20 February 2009
By Graham Clews
‘Urgent and fundamental changes’ in the UK’s systems of governance are needed in the light of the deepening economic crisis, according to the executive director of the Institute for Government.
Sir Michael Bichard, who is a former permanent secretary at two government departments, said that the country needed to move away from the ‘target-driven, controlling, prescriptive government’ that had dominated for the past decade.
The temptation in tough economic times was to ‘bunker down, salami cut and invest in a couple of projects’, he told delegates at the Treasury/CIPFA World-Class Performance Symposium held in London on February 12.
‘There will be immense pressure on the funding of public services, and at the same time the public expectation will be for the quality of public services to continue to rise.’
But, Bichard added, the population was also looking for government with a ‘national sense of purpose with stated values’.
Providing this would require joined-up government in the proper sense of the phrase, with a ‘genuinely connected effort’ from different parts of government.
The government needed to be better at influencing citizens, without crossing the ‘fine line’ into paternalistic government, and its measurement of outcomes needed to focus on citizens, he added.
Senior public sector figures needed to demonstrate a culture of creativity, because innovative ways of working would be needed to tackle the current problems. A serious look at commissioning must take place to understand why such a small percentage of government work was carried out by other sectors, Bichard said.
The government also needed to anticipate future problems more effectively. While caution was required on how much planning could be done, Bichard said, there was currently no parliamentary committee devoted to anticipating future risks.
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