A Programme for Effective Government: What the party manifestos must address in 2015

The Institute hosted a panel discussion with leading professional figures to discuss how government could be more effective in 2015 and beyond. With the general election fast approaching, the Institute for Government has released its Programme for Effective Government which identifies the common priorities and challenges that will face the next government. The report outlines a series of practical measures that parties must adopt in order to achieve their policy goals and govern effectively after 2015. This event brought together a range of perspectives to discuss why effective government matters to ordinary people, communities and businesses and ask what parties must do to make their plans work in practice.

The event was chaired by Tom Gash, Director of Research, Institute for Government and our research introduced by Nicola Hughes, Senior Researcher.  Speakers include:

• Gillian Guy, Chief Executive, Citizens Advice
• Justine Roberts, Founder and CEO, Mumsnet
• Tim Hames, Director General of the British Venture Capital Association.

Nicola Hughes presented the key messages of the ‘Programme for Effective Government’ (slides here), including poll findings and the key recommendations for how government should approach five challenges after 2015: reducing the deficit, achieving sustained growth, tackling complex policy challenges, improving public services and governing when power is widely spread.

Gillian Guy (GG), Chief Executive, Citizens Advice

• GG agrees broadly with the findings. Government must innovate and collaborate, but it should also eradicate duplication and embark on fundamental reform, especially surrounding accountability. There is currently a dual agenda, both growth and deficit reduction. Three quarters of public expenditure cuts are yet to come. The welfare budget could be devastated by significant further cuts. One in four of Citizens Advice’s clients are in serious debt. Many are in unstable employment and food/fuel costs make up a significant percentage of their outgoings.
• Governments must remember that complex individuals with complex lives are behind complex policy challenges. Reform and redesign must be user-centric and cross-cutting, with proper accountability built in.
• There is increasing reliance on third sector for public service delivery. Government needs to improve its commissioning and collaborating with delivery partners.
• Citizens Advice can only resolve two thirds of enquiries: government is the answer to the other third.
• Fuel poverty is a good example of poorly thought out policy: majority of homes don’t even have thermostats. Elementary things that need to be addressed. Universal credit and welfare reform: make sure that people can establish bank accounts and implement budgeting.
• Outputs are concerning, e.g. capability assessments. Government’s approach needs to change and to have a significant impact analysis of its policies; it must make up its mind about devolution and localism.
• Government must recognise the need and value of a strong welfare safety net. A remodelled welfare system would command greater public respect. A new brand of political leadership is needed, but will be difficult to bring into effect.

Justine Roberts (JR), Founder and CEO, Mumsnet

• Mumsnet rarely sees consensus. On government efficacy, we found that there was a broad consensus that women have had to bear the brunt of the government’s public expenditure reduction. Mumsnet is bombarded with requests from government and political parties in the six months before a general election. People rightly have the view that politicians are mostly preoccupied with getting elected, so longer term policy development is discounted. People want to see proper development of evidence-based policies.
• Systems suffer from too much interference and top-down change. Why can’t government harness the power and simplicity of private sector mobile apps to provide its services with less friction for users? A user experience focus is key for service provision. Government can learn lessons from the agile tech start up community.
• There are many issues, such as housing, which require a coherent, long term solution, and voters cannot currently see such a solution on offer in the political marketplace. The model of Bank of England independence ought perhaps to be extended to other areas.
• The message Mumsnet hears is stop the big structural reforms, improve existing policy and develop more long term solutions.

Tim Hames (TH), Director General of the British Venture Capital Association.

• What does business want? A de-politicised politics, with longer term planning and policy stability. This is politically impossible. How do we practically improve actual government, rather than what would an ideal government look like?
• What causes our political culture? We do three things badly: (1) communication between political parties (e.g. HS2 development under Labour government –farcical) and places like the Institute can provide a kind of safe speech room for inter-party communication about policy; (2) infrastructure policy, UK challenges in terms of population distribution and density makes things harder than in other countries, like France, so something like a National Infrastructure Commission would be welcome, and (3) adaptation of government to the digital revolution and internet age. There is a fundamental problem with hierarchical management structures and their inability to adapt to change.
• How do we improve inter-party communication; how can we neutralise infrastructure as a divisive political issue and how do we adapt to consequential change, like the digital revolution?

Panel discussion

Gillian Guy: there must be clarity of accountability and implementation responsibility. The key determinant is finding the coalition of people who actually want to get things done.

Tom Gash: a contradiction between our polling and reality, in that voters say they favour the long term, but parties self-interestedly pander to the short term desires of the electorate. How do we explain that?

Justine Roberts: People are profoundly disillusioned with politics. Mumsnet users are 60% undecided about the general election. Nigel Farage has the least bad approval rating. There is a void of political credibility.

Tim Hames: The public are both idealistic and self-interested in the short term.

Gillian Guy: Political leadership requires bravery. We probably get the politicians we deserve. We seem to be heading towards a lowest common denominator approach to politics by image. We are complicit in this development and its corrosive impact on political leadership.

Tim Hames: We shouldn’t over-stress the importance of politics. The five most important Americans of the last forty years were mostly from outside of government. Technology has been more transformative than politics.

Audience Q&A

First round of questions

1. Mark D’Arcy, BBC: the next government will have lots of serious problems to address. It is also likely to be parlous in parliamentary terms. It will be difficult to do it all at once.
2. Mark Sandford, HoC Library: What about localism and good government?
3. Joe Dilger, Education Governance Consultant and former civil servant: Do we sufficiently prepare MPs to be effective ministers? Should there be more professional development? There is no qualification currently.
4. Alice Robins, PWC: How do we engage people, especially younger people into deeper consideration of longer term policy issues? Via social media?

Nicola Hughes: MPs and training: The Institute does fill some of this gap. Ministerial positions are very challenging and often MPs’ experience does not constitute good preparation for all of the roles required. Compared to chief executives in companies, it is much less a part of political culture to undertake training and development. Ministers should consider inductions, coaching and ongoing performance review.

Tim Hames: Less of the same is not the answer next time around. The role of the state must be reconfigured, new models of service delivery must be embraced, especially with the digital imperative. If localism can offer flatter management, more imaginative thinking, etc, then localism is definitely the answer. But if there is no reason to believe this to be the case, then localism is unlikely to be the answer. More elitism is unlikely to be the answer in selecting our ministers, even if it meant they were better prepared.

Justine Roberts: Our campaign for better miscarriage care receives widespread political support, but the power allegedly lies at a local level. Cameron promised £20m for respite care but didn’t ring fence it, so the centre can be weak on delivery in health issues. Engagement: Mumsnet users are quite young. Politicians and their advisers must engage in the technological media which people use. Policies should be mediated Buzzfeed-style in order to generate interest in young people

Gillian Guy: Government entails multiple challenges. It’s meant to be difficult. You need to manage your priorities and your resources. Localism can facilitate delivery but could also be a disaster. It depends how you do it.

Second round of questions

(1) Should NGOs be doing service delivery? Next stage of Big Society.

(2) Coalition agreements do not have contractual status in law, should they?

(3) Bruce Warwick, LSU: Is there sufficient discussion about how government adds value to society?

(4) Could structural change of the party political system improve any of this?

(5) Government’s appetite for risk: could it be better?

Gillian Guy: Who is best to deliver? Should be the first question of service delivery. NGOs need to ensure that their core values are not compromised by forays into public service delivery. Democratic accountability adds value. But we must get it right. Localism done properly, and accessibly to local people, could be very beneficial. Government culture is risk-averse, it doesn’t incentivise creativity and innovation. We need a new brand of political leadership. But we are all partially responsible for the reality we experience. We should, therefore, take more responsibility ourselves.

Justine Roberts: Mumsnet has tried and failed to win government contracts for delivery in the past. It is natural to assume that out-sourcing is the right way to go. But the process is so risk-averse and cumbersome that it is not a level playing field. It locks in advantage for those who have previously won contracts. Political modernisation: most normal people would rather cut off their own arm than become a politician. Media scrutiny especially is a big turn off. 80% of MPs feel that parliament is unfriendly for families. Government could be re-conceived on the model of a start-up. Digital doesn’t need to be expensive to be effective. Focus on product and outcome, not on minutiae of development. Be as user-centric as you possibly can be. This is the Silicon Valley model of flatter, agile delivery.

Tim Hames: The public sector does some things better than private sector. But flatter management is always more creative than hierarchical management. Rigid mind-sets are bad for business in both public and private sector. Coalition agreement referred to aspiration to bring 25% of government contracts to SMEs, diluting it to have SMEs involved in the supply chain at some point. Risk needs to be managed more professionally. We need incredibly dynamic management at the top of a very flat government. The model of flat management and creative anarchy from a company like Virgin is instructive. The Google founders are trying hard to resist the urge to create more layers of management. Government should emulate this. Digital can be both incredibly cheap and incredibly beneficial. The public are receptive to more digital. Media are definitely unhelpful.

Nicola Hughes: Coalition relations are often good at the start – that’s when it’s best to make protocols about how you’ll work together, what your joint priorities are, and what to do if something goes wrong. It’s less clear that adding legal weight to this would be effective.