By David Williams
24 September 2009
Radical proposals to save money by scrapping almost all central government regulation and devolving power to frontline services have provoked anger in the Audit Commission and been dismissed by experts.
A paper by think-tank Demos argued that a new
‘post-bureaucratic age’ could be brought about by abolishing watchdogs such as the commission, and stripping out middle management.
Leading from the front, part of Demos’s Progressive Conservatism programme, argues that services can improve, innovate and become more efficient only if responsibility for budgets was given to more highly trained frontline workers.
‘[Public services] do not give people what they want, they are expensive to run, and public servants are demoralised,’ the paper said.
The formerly Blairite think-tank’s report is explicitly aimed at the Conservative Party leadership, urging them to ‘articulate a vision for sustainable cuts’.
It called for all schools to have the same level of autonomy as academies, for doctors to have more say over how cash is spent, and for Jobcentre Plus teams to be given a share of any budget surplus they achieve.
Co-author Max Wind-Cowie told Public Finance that services were better held to account through local democracy and offering choice than through central auditing.
He admitted that the proposals had not been fully costed, and acknowledged that his plan to increase teacher skill levels, requiring them to train for three years rather than one, would be expensive.
However, he estimated that almost £1bn a year could be saved by culling regulators. Bodies such as Ofsted and the National Audit Office could be replaced by a single organisation that gathered and published information on performance.
The Audit Commission and the NAO declined to comment officially. But David Walker, the commission’s head of communications, hit back angrily. In a personal comment posted on the PF website, Walker congratulated the ‘struggling think-tank’ for generating publicity, but accused the report’s authors of confusing auditing, regulation and inspection.
He said the Demos argument ‘led inexorably to abandoning independent audit or inspection’ but that the authors simultaneously recommended a single ‘mega-quango’ on a shoestring budget.
Tony Travers, a former Audit Commission board member and local government expert at the London School of Economics, said regulators had an important job in checking the books and ensuring probity where public funds were used.
‘It’s hard to imagine anyone would want to get rid of that,’ he said. ‘I do think Britain is over-regulated, so I can go along with the basic principle. But doing without the NAO and Audit Commission altogether sounds like a step too far – and, oddly enough, might undermine what the authors are recommending.
‘If we were to have a decentralised state, regulators would be one of the guarantees that bad service providers were exposed and put under proper market pressure.’
But Professor Malcolm Prowle of Nottingham Business School said the recession had strengthened the case for abolishing bodies such as the NAO and Audit Commission.
‘These are areas we have to look at, not because I don’t think they’re necessary or valuable, but because to put it bluntly we can’t afford them. We’re either looking at that or stripping out frontline services.’
He pointed out that the UK was one of the most centralised states in the world, but it was ‘debatable’ whether central command and control had improved services or led to consistent quality across the country.
‘I don’t see that the present system is a glowing success,’ he said. Centralisation did not necessarily lead to efficiency, as ‘waste was not the province of local government’.
Darren Northcott, national official for education at the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers, said Demos had not been clear enough about what they wanted from frontline workers.
He said teachers were already flexible and capable of taking on new responsibilities without needing to train for an extra two years.
‘Regulation is not necessarily a bad thing,’ Northcott added. ‘It can give people rights, such as a common learning entitlement.’
However, he described the Ofsted inspection system as ‘punitive’, saying it distorted priorities by forcing schools to put the requirements of the regulator ahead of the best interests of pupils.
24 September 2009
Radical proposals to save money by scrapping almost all central government regulation and devolving power to frontline services have provoked anger in the Audit Commission and been dismissed by experts.
A paper by think-tank Demos argued that a new
‘post-bureaucratic age’ could be brought about by abolishing watchdogs such as the commission, and stripping out middle management.
Leading from the front, part of Demos’s Progressive Conservatism programme, argues that services can improve, innovate and become more efficient only if responsibility for budgets was given to more highly trained frontline workers.
‘[Public services] do not give people what they want, they are expensive to run, and public servants are demoralised,’ the paper said.
The formerly Blairite think-tank’s report is explicitly aimed at the Conservative Party leadership, urging them to ‘articulate a vision for sustainable cuts’.
It called for all schools to have the same level of autonomy as academies, for doctors to have more say over how cash is spent, and for Jobcentre Plus teams to be given a share of any budget surplus they achieve.
Co-author Max Wind-Cowie told Public Finance that services were better held to account through local democracy and offering choice than through central auditing.
He admitted that the proposals had not been fully costed, and acknowledged that his plan to increase teacher skill levels, requiring them to train for three years rather than one, would be expensive.
However, he estimated that almost £1bn a year could be saved by culling regulators. Bodies such as Ofsted and the National Audit Office could be replaced by a single organisation that gathered and published information on performance.
The Audit Commission and the NAO declined to comment officially. But David Walker, the commission’s head of communications, hit back angrily. In a personal comment posted on the PF website, Walker congratulated the ‘struggling think-tank’ for generating publicity, but accused the report’s authors of confusing auditing, regulation and inspection.
He said the Demos argument ‘led inexorably to abandoning independent audit or inspection’ but that the authors simultaneously recommended a single ‘mega-quango’ on a shoestring budget.
Tony Travers, a former Audit Commission board member and local government expert at the London School of Economics, said regulators had an important job in checking the books and ensuring probity where public funds were used.
‘It’s hard to imagine anyone would want to get rid of that,’ he said. ‘I do think Britain is over-regulated, so I can go along with the basic principle. But doing without the NAO and Audit Commission altogether sounds like a step too far – and, oddly enough, might undermine what the authors are recommending.
‘If we were to have a decentralised state, regulators would be one of the guarantees that bad service providers were exposed and put under proper market pressure.’
But Professor Malcolm Prowle of Nottingham Business School said the recession had strengthened the case for abolishing bodies such as the NAO and Audit Commission.
‘These are areas we have to look at, not because I don’t think they’re necessary or valuable, but because to put it bluntly we can’t afford them. We’re either looking at that or stripping out frontline services.’
He pointed out that the UK was one of the most centralised states in the world, but it was ‘debatable’ whether central command and control had improved services or led to consistent quality across the country.
‘I don’t see that the present system is a glowing success,’ he said. Centralisation did not necessarily lead to efficiency, as ‘waste was not the province of local government’.
Darren Northcott, national official for education at the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers, said Demos had not been clear enough about what they wanted from frontline workers.
He said teachers were already flexible and capable of taking on new responsibilities without needing to train for an extra two years.
‘Regulation is not necessarily a bad thing,’ Northcott added. ‘It can give people rights, such as a common learning entitlement.’
However, he described the Ofsted inspection system as ‘punitive’, saying it distorted priorities by forcing schools to put the requirements of the regulator ahead of the best interests of pupils.
