Donald Trump and Elon Musk are showing how not to go about government reform

When Liz Truss’s cack-handed attempt to change the Treasury and sideline the Office for Budget Responsibility contributed to a market crash and the implosion of her premiership, it was a reminder of an essential rule for would-be government reformers: doing a job badly is worse than not doing it at all.

As Donald Trump and Elon Musk trash departments, begin an unrestrained attack on career officials, and unlawfully seize government data and assets, the US is embarking on its own painful and destructive experiment. Trump and Musk will fail to improve the government, while doing major damage to the effectiveness and legitimacy of the state.

Government needs to improve in the US and the UK

The US, of course, is not the UK. Ideas that might seem bizarre in a British context – like abolishing the department for education – are not so extreme in a system where so much is administered by individual states. The entire role of the federal government is more contested in America than in Britain. We should be careful in drawing too many specific parallels.

But some truths are self-evident. One is that in both Britain and the US the civil service does need reform. Which is why it is so frustrating for those who care about improving the effectiveness of the state to see Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (DOGE) discrediting the cause of reform as he takes control of parts of the US administration.

Musk will destroy confidence inside and outside government

Musk will not improve the quality, effectiveness or efficiency of the US state. That is for at least three reasons. The first is that the public will at some point lose confidence in a hollowed-out state. The US government is not Twitter, SpaceX or Tesla. Parts that fall apart lead to sometimes enormous loss of money or life. As Musk tears through the regulatory state, and Trump appoints people without the competence or experience to run major government departments, Americans will start to question the safety of their food, buildings, environment – or aeroplanes. And if core services like social security payments break down, or a new pandemic hits and is badly managed, then the US will be on a fast track to be a failing state. Once lost, it is a long, hard task to restore capacity and confidence.

The second reason will be the internal resistance the Musk method has already provoked. Musk sees public servants, who he calls “the opposing team”, as the enemy. Demanding administrators breach protocols or laws invites pushback. Doubtless the DOGE team see that as justification for their campaign. But getting rid of skilled officials, inviting the opposition of those remaining and then becoming bogged down in legal challenges and the other consequences of your mistakes is not a recipe for good government.

Finally, it is an essential principle of governance that conflicts of interest need to be avoided and corruption rooted out. The Trump/Musk administration seems to invite cronyism, clientelism and the use of government power to advance personal interests. 

They are also already willing to defy the law, until explicitly stopped by the courts. Some of Trump’s plans are contested (and may be unwise), but are legitimate political objectives, like closing USAID, cutting staff numbers or the hokey-cokey on tariffs. But the way the president and Musk are going about government reform, particularly taking control of the US Treasury’s payment system, is simply unlawful.

Nothing breaks a state more quickly than corruption and undermining the rule of law. The private sector that Trump claims to venerate will come to realise that the predictability and fairness that comes with the government holding itself to high legal and ethical standards is essential to growth and productivity.

British reformers must take a different course

The tragedy is that governments in both the US and UK could turn political focus on the administration of the state into a serious programme of civil service reform that might actually work. 

Reducing the size of the civil service, sharpening performance management and removing the worst performers means losing some people. But rather than vindictive sackings that destroy morale and mean the most marketable workers leave, it would be better if the government ran regular, well-managed and predictable rounds of redundancies, with those that exit given decent terms. That would force senior managers to get a grip on performance in a targeted and competent way.

To improve the skills of government officials and bring in fresh blood, we should improve recruitment processes and second more people in from other sectors. But that should be done based on competence and track-record, not personal fealty and a willingness to work 100-hour weeks.

And to motivate and get the most out of the best performers, pay and promotion should be used to reward people who stay in post, are objectively high performers and make change happen over a sustained period.

There is so much work to be done to improve the way government works on both sides of the Atlantic. We know what needs to happen. But building a new and better public service requires sustained focus over many years, not the frenzy of an administration that seems more focused on punishing enemies than improving the state. Anyone serious about civil service reform, including those in the UK who sympathise with Donald Trump’s stated objectives, must stay well away from the Elon Musk model.