The New Managerialism

Sean O’Grady, our economics editor, has wise advice for the Labour leadership candidates in The Independent on Sunday today:

First, admit that the last government – “for all the right reasons” – ramped up public spending too much and left the public finances too weak to face the crisis. Unforeseen and unprecedented as the crisis was, public finances should have been stronger. That’s what people think, and it happens to be the truth.

Second, “panic cuts” can be opposed – but not all cuts. Long-term public-sector pensions and welfare reform should be embraced. Public Finance Initiative reform too – a PFI Rebate, as proposed by Tory MP Jesse Norman, would be a vote-winner, and the right thing to do.

But spending and borrowing ought to be reduced faster than the last government planned. Labour should find practical alternatives; not raising VAT but bringing in a mansions tax and other taxes; protecting infrastructure spending that creates jobs and growth; attacking the excesses of public-sector “fat cats” and quangos; reaching an agreement with the unions to avoid strikes in vital services – using Labour’s union links as a strength.

Deficit reduction is a managerial activity and requires a managerial response. All-out opposition to cuts will take the party back to the 1980s, ghettoised in defence of union-dominated public services: a pre-Blair core vote “strategy”.

The New Managerialism is hardly a stirring slogan to stitch to the banners, but he is right. Which is why The Independent on Sunday takes George Osborne’s Spending Challenge seriously. Some of the suggestions for spending cuts or revenue increases from members of the public – two thirds of them working in the public sector themselves – are silly (“Sell Cornwall”), but many of them are well-informed and should prompt a thoughtful response rather than mockery.

The Independent on Sunday’s selection of a few of the 44,000 ideas submitted is here; our leading article is here.

Recent Posts on Eagle Eye

• "The Continuity of the State"
• Why the Treasury thinks the deficit rose last year
• Men of Secrets II
• Men of Secrets
• The Dawn of Time

• cping500

  It’s a pity Mt Clegg did not set the right exam question (the one set to Government Departments). And also ask: what is the relationship respondents what with the State?

  http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/spending_review_framework_080610.pdf

  2.1While it will rightly focus on reducing Britain’s record deficit and restoring sound public finances, it willalso provide a platform to consider new and radical approaches to public service provision.

  2.2The scale of the challenge presents an opportunity to take a more fundamental look at the role of government in society and how it can fulfil that role…….

  …….2.5 To ensure that all of these issues are considered, and that resources are prioritised within tighter budgets, departments will be asked to prioritise their main programmes against tough criteria on ensuring value for money of public spending.
  – Is the activity essential to meet Government priorities?
  - Does the Government need to fund this activity?
  - Does the activity provide substantial economic value?
  - Can the activity be targeted to those most in need?
  - How can the activity be provided at lower cost?
  - How can the activity be provided more effectively?
  - Can the activity be provided by a non-state provider or by citizens, wholly or in partnership?
  - Can non-state providers be paid to carry out the activity according to the results they achieve?
  - Can local bodies as opposed to central government provide the activity?

  2.6 In this era of substantially tighter spending, it is going to be more important than ever to demonstrate to the public that money is well spent. Setting out plans at the Spending Review is just the first step. The Government will then need to ensure that the reform programme is achieved and that there are robust mechanisms to ensure accountability to the public.

  2.7 To achieve this, the Government has ended the previous government’s complex system of Public Service Agreements, which relied on top-down performance management and too many politically motivated targets.

  The Spending Review framework

• Rick Role

  Apropos nothing, I stumbled across this today.

  “New York, Dec 8, 1935 – ‘It may be necessary to have another great and horrible war in order to establish the efficacy of the League of Nations,’ was the remarkable statement made by the Archbishop of York (Dr. Temple) who arrived here by the liner Bremen today. ‘This generation or the next would probably have to be sacrificed,’ the Archbishop is reported to have stated, ‘because just as it took the last war to create the League, so it might require another conflict to consolidate the League’s position’.”

  - The Straits Times, 31 December 1935, Page 8, newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19351231.2.23.aspx

  The article goes on to quote George Lansbury, who had recently resigned as Labour leader over the party’s support for sanctions against Italy. Lansbury declined to support the archbishop’s modest proposal.

  According to Wikipedia, despite Churchill’s reservations about appointing a Christian Socialist, William Temple went on to be Archbishop of Canterbury from 1942 until his death in 1944, by which time he had participated in the Normandy landings.

  Well, it was all news to me.

  How times change.

• Pingback: OTIS