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Despite the vagaries of fashion and the real risk of crude gender stereotyping, many small boys still entertain vivid dreams of scoring the winning goal in the ‘Cup Final'. A reasonable proportion of girls still desire to become a prima ballerina, or even marry a handsome prince. Admittedly, it's a rare child who harbours the ambition of becoming Auditor General. But it's a statistical possibility that there are among us those whose ambition of holding the nation's ministries to account was derailed by some cruel twist of fate. Perhaps an uncharacteristic failure to revise maths ‘O' level due to the snooker being on. For this social sub-group of armchair auditors, imaginary anoraks or otherwise, the release of 196,525 lines of post-election government spending data would have rained down like so much digital manna from heaven. For Francis Maude, behind the moves as minister of state for the Cabinet Office, it represents a revolutionary step in opening up the government to unprecedented scrutiny. Whether he is entirely wise in making the coalition the most transparent and accountable country in the world will emerge in time. With spending datasets to be published month by remorseless month, he may ponder the chapter in Tony Blair's recent autobiography recanting his decision to drive the original Freedom of Information act. It will certainly be of great interest to government suppliers and those hoping to enter the public service marketplace, stimulating greater pricing competition as more detailed knowledge of spending is made available. Some of this unrestricted information may genuinely benefit new providers, the small companies, social enterprises, charities and public service mutuals Maude wishes to ‘spin-out' from departments. What have we learned from all this? Early analysis points to law of unintended consequences from the freeze on recruitment, with bills for agency staff soaring by 65%. The Cabinet Office has seemingly hit the override switch on controls to freeze consultancy spend (see story opposite). Although overall departmental spending fell by a third from June to September, the consultancy costs in Maude's ministry rose from £923,557 to over £3.4m. Nobody said achieving efficiency comes for free. But try telling that to the armchair auditor. Jonathan Werran is editor of Governetz Public Property

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WHITEHALL

Inside View

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