PF’s news story provided a dismal report of the Treasury’s Combined Online Information System (‘Online Treasury data fail to excite’, June 11–17). This initiative seems just part of the new drive to publish as much data as possible – whether the information is useful or even intelligible. The story referred to Professor Colin Talbot’s doubts about this Coins database.
But it then noted Talbot’s view that we should find the data in the Treasury’s ‘Clear Line of Sight Project’ more useful. This is the notoriously obscure information the government gives Parliament when asking for money to run the country.
Now that select committee chairs are elected, let’s hope their liaison committees demand a more systematic parliamentary supply procedure instead of the present scandal. In the meantime, a government policy of total openness is certainly good news. But that openness could also create a veritable ‘Tower of Babel’ if it means general access to our rag bag of disjointed systems.
The underlying point is this. The framework of political debate is just as important as any measurements used and success always relies on this interaction. Our ministers’ determination to axe Public Service Agreements illustrates what goes wrong. PSAs originated in the Conservatives’ 1995 white paper on resource accounting and hence the need to introduce ‘output and performance measures’ (originally output and performance analyses).
But ministers consistently refused to seek parliamentary validation of either OPAs or PSAs. So they multiplied beyond any sensible strategy and as a monstrous example of central diktat.
The best place for a ‘Transparency Board’ is in the Commons, along with the Office for Budget Responsibility and much else
