Thinking the unthinkable, a sackable offence in New Labour’s heyday, has suddenly come back into fashion.
With the public finances getting weaker by the month, the options on offer are becoming more and more bold. The prime minister is taking the lead by proposing to cut the UK’s fleet of nuclear submarines from four to three, while his schools secretary says he can save £2bn by trimming senior staff.
The party of public sector investment has finally realised that the game is up. But it is not alone – the other parties and all manner of think-tanks are seeking a political philosophy appropriate to the new financial environment.
They have different ideas, but all claim to be ‘progressive’. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg toned down his demand for ‘savage cuts’ this week, instead proposing a form of ‘progressive austerity’.
Meanwhile, a group of ‘progressive Conservatives’ at think-tank Demos called for the abolition of the Audit Commission and other watchdogs. This was partly to save money – Demos claims that the six largest audit quangos cost £1bn a year to run – but also to move away from centrally controlled, target-driven public services.
The commission attracts its fair share of critics. Councils have regular gripes at the cost of audits and the content of inspection reports. They also have immediate concerns about the operation of Comprehensive Area Assessments (see our news story, 'Audit Commission brushes off CAA criticisms').
But it would be hard to see how local government could operate effectively and efficiently without a body similar to the commission.
Its audit and inspection regime has helped to hugely improve the performance of councils across all their services. Yes, there have been mistakes and omissions, but the overall standard is much higher.
Demos’s Max Wind-Cowie argues in a blog on this website, 'The Audit Commission must go', that the different auditing bodies should be replaced by a single watchdog. Public services would be monitored on their ability to deliver a small number of outcomes, such as reoffending rates in the Prison Service.
The cost savings would certainly come in handy. But a mega-quango would have an impossibly complicated and wide-ranging remit. It would be useful to monitor public sector outcomes, but it is also vital to know how we achieved them.
We are all in favour of lighter-touch regulation, but this can only go so far. Regulators provide an insurance policy against mismanagement. You abolish them at your peril.
