The works are broken - the levers of power are not connected to anything at all. That will have to be fixed before anything much can happen
But as the civil service today is largely the product of our broken education system, fixing it will take time and supreme dedication to detail on the part of new and inexperienced ministers.
Christina
TELEGRAPH
27.7.09
Give us government that works, not emails
Britain has been blighted by a series of costly mistakes, argues Philip Johnston
Just when you were hoping to see the backs of our party leaders for the dog days of summer, they have taken to sending out emails in an attempt to persuade us directly of their brilliance. Following his party’s calamity at Norwich North, I received an electronic epistle from Gordon Brown that began: “All year I have been clear that the Government will be tested continually by events – but that we should be judged by our responses.” This missive went on to reassure its recipients that where swine flu, the war in Afghanistan, and the recession are concerned, Mr Brown has everything under control. It concluded: “We are taking tough choices but always putting the hard-working majority at the heart of our decisions.”
Really? Why, in that case, did Mark Malloch-Brown, who resigned from his job in the Foreign Office last week, tell colleagues that Mr Brown’s administration was more chaotic than many in the developing world? A former UN diplomat, he had seen “better strategic thinking” in Latin America and south-east Asia than at No?10 and found Westminster politics “disappointingly shortsighted”. Unlike his comments about the lack of helicopters in Afghanistan, Lord Malloch-Brown was not strong-armed into retracting those reported comments about the state of the Government.
Surely the most risible statement repeatedly heard from ministers is “we are better prepared than any country in the world” for this or that eventuality.
Does anyone believe this any more? If it were true it would not need to be said at all. Even though we failed properly to get a grip on swine flu at the crucial point when it was first entering the country in the spring, the Government now maintains that everything is just tickety-boo. Yet a parliamentary committee will this week blame ministers for messing up their response and for failing even to follow their own guidelines. In addition, not only do we have a flu pandemic, but this week new rules come into force reducing the amount of time doctors can work.
From August 1, under the provisions of the European working time directive, the hours of trainee hospital doctors are to be reduced to a maximum of 48 a week. Does this seem wise when we are going to need every doctor we can get working every hour available because many in the NHS will also succumb to the flu in the autumn? If we are to judge Mr Brown by his responses, as he entreats us to do in his email, this seems a pretty odd one to say the least, if not downright reckless.
But, of course, as with helicopters in Afghanistan (there are enough), the economic meltdown (it is getting better), and the country’s huge indebtedness (it must not stop us spending more) there is nothing to worry about. Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, recently told the Commons: “We have taken great care to ensure that patient care is not disrupted by the implementation of the directive.”
Yet John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, has been warning for years of an impending calamity caused by the directive’s implementation.
He says there are “not enough doctors to staff the rotas to provide a 48-hour service” and that the pandemic would demonstrate the “illogicality” of reducing doctors’ hours. With so much pressure on the system, Mr Black believes that “the health service will crack”. From across the country, and especially in parts of Wales, there are worrying reports of staff shortages caused by the new restrictions. Whom do you believe?
The problem is that many of us no longer trust the Government to do anything right because there is such a lot of evidence that something is deeply and systemically wrong with administration in this country. Too much public policy either fails to achieve its stated objectives; or it does so at exorbitant cost; or it makes bad situations worse; or it has undesirable and unforeseen consequences.
A Civil Service once the envy of the world has had its reputation tarnished by years of politicisation and impossible demands placed upon it; laws are introduced almost weekly that merely serve to inconvenience people and drive them to distraction, not help them; bad decisions are routinely arrived at; and public projects that are simply unnecessary are introduced vastly over-budget and those that are needed are incompetently delivered, or are not delivered at all.
Why does modern British government make so many mistakes and such big and costly ones at that? This question is vexing two of the country’s leading political academics – Anthony King, professor of government at Essex University, and Sir Ivor Crewe, Master of University College, Oxford – who have embarked on a research project to see if they can find the answer. In this endeavour they claim the support of serving ministers, civil servants and shadow cabinet spokesmen who may well be occupying ministerial offices from next year. They all want to know, too, as do the rest of us.
\At the weekend, David Cameron also sent out an email describing Norwich North as a “historic victory” and stating that “people want politicians to tell the truth about the challenges facing us as a country”. Indeed they do. In which case perhaps he can tell us how he proposes to make government work properly again – because without urgent and fundamental repair, nothing else will succeed.
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