PUBLIC SERVANT September 2010

It’s a new world with different values and a different culture, Cabinet Office minister and paymaster general Francis Maude tells the September issue of Public Servant.

Charged with the responsibility of slashing public spending, he outlines his plans for a full-scale shake up of the way the public sector delivers.

He calls for a less risk-averse approach from government and local authorities, saying: “We need a culture that is much more willing to be innovative, try things, front up very quickly if they don’t work, and make sure we learn from them.”

But he acknowledges that one way or another cuts in public spending will have to be achieved, adding: “If all that is left at the end of a painful process of seeking reform-based solutions is the salami-slicer, then the salami has to be sliced.”

Despite the abolition of the Audit Commission, the NLGN’s Oliver Roth suggests local authorities will still need to demonstrate they are working efficiently and effectively.

“Has assessment become a sort of zombie, a creature killed off by central government, but desperately and inexorably trying to return through the back window?” he asks. “The truth, of course, is that assessment isn’t dead, it’s simply evolving.”

Audit Commission chairman Michael O’Higgins reflects on the fact that his organisation is one of the first victims of the promised “bonfire of the quangos” and reveals the commission had been drafting options for its future even before the coalition government came to power, including privatisation and/or the creation of an employee owned mutual.

Counting the cost of the abolition O’Higgins adds: “The issue is that if this had been done differently we may have got a different price for the organisation – when going out to the market was an option rather than a requirement.”

Still on the theme of cuts, September’s Public Servant offers some thoughts on the Strategic Spending Review as experts shine a light into the MoD’s black hole.

Dr Chris Martin, deputy director of the Centre for Security studies at the University of Hull, looks at the Trident question and warns that procuring its replacement at the cost of conventional capabilities could leave Britain unable to do anything to protect its everyday interests.

Dr Timothy Edmunds, reader in international politics at the University of Bristol, suggests that the level of cuts demanded require a reconsideration of some of the core assumptions that have underpinned defence organisation in the UK for the past two decades.

“Hard choices will need to be made” he warns, “ Compromise may be possible, yet such an outcome would be premised on reshuffling an increasingly well-thumbed pack of cards.”

Joel Shenton, editor of DefenceManagement.com, warns that before cuts are imposed politicians must decide where they want Britain to stand on the world military stage, while the views of many more experts are available on the website.

Peter Holbrook, chief executive of the Social Enterprise Coalition, examines the challenge of translating David Cameron’s Big Society ideas into action, while HR and management expert Blair McPherson tackles the tricky – and in the case of the public sector, increasingly inevitable – task of handling redundancies.

This month’s Special Report on operational efficiency includes contributions from, among others, outgoing chief executive of the OGC Nigel Smith, who explains why he believes the foundations are in place for government to get maximum value from shrinking budgets; Northumberland County Council chief exec Steve Stewart who explains how collaborative working is galvanizing the North East, and Chris Rainbird, director at management advisers Grant Thornton, who warns that local government still has much to do to prepare the cost reduction strategies that will be required to deliver next month’s comprehensive spending review.

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