Executive director makes maiden speech in House of Lords

Lord Bichard has highlighted the work of the Institute for Government in his maiden speech in the house of Lords.

In his speech, our Executive Director drew on the Institute's recently published report about machinery of government changes, Making and Breaking Whitehall Departments.

Lord Bichard said: "At the Institute for Government we calculated recently that every time a government department is reorganised it costs £15 million to start with, and very rarely do those reorganisations deliver results.

"Surely the time has come to jettison our obsession with redesigning the structures of government and to concentrate instead on redesigning the services themselves so that they are shaped around clients, not around providers; so that they are seamless, not fragmented; so that they are functional, not unreliable; and so that they are accessible, not impenetrable."

Speaking afterwards, Lord Filkin paid tribute to "the remarkable way in which the Institute for Government has filled an aching void in our public debate over the past few years. We cannot imagine what we would have done without it. It has been brilliantly led by him and his able staff".

Lord Bichard recently announced he will be stepping down as the Institute's Executive Director. He will become a Senior Fellow to work on issues such as localism and Ministerial Development.

For more information

You can:

• Download an extract of Lord Bichard’s speech (PDF, 225KB)
• Watch the speech on the UK Parliament website (from 12:54:05)
• Read more about Making and Breaking Whitehall Departments: A guide to machinery of government changes