Sir Philip Green has long wanted to run Marks & Spencer. Now he has the consolation prize – he gets to follow in the footsteps of a real M&S boss, Sir Derek Rayner, by becoming a government efficiency adviser.
Rayner was appointed by Margaret Thatcher to head up the Efficiency Unit in Whitehall in 1979, only a few days after the election. It’s taken David Cameron a while longer to get around to asking Green to have a look at potential savings for the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review.
Cameron has clearly gone down-market, from M&S to BHS, but that is not the only difference. Whereas Rayner actually came inside Whitehall to run the new Efficiency Unit, Green is conducting an external review. And whilst Rayner remained for three to four years, it’s looks like Green is only doing this for three to four months. And finally, whereas Rayner and his team conducted very focused reviews of specific areas, Green seems to be conducting some sort of open-ended review of the whole of public spending.
Even with all the advantages of being insiders, focused and more long-term, a National Audit Office review of the achievements of the so-called Rayner scrutinies showed that only about half of the savings identified by the reviews were ever realised. Identifying savings is much easier than achieving them, as both I and Sir Gerry Robinson pointed out on the Today programme this morning.
And finally, wasn’t there anyone in Whitehall to point out to David Cameron that appointing Green would be ‘a brave decision, Prime Minister’? Green and his family’s tax affairs are, to put it mildly, controversial. Perhaps Cameron is missing all the furore over Lord Ashcroft’s tax status?
Colin Talbot is professor of public policy and management at Manchester Business School. This post first appeared on Whitehall Watch
