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	<title>Blog &#187; Peter Riddell</title>
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	<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog</link>
	<description>Institute for Government Blog</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 11 May 2012 13:23:41 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Better late than never</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/4291/better-late-than-never/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/4291/better-late-than-never/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:36:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[A more effective Whitehall]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=4291</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[All organisations should evaluate their policy successes and failures—the theme of a fascinating series of policy reunion seminars and events at the Institute for Government organised by Jill Rutter, who also hosted workshops for Treasury staff for this review. Understanding what works and what doesn’t is central to improving later performance. With the Financial Services Authority already having undertaken a review, the publication of the Treasury’s assessment leaves the Bank of England alone among the tripartite regulators in not having held a comprehensive public appraisal &#8211; despite calls by Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Treasury select committee. The challenge for Sir Mervyn King is to appreciate that the more power the Bank accumulates, notably with the dismantling of the FSA, the more he has to be accountable and open up to outside scrutiny and review. Most comment on the White review has been about the admissions over the Treasury’s handling of the events of 2007-08: the lack of preparation and initially slow response. Yet, while a rapidly expanded Treasury did handle the crisis of autumn 2008 well,  the most interesting sections cover the department now. As in all such reports, the Treasury claims to have learnt the lessons in contingency [...]]]></description>
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		<title>The Hodge question: to whom are civil servants accountable?</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/4248/the-hodge-question-to-whom-are-civil-servants-accountable/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/4248/the-hodge-question-to-whom-are-civil-servants-accountable/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:47:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[A more effective Whitehall]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=4248</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Permanent secretaries cannot just privately seethe over Mrs Hodge’s more aggressive style at the PAC, and, in particular, the decision to require the HMRC’s lawyer to swear an oath -which prompted a strong exchange of letters with Gus O’Donnell just before his retirement. The new civil service leadership has sought to cool the temperature, while many at Westminster also believe that the ‘oath’ decision was wrong and accept that select committees need to avoid bullying officials who cannot defend themselves. But a big gap exists between Whitehall and Westminster. The basic question remains: to whom are civil servants accountable? The traditional doctrine, as set out by Lord O’Donnell is his letter, is that ‘ to maintain impartiality, it is essential that civil servants remain accountable to ministers, who are in turn accountable to Parliament’. There is one major exception: accounting officers, in general permanent secretaries, are directly accountable to Parliament, and specifically the Public Accounts Committee, for the handling of taxpayers’ money. Mrs Hodge questioned this view in a speech to Policy Exchange last week. In her view, the old doctrine of accountability is not fit for the 21st century since it lets both ministers and civil servants off the [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>A new role at the Institute</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3833/a-new-role-at-the-institute/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3833/a-new-role-at-the-institute/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:13:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3833</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Now is the time to look ahead—to look at the challenges facing government over the next five years and to see where the Institute can make a contribution to improving the effectiveness and performance of government. The Institute exists not just to conduct high quality research and to provide a simulating environment for discussion but to make a difference.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>How 2015 will be very different from 2010</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3782/how-2015-will-be-very-different-from-2010/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3782/how-2015-will-be-very-different-from-2010/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:24:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Coalition Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[general election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transitions]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3782</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The 2015 general election is going to be very different from 2010. The unexpected events of the ‘five days in May’ leading to the formation of the first Coalition government for 65 years have provided many lessons &#8211; and pointers to problems which can be avoided next time. The existence of the coalition &#8211; and now a fixed term parliament  will radically change the background to the election, requiring changes in attitudes, behaviour and conventions &#8211; as discussed in the new Institute for Government report Transitions: Lessons Learned. The UK has a tradition of relatively smooth, and rapid, handovers of power after general elections.  This has, however, assumed a clearcut result producing alternations between single party Labour or Conservative majority governments. No one has bothered much about the third party. These assumptions were challenged by the hung parliament of May 2010.  The system coped well with five days of uncertainty, more than five times longer than usual, thanks to the good sense of all participants. But plenty of luck was involved, and senior politicians and officials admit that a lot could have gone wrong if the party balance after the election had been slightly different. The Civil Service’s determination to remain [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Time to reinvent the role of ministers</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3729/time-to-reinvent-the-role-of-ministers/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3729/time-to-reinvent-the-role-of-ministers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:52:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[A more effective Whitehall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Better policy making]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ministerial effectiveness]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3729</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Transformation, the post-bureaucratic state, the Big Society &#8211; whichever title you use, a big rethink is now under way about how central Government operates. However, the soul-searching that is now engulfing the Civil Service has yet to affect ministers. Back in March, the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) produced a report Smaller Government: What do Ministers Do? arguing that ‘many ministerial activities were unnecessary and could properly cease, giving ministers more time to focus on the key strategic decisions required to be taken in their department: a reduction in the overall number of ministers would help in this process of prioritisation’. The Government has brushed aside the main recommendation to cut its size, saying that ‘the number of ministers should be dictated by need’ and this will continue to be kept under review, ‘particularly in the light of its proposals on House of Lords reform and changes to the number of parliamentary constituencies’. It stresses, rather, the reduction in the costs of ministers by, for example, cutting their pay by 5 per cent. The official response even uses the deadly phrase that the Government ‘is grateful for the committee’s views’. However, the Government ‘believes that a reduction to 80 ministers [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Media &amp; Government &#8211; a bickering marriage of convenience</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3608/media-government-a-bickering-marriage-of-convenience/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3608/media-government-a-bickering-marriage-of-convenience/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:53:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3608</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ministers and civil servants often complain about the media &#8211; their intrusiveness, sensationalism, inaccuracy and lack of proportion. At the same time, the media complain about government secrecy, distortions and manipulation. There is nothing new in this &#8211; read John Wilkes or The Times at its most thundering in the mid-19th century. Media and government have inherently different interests but remain locked in mutual dependence. Journalists live by disclosing what is happening, while governments survive by trying to win over public opinion, mainly through the media of various kinds. Yet a new bout of soul-searching about the relationship has now started following the phone hacking scandal and the Wikileaks revelations. How close should leading politicians be to media proprietors? And should there be restraints on media disclosure if it threatens national security and relations between countries, let alone personal privacy? What ethical rules should the media follow and what form of regulation is desirable or workable? All this will be discussed in public at the hearings of the Leveson inquiry which start next month. My own experience &#8211; from 40 years as a journalist including 19 years on The Times until mid-2010 &#8211; is that politicians exaggerate the influence of [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3608/media-government-a-bickering-marriage-of-convenience/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Making parties more popular</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3589/making-parties-more-popular/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3589/making-parties-more-popular/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:22:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[candidate selection]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[party membership]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3589</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ed Miliband is not the first party leader to talk bullishly about increasing the number of party members/supporters. All new Opposition leaders set a target of boosting party membership. They usually succeed to a limited extent in the short-to-medium term as their parties become more electorally successful. But they invariably fail in the long-term as membership falls back to below earlier levels. Back in 1997, William Hague famously proclaimed a target of one million Conservative members, compared with the then total of around 400,000 and a peak 50 years ago of 2.8 million. Membership never even approached half this ambitious target, and fell during the first half of the last decade to a low of 215,000 in 2004. The total recovered in the first year of David Cameron’s leadership to around 300,000, before falling back to around 250,000 within three years. The same pattern of short-lived cyclical blips in a sharp secular downward trend has been experienced by Labour. Membership rose from 266,000 in 1993 to a peak of 405,000 in 1997 when Labour won power, before halving over the following seven years. Political scientists offer several explanations: economic and social changes undermining the class basis of parties of the [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3589/making-parties-more-popular/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Pass the parcel (or The buck stops where?)</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3566/pass-the-parcel-or-the-buck-stops-where/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3566/pass-the-parcel-or-the-buck-stops-where/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:41:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[A more effective Whitehall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Better policy making]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Accountability]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3566</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Government accountability for policy mistakes rests on a series of ambiguities which can too easily turn into ‘who, not me’ evasions. Among many other lessons, the Public Accounts Committee’s damning report on the £469 million (minimum) waste on the now abandoned FiReControl project exposes one of the inherent flaws in the auditing of large-scale programmes. By definition, such projects last several years, in this case more than six, so that those who launch a programme are not around in the same posts when the cost of their mistakes becomes apparent. In the FiReControl case, Eric Pickles, who cancelled the project, is the fourth Communities Secretary since its launch by John Prescott, while the Permanent Secretary changed twice, and there were five ‘Senior Responsible Owners’ and four project directors. Yet, as the PAC noted, ‘no individuals have been held accountable for the failure and waste associated with the project’. Nor were any of the relevant civil servants responsible for the project were questioned by the committee in its heated hearing in July. By convention, Sir Bob Kerslake, the current Permanent Secretary, appeared as accounting officer before the PAC, even though he was not in charge when the main decisions were taken. [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3566/pass-the-parcel-or-the-buck-stops-where/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>E-petitions</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3497/e-petitions/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3497/e-petitions/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:42:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Parliament and the political process]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3497</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[E-petitions allow voters to raise issues which they believe politicians should consider. They are agenda setting, but, unlike a referendum or a plebiscite, they are not meant to decide policy. They represent a marriage of direct and representative democracy. The problem is that the terms of the marriage are unclear. What happens when a petition attracts substantial support—100,000 at present? The failure to resolve that question undermined the original Number 10 website set up in the late Blair years and threatens the new e-petitions website launched a couple of months ago which was meant to provide a more explicit link with Parliament. The  idea of strengthening public engagement is sensible, particularly in an age when Government and Parliament are widely seen as out-of-touch. However, some have expressed concern at populist campaigns funded by single interest groups and backed by tabloid papers—for example, on the restoration of capital punishment. That is a feeble and essentially anti-democratic argument. As Sir George Young, the Leader of the Commons, has argued: ‘If lots of people want Parliament to do something which it rejects, then it is up to MPs to explain the reasons to their constituents, What else is Parliament for? People have strong [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3497/e-petitions/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Masters of the universe</title>
		<link>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3473/masters-of-the-universe/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/3473/masters-of-the-universe/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:42:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Riddell</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Better policy making]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Financial crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Masters of Nothing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/?p=3473</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Most politicians’ books on policy tend to be predictable &#8211; particularly when written by ambitious young MPs with an eye on office like Tories’ Matthew Hancock and Nadhim Zahawi. Yet their account of the financial crisis, ‘Masters of Nothing: How the Crash Will Happen Again Unless We Understand Human Nature’, has many unexpected insights and recommendations. Launched at 11 Downing Street at an event jointly sponsored by the Institute for Government, the book has mainly attracted attention for its, fully justified, assault on the macho male culture of the City which has encouraged excessive risk-taking, and which could be redressed by promoting more women, especially at senior levels. But their message is both much broader and more original. The authors stress the importance of culture in shaping behaviour and highlight the fallibility of many economists’ rational expectation models. Their criticisms of economists could equally apply to the heavily mathematical approach of many politician scientists which ignore the vagaries of individual behaviour. The book is eloquent about how most of those who warned about problems to come were ignored. The fault lay not just with over-confident bankers with no memories, but also with regulators and politicians. Rarely has a reputation fallen [...]]]></description>
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