my blogposts

Why government should kick its addiction to failed top-down controls Despite the ubiquity and longevity of top down control by government through performance measurement and management (PMM) regimes - they rarely work. They are foiled by the reality of the complex settings of most of the priority outcomes articulated by successive governments. And they are doomed because they are underpinned by a profoundly flawed view of what motivates public servants to perform, learn and

My civilservicereformuk.com research programme is looking differently at civil service reforms to provide insights into the practice of reform that will help ministers and officials succeed in future reforms. For the last two years I have been searching for perspectives that could shed fresh light on why and how reforms work; what practitioners actually do; and above all how it was that the reform became embedded in changed ways of thinking and changed ways of working. The re

Prime Minister Starmer promised that five Missions would be the North Star for his government. Almost 12 months later they are obscured...

As we head into an unusually significant ‘outcome focused’ spending review ministers and senior officials should reflect on two mistruths that have dogged public expenditure controls and the accompanying narrative about waste and efficiency over the last 60 years: that efficiency interventions improve efficiency (as opposed to the reality of blunt, unprioritized savings with little regard to the consequences); and, that the treasury takes a strategic approach to outcome-based

Key speeches by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster have signalled that the government has serious ambitions for civil service and public service reform. On 5th December The Prime Minister launched the government’s Plan for Change. The plan starts by setting out three foundation areas of economic stability, secure borders and national security. And then the bulk of the plan clarified each of the five missions setting out: the existing problem and c

Prime Minister Starmer launched his government’s strategic plan for change on Thursday 5th December - fleshing out his five missions with milestones, measures and in some cases targets. In a prelude to that main meal a surprisingly packed room at the Institute for Government enjoyed some amuse bouche on the emergent approach at the centre of government. Cat Little, the Civil Service’s Chief Operating Officer and Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary spent an hour taking questio

A flurry of speeches addressing public service reform have come out in November 2024 as new ministers get their feet properly under the...

Recent days have been awash with commentaries on Starmer’s ability to grip Number 10 and the government machine – accompanied by a flurry...

My progress on the non trivial challenge of trying to find a way to describe what the impact of a successful reform looks like.

The UK is the most frenzied civil service reformer on the planet. But after 65 years of reforms there is no shortage of contradictory and...