Charting Government: Whitehall Monitor 2014 Annual Report Launch

What does government look like in the United Kingdom in 2014? How has Whitehall changed since 2010? How do different government departments compare? Where does the UK rank internationally? How transparent is the UK government, and which departments are doing the most to live up to the government’s transparency agenda?

And what does the data suggest will be the crunch points for whichever government is formed after the 2015 General Election?

This year’s Whitehall Monitor annual report crunches the numbers to answer those questions and more. It looks at:

• the resources available to government (ministers, money, civil servants)
• how government manages them (through arm’s-length bodies or contracting), what it does with them (passing legislation, answering requests for information) and how it measures what it does (major projects, permanent secretary objectives), and
• what impact all of that has in the real world and how the public and international studies rate government effectiveness.

Julian McCrae, the Institute's deputy director, opened the event by introducing the speakers.

Gavin Freeguard, researcher at the Institute for Government and lead author of the report, introduced the report's finding in a short presentation.

The introduction was divided into four parts - resources available to government, what government does with them, and what impact it has in the world - and focussed on four key stories: what government looks like, how it has changed, how transparent it is, and what are some of the areas of pressure for government after 2015.

With respect to the resources available to government, the findings that were highlighted included the high turnover of ministers and permanent secretaries; the need to pay attention to the government's balance sheet and to maintain civil service morale as cuts likely continue.

On what government does with the resources, Freeguard highlighted that many departments have made fundamental changed to how they deliver their objectives and will need to make sure that they have adequate capabilities to match their new tasks. The report also points out the need for more transparency in financial information and on contracts with the private sector, but found that government has become more transparent in some areas, notably major projects.

The impact of government’s work turned out to be the most difficult to assess, not least because the government's own impact indicators were often less accessible and informative than they should be. Looking at how the public perceives government, recent IfG-Populus polling found a significant gap between expectations the public have of politicians and views of what politicians do.

The presentation concluded with remarks on some post-2015 areas of stress. These include the stability of official and political leadership; the need to manage further staff and budget cuts; future reforms that might strain existing capability in departments; and the expectations gap around government effectiveness.

Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, welcomed the report and responded with a set of remarks. She pointed out that in addition to the evidence of falling Civil Service headcount, much of the budget reduction has come from pay freezes, reducing the cost of pensions and benefits in the Civil Service, and cutting grants to local authorities. She added that tax expenditures are a significant part of public spending but receive relatively little scrutiny.

She warned about a series of risks stemming from the short-termism of government. These include the temptation to use short-term fixes with long-term negative consequences such as PFI deals, and the failure to use the otherwise "fantastic" Whole of Government Accounts in everyday decision making in departments.

The siloed structure of government and the weakness and fragmentation of the centre of government means government finds it difficult to learn what works and to make strategic decisions about spending. There is also a capability gap when it comes to contracting for public services and especially managing contracts.

She ended by arguing that there is a lack of consistent and transparent accountability. Some prominent recent implementation disasters were marked by a very high turnover of Senior Responsible Owners, which resulted in what Hodge called a "teflon attitude to accountability". Some factors that need to be taken into account when trying to reform the accountability system include devolution, fragmentation of the landscape of service provision, increased role for private providers, and weakening of public audit where the NAO has become "the only game in town" after the abolition of the Audit Commission. The current system of accountability is, Hodge concluded, "very fragile, if not inefficient and broken".

In the question and answer session, several themes emerged:

Changes to the shape of government:

• Martha Lane Fox highlighted the role of digital in transforming government.
• Simon Mitchell of Accenture raised the point that it's not clear whether we are seeing real reductions in headcount and increases in productivity or whether, with outsourcing, government is merely "moving things around".
• Martin Reade pointed out that it would be useful to distinguish what has happened in operational arms of government as opposed to headquarters.
• Keith Davis (NAO) wondered how the age and skill profile of the Civil Service has changed as a result of reductions being mainly achieved through hiring freezes as opposed to redundancies.
• In responses, Margaret Hodge remarked that in her view outsourcing often happens for the wrong reason - and a different picture might emerge if one looked at the total number of people whose work for the government is funded by the taxpayer. In some cases the transformations the current government is undertaking are very complex and risky - the probation reform currently underway is an example.

Transparency

• Adam Sharples raised the concern that despite improvements in transparency in some areas, government has actually gone backward with respect to some reporting to the public that no longer takes place.
• Siman Burall (Involve) asked if there are any indications as to why some departments are more open than others.
• In her response, Margaret Hodge related her experience that departments sometimes retreat from transparency when the issue at hand is not going well. She also highlighted transparency in contracting as a problem, with companies relying on confidentiality too much.

Accountability

• John Gieve pointed out that the accountability system includes the fundamental ambiguity of accountability between politicians and civil servants.
• Margaret Hodge added that although she is not offering a complete solution to the problem of accountability, currently civil servants are not using even the options that the current system gives them - there have been no ministerial directions since 2010. She said she favoured reforms including giving officials more space to publicly state their views.

Julian McCrae concluded the discussion by pointing to work that the IfG has done on accountability and transformation, as well as recent talks by Martin Donnelly and Mike Bracken on the role of the Civil Service.