Strategic, capable, innovative, accountable: four steps to smarter government
The Commission for Smart Government, which Nick set up and chairs, has published its final report at the end of a year-long programme of work. The paper sums up the Commission’s analysis, and sets out a four-step plan to make government fit to tackle the challenges our country faces.
Read the final report here.
Watch Nick launch the report here.
Introduction by Nick Herbert
The Covid epidemic has not only deepened the challenges facing our country, which were already profound. It has revealed that our system of public administration urgently needs a fundamental overhaul. As politicians begin to focus on rebuilding, it is crucial that they do not pass over the opportunity and the necessity to reform the machinery of government. For without change no amount of ambition or rhetoric will be sufficient to ensure that policy goals are delivered.
“It is because the challenges are so great, and the world in which government is operating is changing so fast, that government must reform itself, or fail. ”
The very scale of the task facing government might encourage leaders to put the intricacies of systemic reform aside. The view of the Commission for Smart Government is that this would be precisely the wrong response. It is because the challenges are so great, and the world in which government is operating is changing so fast, that government must reform itself, or fail. The policy proposals we set out are all do-able, but they are not modest. They are radical because that is what is needed to ensure that government is equal to the task and promises can be met.
STRATEGIC, CAPABLE, INNOVATIVE AND ACCOUNTABLE
The four words we have chosen to characterise the proposals in this document – strategic, capable, innovative and accountable government – are straightforward to say and understand intellectually, but much more difficult to make a reality. Governments all around the world, even the best, struggle with them.
But if we look at the UK, could we really use these words, hand on heart, to describe our system? For all the heroic work of so many across the public services, and achievements of which we should be proud, the pandemic has shown that government here, over many years and regardless of party, has not been strategic, capable, innovative, or accountable enough. If we are honest, we could have said that before the pandemic, looking at the longstanding inability of our system to find solutions to so many challenges – social care, housing, skills, the relationship between different levels of government, to name a few. Now we face immense and additional challenges: dealing with the deficit and debt, delivering net zero, truly equalising opportunity, making a success of Britain’s new position in the world.
OUR SHARED BELIEFS
So, our first shared belief as a Commission is that reform can no longer be a niche debate engaged in largely by the likes of retired Whitehall mandarins or think tankers. It is one which should be of deep interest to everyone in the political, public service and business worlds, and indeed to the public as a whole. It needs to extend across the whole nation, and take in government in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and in England away from London.
Second, the starting point for thinking about reform, and the test of any reform proposal, needs to be ‘does this make government work better for the people?’ Of course, this does not mean ignoring technical but important issues, such as how government departments are organised, data standards and HR processes, but it should always be clear why change is supported by more than intellectual arguments, and helps government do its job of making things better for our society, especially those most in need of opportunity and a better life. This test has two important consequences:
Different parts of government must work effectively together. This means significantly shifting the current default towards departments’ and public services’ funding, activity and accountability being organised entirely separately. None of the big challenges ahead – recovery from the pandemic, levelling up, net zero or our global success – will be tackled successfully without breaking down Whitehall fiefdoms. They also require effective partnership across tiers of government, between Westminster and the devolved administrations, and between national and local governments. Parliament has a role to play too, by organising more of its scrutiny around outcomes, rather than organisations.
‘For the people’ means ‘for all the people’, and that means strong attention to equality and diversity, making it a matter of serious substance, not gestures or fashion. It means being honest about the ways services too often let down the very people in our society who most need them. It means being willing to shift resources and radically redesign those services so that they support success and opportunity rather than respond to failure.
Third, reform needs to encompass the way all the players in government work, ministers, political appointees and public servants, and make their experience of working more positive and fulfilling. So, our approach is to look for ways that Ministers, as well as public servants, can be more effective. We also believe strongly that government is only able to perform for citizens if it is also a great place to work. Reform should be a positive experience for those who work in government. Narratives about ‘Whitehall wars’ or ‘hard rain’ have rightly been left behind, not least because of the experience of Covid, with a shared realisation that there are failings across our system of government that we need to fix together.
“The story of government reform in this country and elsewhere is far more often of missed opportunities caused by insufficient radicalism and persistence, than the reverse.”
Fourth, in a world of enormous challenges and constantly accelerating technical change, it is impossible to be too radical. The story of government reform in this country and elsewhere is far more often of missed opportunities caused by insufficient radicalism and persistence, than the reverse. We need to be clear-eyed about the extent to which government is not working, and where merely tuning up the current approach falls far short of what is needed. This is particularly true of technology. With the pace of events and technological change accelerating all the time, we simply cannot maintain an increasingly analogue government in a digital age. Can we be surprised if, under tremendous pressure, players in government improvise ways of responding to the pace of events if the formal, proper, systems, are simply too slow and cumbersome to work? The UK has at so many times in the past led the world in transforming its government institutions to meet new challenges. It can do so again.
Last, but not least, we need a smart approach to standards. High standards in public office are vital. Where they are perceived to fall, they stop government working properly and undermine public confidence. But, as with equality and diversity, the focus should be on substance, not form and process for their own sake. If processes intended to protect standards are not intelligently designed, they risk impeding legitimate and pressing operational demands. If the front door is not open to bringing in the outside talent and help which modern government needs, the risk is that the back door is sought. As we debate new governance to maintain standards, we must ensure that its design and purpose enables government to be open to outside expertise, not closed.
SEIZING THE MOMENT FOR RADICALISM
It is encouraging that the current Government is beginning to focus on the necessity of reform required. Shortly before our launch, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove, said: “if this Government is to reform so much, it must also reform itself.” Just recently, that commitment has been reaffirmed. The Prime Minister has signed the Government’s Reform Declaration, saying: “reform is necessary now – not as an end in itself, but as a means of delivering the better Britain the public demands and deserves.” His signature alongside the Cabinet Secretary’s shows that both, rightly, see reform as a joint endeavour, not one side correcting faults which are exclusively on the other side.
But Ministers surely know that they need to go further. For all its strong intentions and much good content, our view, in keeping with our conviction about radicalism, is that the Government’s programme needs to be more comprehensive and more ambitious.
Some of our proposals address aspects of government which are not addressed at all in the Declaration, or certainly not nearly enough. On other aspects of reform, the Government is right in its diagnosis and intentions, but we offer proposals which are more developed or more radical than those in the Declaration. We hope they will be seen as useful both by the current Government and by leaders in politics and public service more widely who have an interest in driving real change in our country: they are intended to make government work better for any future administration.
A strength of the Commission has been its openness to expertise and contributions from others. The Institute for Government’s published work and expertise have been especially helpful, and we noted Policy Exchange’s own Commission recommendations with interest. We set out to develop existing thinking and be ambitious in our approach. Our working model generated analysis and ideas through distinguished business and public service leaders working alongside expert researchers. It sought to draw in experience from the corporate sector, public services and overseas, through interviews, evidence sessions and discussions with other governments. We have held numerous evidence sessions, both public and private, and produced ten discussion and policy papers, all of which can be find on our website.
I would like to thank my fellow Commissioners for their dedication to this work over the past year and for bringing their formidable collective experience and insight to bear. I would also especially like to thank the Commission’s Project Director, Sophie Miremadi, and Research Director, Martin Wheatley, who have provided outstanding service, as well as Andrew Slinn, Francesca Reed, Tess Kidney Bishop, Simon Kaye, and Adam Hawksbee who provided research for our work.
The GovernUp project, which began in 2014 and which has powered the Commission, will continue. The hope of everyone who has been involved with this report is that it will catalyse real change in our system of government, reform that should now be an imperative for political leaders who want to improve our country for the better.