reform? The usual cast of solutions make an appearance — “digital technology”, “focus on prevention”, and “joined-up services” are all there, but the detail is hazy (and there wasn’t much in the Budget either, you can read our?snap analysis ?to catch the highlights).

One idea caught our eye: harnessing “the knowledge and expertise of business leaders… so that we can ensure we bring the best ideas into government from beyond Whitehall”. In a week where President Trump has been nominating Cabinet members and making other key appointments, there’s a parallel with his appointment of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswarmy to head up a new Department of Government Efficiency (in practice, this Department will operate as an advisory group rather than a full part of the US government).

Regardless of the particular politics or personalities involved, a much more open policymaking culture, with more interchangeability of expertise between the public and private sectors, is highly desirable.?Reform?has previously?written ?about the challenges of groupthink at the highest levels of the civil service, and the importance of more cognitive diversity.

Helpfully, we at?Reform?have plenty of thoughts on how to do this! On Wednesday Patrick and Charlie published ‘Grown up government ’, a plan to open up the appointment of special advisers, to bring much more external expertise into Whitehall and put it at the fingertips of ministers. Westminster is a huge outlier internationally in how?little?scope politicians have to bring in advisers. This is a crucial way to bring a diversity of skills and talents into government, and Whitehall should embrace the talents of the best Spads! And it builds on a paper we wrote earlier this year about getting more?external talent ?into the civil service itself, and making sure talent rises to the top.

When it comes to how business leaders can help drive better value for money in public services… more on that from us very soon. Stay tuned!

Onto the read of the week…

It’s one from the archives this week, which Sam Hammond from the Foundation for American Innovation?re-upped on ?X. In 2014 the Canadian federal government was mulling a scheme to?create an internal market ?in the civil service to allow bureaucrats to ‘sell’ their time to each other in a pinch, helping departments flex their resource between busy periods.

The scheme was scrapped after the 2015 election, and it’s unlikely it would ever have worked as planned — the whole thing hinged on a kind of internal currency called the ‘Buro’ and an electronic marketplace which would let officials trade their hours to different departments. Another model could have been an American football-style ‘draft’ window where departments compete to pick the best SCS.

Even if it isn’t workable, this kind of ‘recombinant thinking’ is something we love to see in policy at?Reform. Other sectors are full of ideas which could make government better. And often they are very revealing about the status quo. Departments already have pay flexibility, and use it to compete with each other for officials. The starting salary for Grade 6 roles at the Home Office is ￡73,900, but roles at the Treasury at the same grade start at ￡67,520. While no two jobs are the same, there must be a better way to manage the internal market for civil service jobs than internal competition based on relatively arbitrary pay grades!