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This report distils much of the Public Administration Select Committee's work over the past decade in seeking to improve the operation of government. The breadth of the Committee's interest in public administration has meant that, over the years, we have examined numerous aspects of Britain's governing practices and structures. Taking stock of our past work, combined with current insights from experts on government and public administration, has allowed us to come to some conclusions about the nature of good government and how to achieve it.
British government is widely perceived to be among the best in the world. As with any government, however, British government has particular strengths and particular weaknesses. In this report, we assess the effectiveness of government in Britain against five requirements that we have identified as prerequisites for good government:
i. Good people: government needs to recruit and cultivate the right people so that they are able to deploy their skills and abilities effectively to the work of government. This applies equally to government ministers, civil servants and public servants more generally.
ii. Good process: this means ensuring that appropriate structures, systems and procedures are in place for government to run smoothly—whether for the development of sound policies and legislation, successful policy implementation or for competent day-to-day administration of routine government business.
iii. Good accountability: adequate arrangements need to exist to ensure that people within government—both elected and appointed—are held to account for their decisions, actions and performance. One important prerequisite for proper accountability is the existence of defined roles and responsibilities so that it is clear who can be held responsible for what.
iv. Good performance: effective performance assessment within government helps to identify how well public organisations are meeting their objectives, as well as highlighting where improvements could be made, so that government is better able to work towards its desired outcomes.
v. Good standards: high ethical standards in public life are vital to ensuring basic public trust and confidence in governing institutions. Strong ethical regulation and ethical leadership in turn underpin the achievement of high standards.
Government in Britain fulfils many of these conditions for good government, to a lesser or greater extent. There is, however, scope for it to improve. We make a wide variety of recommendations based on the themes emerging from our analysis. These include:
- encouraging a tighter, clearer focus in government, which might for example involve reducing the number of government ministers;
- placing a greater emphasis on ensuring good standards of basic administration than on responding to short-term media and political pressures to take new initiatives or introduce new laws;
- emphasising more strongly in civil service recruitment and promotion processes the need for officials to have relevant operational and delivery skills, without neglecting the key role of providing policy advice;
- decentralising power wherever possible, in order to empower frontline public service workers and citizens and to ensure that decisions are made and functions exercised at the most appropriate level;
- following more thorough and considered processes for making policies and laws, including effective parliamentary pre- and post-legislative scrutiny;
- greater clarity about the respective roles and responsibilities of ministers and civil servants, so that accountability at the highest levels of government is well-defined and understood;
- co-ordinating the work of government so that the right balance is struck between having an effective corporate centre and allowing departments sufficient autonomy to operate successfully;
- establishing an independent body with the powers to assess and promote effective performance in government, ideally by changing the remit and operation of the National Audit Office; and
- fostering strong ethical leadership to promote high standards in public life, as well as transparent, independent and accountable ethical regulation.
Our five requirements for good government point the way towards achieving better government, as well as providing a yardstick for assessing the quality of government. There is much discussion at present about the evolving role of government. In our view, any future government—whether it be "smarter", smaller or more strategic—needs, as a first priority, to ensure that the conditions we have set out have been met. In other words: a smarter state first requires good government.
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