The ten policy making commandments: 1. Thou shalt be clear about the outcomes that you want to achieve Agreed. Policy fundamental number one is to be clear about your objectives. 2. Thou shalt evaluate policy as objectively as possible Agreed. Fundamental no. 7. Evaluation important – but still an area of weakness when Gus...
As part of its investigation of a possible “What works in social policy” institute for the UK, the Cabinet Office invited Steve Aos, director of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) to a roundtable at IFG last week. To many WSIPP is a blueprint for this type of body. It has been...
When is avoidance not avoidance? When it’s propping up the Big Society – and a cornerstone of the culture secretary’s strategy to save the arts from the impact of the spending cuts. That is the problem confronting the chancellor and the prime minister as they contemplate the last week’s furore over the impact of...
Most civil service risk registers are barely worth the name. When I was at Defra our risk registers made no mention of dangerous climate change, or new evidence suggesting all our environmental policies were unaffordable, or large scale flooding, or the animal health equivalent of the five plagues. Instead the usual risk register focused...
Mansion tax anyone? Tycoon tax? 50p rate maintained? An end to higher rate relief on pensions? Hiking tax thresholds – boon to the poor or regressive move? Or cutting corporation tax to 20 per cent? The Budget starter list (the usual starting point for the budget process listing all the options potentially on the...
First, in a piece of uncharacteristic public kite-flying, new Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood said he was investigating the possibility of a ‘What Works’ institute for the UK to fill a gap. Giving a rare interview to the Guardian in January, he said: “The question mark is whether, just as NICE has been very...
There is a lot of change in Whitehall. The parting of the old guard means that over half of the permanent secretaries in charge of departments were not in post before the election. The civil service has a new and differently organised leadership (though the merger of the Permanent Secretary at No.10 post with...
An optimistic start for the New Year – policies can work and governments can make a difference. Not a headline you would expect to see – but the subject of our new report. Success means that policies survive changes of government, become part of the status quo and the starting point for new policy....
Departing Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell likes to claim one of his big achievements was getting to a point where 50% of major government departments were headed by women. But in his previous job as Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, he was much less successful in getting women into the most senior ranks. Indeed...