In-house is better

My tongue-in-the-cheek suggestion in this space yesterday -- that the government's plan to send civil servants home to work during the Olympics could be part of a plot for cutting the size of the civil service -- may have been nearer the truth than I realised. Yesterday No 10 announced a staff-cutting experiment in which policy development in government departments will be commissioned from private think-tanks and consultants instead of being the responsibility of the civil service. The short-term attraction of this idea is easy to see but I had rather hoped that the Lib-Com coalition's liking for short-term solutions which then have to be U-turned might have subsided by now.

It is understandable that relatively inexperienced ministers dislike senior civil servants who know more about a subject than they do and are particularly well-versed in the implications that a new policy may have across a range of other government departments and the private sector. Private companies will be much more inclined to produce policies they know a minister wants, regardless of their cost and unintended consequences. The suggestion that private organisations may also be asked to undertake implementation of some projects raises further questions, for instance, about possible conflict of interest and also of the fragmentation of strategic planning as decisions are made piecemeal rather than in a coordinated fashion.