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After three recent reports focused on future UK governance, an unimpressed Robert Hill presents his suggestions for improvements. Hardly a week goes by without an article or letter in The MJ bemoaning the way that Whitehall operates. Sometimes the concern is another new policy initiative. Other times it's the number of targets. And occasionally, its a lack of cohesion between departments. Not all the complaints are justified, but local authorities feel that central government should listen harder, trust more and impose less. Three weighty reports published at the end of January attempt to tackle these concerns. The first report is from the Better Government Initiative. It's written by a self-appointed group of former senior civil servants and permanent secretaries – what I call the ‘Old duffers club'. Their prescriptions for improvement are depressingly predictable. Let the mandarins get on with running matters is one of their main themes, even though the civil service has a very patchy record on implementing policy. Other proposals include making policy more evidence-based (which is fine in theory, but if taken too far, restricts innovation); curbing the number of special advisers (yawn); and reasserting the role of departments vis-a-vis Number 10 Downing Street (pure nostalgia). The report's fundamental weakness lies in its failure to come to terms with the role of the media and the nature of the open information-hungry society in which we operate. The second report, from the Constitution Committee of the House of Lords, is more realistic. It recognises that the centre of government has become much more powerful. Although, regrettably, it rejects the idea of creating a prime minister's department, it does not try and turn the clock back. The focus of the Lords' report is on updating and strengthening the accountability of the centre of government to Parliament, to reflect what is, in effect, a new constitutional arrangement. The third report, Shaping up: A Whitehall for the future, is the most interesting. It comes from the independent Institute for Government and concentrates on three challenges: l the strategy challenge – how can the centre of government (Cabinet Office and HM Treasury) be most effective in co-ordinating strategy across government? l the governance challenge – how can departments become more capable at holding themselves to account? l the collaboration challenge – how can long-standing efforts to join up the work of departments become a reality? Shaping Up addresses the strategic challenge by arguing that the centre of government - Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and Number 10 – should become smaller, more strategic and more internally joined-up. It should have fewer ad hoc functions, such as the social exclusion unit. Government strategy should be based on agreeing no more than 20 shared key outcome goals. Departments would then incorporate these goals into their own business plans. This overall strategy should be collectively owned by all permanent secretaries, led by the Cabinet secretary, with a core group meeting regularly to monitor implementation. The Treasury's role would be scaled back and focus on resource allocation, and supporting and challenging departments – ie, reducing its involvement in policy development and delivery. The governance challenge would be tackled by ensuring all departments were led by strategy boards, chaired by the secretary of state. These would bring together top officials, non-executive directors and ministers to develop policy and long-term strategy. Strategy boards would be supported by management boards, chaired by the permanent secretary. They would focus on delivery, performance management, finance and corporate performance. The collaboration challenge is arguably the toughest. Budgets should be allocated to the cross-cutting goals, agreed as part of the Government's overall strategy. A small number of secretaries of state, with control of pooled budgets, should be appointed outside of the departmental framework to lead delivery. Line management, appraisal systems and departmental capability reviews should put more emphasis on collaborative behaviour, and so shift officials' incentives away from just a narrow focus on departmental concerns. And to increase the pressure on Whitehall to collaborate, Parliament should have more select committees which cut across departmental boundaries and the public accounts committee should give more attention to cross-cutting themes. Local government will probably be interested but sceptical about these policy prescriptions. None of them talk about how Whitehall should relate to local authorities and other public agencies. The Institute for Government is at least open about this limitation – we must hope that as a body which is winning increasing influence, it will address this agenda in a future report. Robert Hill is a former government special adviser and now works as an independent policy analyst. Good government, reforming parliament and the executive – recommendations from the executive committee of the Better Government Initiative. The Cabinet Office and the centre of government, fourth report of the 2009/10 session of the House of Lords select committee on the constitution. Shaping up: A Whitehall for the future, Institute for Government.

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WHITEHALL

Improving the way government works

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