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Policy Advice Review-Perpetuating the Myths

April 29th, 2011

Forgive me for this I told you so moment, but it infuriates me. To recap. Last year the government announced a review of policy advice. This was the one where Bill English claimed an alternative was to look on websites for policy, the “government by google” approach.

The announcement of the review came complete with the usual hyping up of Labour’s record on public services.

Between 2003 and 2009, total Government spending on policy advice across all ministries, departments and agencies is estimated to have jumped by more than 70 per cent from about $510 million to $880 million. “This is faster than the already rapid general increase in total Government spending during this period,” Finance Minister Bill English says. “The amount spent on policy advice is now nearly three quarters of the Government’s total annual police budget and it almost matches our annual spending on social housing.

At the time I raised concerns about the “estimate” of spending on policy advice being based, according to the Terms of Reference for the review, on

appropriation data from Budget data files gained by searching on the terms ‘policy’ and ‘policies’ in the title field

Terrific attention to detail there. And now that the report has been produced the Dominion Post reports

At the time the review was announced, the Government claimed policy spending had risen from $510 million in 2003 to $880m in 2009. However, the review – led by former Treasury secretary Graham Scott – found that most of the increase was spent on non-policy-related activities. Excluding the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry, overall spending actually declined slightly in real terms over the period.

That’s right, with one exception, spending on policy advice went down in real terms. National has spent a lot of time going on about how Labour increased the back office at the expense of so-called frontline services. But their own report, by the former ACT candidate Graham Scott, finds this is not true.

Will we hear a retraction or apology from Bill English? No, he glosses over it as an estimate, despite making such a big deal of it at the time.

I welcome finding ways of improving policy advice to government, but it is not ok just to make things up that suit the myths you want to spread.

Posted in Bill English and Public Service. | 0 Comments

In praise of the public servants

March 6th, 2011

No one would be surprised to see a blog with this title from me, but the messages are coming through loud and clear that the work of public servants over the last twelve days in support of Christchurch has been magnificent.

There is the obvious, in the form of the police, fire, ambulance and rescue workers whose incredible efforts have been on show, day and night. The road and utility workers who as one said the other night have done three months work in three days.

But also, those considered as the backroom staff. As John Armstrong noted yesterday

Suddenly, it has become patently clear why those Wellington-based public servants are so essential. The lights have burned late into the night in departmental head offices across the city. The Herculean, but largely invisible efforts by head office officials have underpinned what has, so far, largely been an effective and well co-ordinated response to getting Christchurch back on its feet.

From the Civil Defence staff who have planned, coordinated and managed the response to a disaster on a scale far beyond anything in the lifetime of most New Zealanders, to the Work and Income and Health staff who have processed tens of thousands of applications, moved people and resources around the country and supported all those on the ground.

Of course not everything about the response to the disaster is perfect, and it is totally legitimate for questions to be raised about where resources are going and to make sure those who are vulnerable receive the support they need.But the hard work is not in question.

So-called back office public servants can be a political target as Anthony Hubbard noted in the Sunday Star Times today

National, it’s fair to say, has mixed feelings about bureaucrats. It came to power promising to cut the number of officials who weren’t in “the front line”. But the earthquake has shown how vital the officials are, and not just the people who aim the hoses or crawl through the rubble. Intelligence and competence are needed in the back room as well as the front line. All are needed to make the machine work.

So, let’s congratulate and thank our great public service for all their work, both out in the public glare and behind the scenes. Well done, team.

Posted in Public Service. | 0 Comments

London Calling #6 A Thousand Cuts

November 24th, 2010

Almost every day since I have been in the UK there has been a story about cuts in public services in the media. Talking to people who are working in both central and local government over here they say it is like one body blow after another. Many people are so bewildered they just dont know what to do.

Of course, some people are doing a lot. And tomorrow there will be further fees protests across the country. That issue will not go away in a hurry, and has not been helped tonight by a patronising speech by Deputy PM Nick Clegg. The Lib Dems really are going to regret their total acceptance of the Tories proposal here.

But two of the cuts really caught my eye this week, and almost certainly have not made the news in New Zealand. They are the kind of short-sighted things that will only show up in terms of impacts in decades to come. The first is the cutting of library services. Cuts to funding for local authorities are seeing library funding slashed and many authorities more than halving the libraries they have. Author Will Self sums things up in the article above

“Libraries are a cultural resource of universal benefit that shouldn’t be subjected to the crude calculus of cost-benefit analysis. What they should do is provide access to as many books as possible for as many people as possible.”

The other cut this week that stands out is in terms of school sports Here the Tories answer to Anne Tolley, the Education Secretary Michael Gove wants to cut the 162 million pound fund for school sport. This provides teachers and resources for school sport partnerships. But more than that it gets kids active and encourages them into sport. This has obvious health and social benefits, but seemingly the government want to let problems like childhood obesity fester as they make short term decisions.

No one in the UK doubts that there need to be changes as the government grapples with the kind of debt levels we might have reached if Michael Cullen had agreed to English/Key’s clamour for tax cuts while in opposition. But serious questions are being asked about where the focus should be, and literacy and activity of kids just seems like the wrong place.

Posted in Students, Public Service and Education. | 0 Comments

Public Service Numbers

May 27th, 2010

Govt-as-an-employer

In Parliament we have to put up with day in and day out Bill English simply making things up about Labour’s record in government. To give him credit his devotion to the messages created by Crosby Textor is something to behold. David Parker did a great response to his rubbish recently.

Today in Question Time we had the usual nonsense about “out of control” growth in public spending. I tabled the graph above that appears in the Institute of Policy Studies publication The Future State, and is from State Services Commission data that shows all elements of the wider state sector decling or remaining steady as a percentage of the total labour force, including the core public sector.

Mr English said I could “use any figures I like” to defend my position. No, not any figures I like, the ones from the State Services Commisssion- the government’s advisor on State Services.

Posted in Bill English and Public Service. | 0 Comments

Cooperative Government: A New Approach

February 19th, 2010

One of the things that concerns me the most as a politician is the sense of alientation of individuals and communities about important decisions that affect them. I am a firm believer in representative democracy, and I acknowledge that people do not necessarily want to be constantly consulted about every decision. However I think we as a country, over a very long time, have drifted to the point that a large number of people feel totally disconnected from politics and politicians and how decisions are made about their communities. I also believe that there is an important role for the community in the development and delivery of the services they receive.

These issues are not confined to New Zealand of course. In the UK there have been some very interesting developments at a local level to encourage much greater participation by communities. The latest of these is a proposal to make the Lambeth Council in London a ‘John Lewis Council’. John Lewis was businessman in the early 20th century who developed a business model based on a co-operative approach and profit sharing with employees.

In Lambeth they are looking at a co-operative council with residents helping to runs services, and the possibility of financial involvement further down the line. Some of the key initiatives being considered are

- An “active citizens’ dividend” offering a council tax rebate to those involved in community organisations or mutuals that take responsibility for services.
- Allowing service users and local residents to vote on turning local services such as local primary schools, Sure Start centres and youth clubs into citizen-led mutuals.
- Offering tenants more control of their housing estates by setting them up as co-operatives.
- Setting up “micro-mutuals” for people to use their personalised budgets for care service users.

It will be interesting to see how this develops. The approach is not without its pitfalls, and the capacity of local communities to take on decision making and delivery roles needs to be handled with care. The Labour led Council is keen to differentiate what they are doing from the Tory run Council in Barnet, that has been dubbed, the EasyCouncil because they are using the model of budget airlines, whereby they offer a basic service, with additional services on offer for purchase. The Leader of the Labour Council puts it this way

But while Barnet have come up with a plan to pare back what services they offer, we don’t want to. Instead we’re looking at a different settlement that will move the boundaries of who does what, getting users involved in putting together the services they want. Mutual and co-operative values will be our compass. We’ll give the voters a clear choice – cuts if you vote Tory but with us, not only fewer cuts, but also positive side- effects around community cohesion.”

I think it is entirely possible to have a level of devolution of control and decision making without it being about an ideological crusade about smaller government and cutting services. I will be watching closely to see how this develops.

Posted in Local Government, Democracy and Public Service. | 1 Comment