The article starts "The poor quality of Westminster policy-making comes under fire in a report that will sound all too chillingly familiar.......and goes on.... a former secretary of state said he was stunned when he actually went round the room and asked civil servants for their thoughts on a policy he himself had some doubts over - only to discover that every single one of agreed that it was the wrong policy. A civil servant added that some ministers have been so scary and so unwilling to consider actual evidence that stuff has been withheld from them. Policies have sailed on without the benefit of that evidence."
Well I suppose we had always guessed as much!
A few years ago we were asked to bid for the continuation of some research for a Government Dept. We presented our proposal to a group of senior civil servants, showing them that the research that had been undertaken previously was flawed and what we would do in its place. Summing up at the end the most senior civil servant presents said "We can clearly see from your presentation that the previous research was flawed and I agree that what you are now proposing is the correct way to approch this. However, am I right in assuming that if we make these changes, the downward trend line would be reversed? To which we answered "yes". The civil servant then said "well in that case we can't do this because the Prime Minister has said this trend will go down".
So my experience certainly confirms the findings of this study in which a senior civil servant said of Whitehall "if we built aeroplanes the way we build policy, none of them would ever fly". This is stunning...isn't it? Is it any wonder our Country is not "flying"?
The Government is insisting on levels of good governance for UK businesses, how can UK businesses effectively insist on the same for the UK Government. The ballot box certainly seems to make little difference.
It is said that power corrupts and when you marry that with incompetence it is an unholy affair!