DOGE has not been a success. Elon Musk proposed $2 trillion off spending before the election. He scaled that back to $1 trillion on getting the job, The DOGE website claims $160 bn so far but most people think that is a big exaggeration.
It is true federal spending has gone down a bit. For four months there has been no money or military aid sent to Ukraine, after a lot in the last 3 months of President Biden. As it appears President Trump cannot create a peace it looks as if military spend on Ukraine will be reinstated. There have been cuts to overseas aid and there could be more to come. The UK Labour government has already identified this as an easy target for big cuts.
In practice cutting overheads, redirecting staff away from woke projects and getting staff into the office more all require strong Cabinet level leadership backed up by senior officials who buy into the aims and undertake the detailed implementation. It takes more than a few Elon Musk interviews and speeches, more than highlighting a few particularly silly items of spend in a so called audit.
In the case of a UK Council it will take the Leader of the Council and the Executive Councillors to set out what needs changing. They need to get buy in from the senior permanent staff, and need to persuade most of their employees that this is the way to go. Making threatening general statements about job losses makes the task more difficult.It puts the staff offside and more determined to resist. Dealing in generalities about cutting DEI or net zero work needs to be backed up by numbers, plans and budgets and agreed line by line in each individual Council.
I will in a later blog talk more about how I with JohnHatch launched the idea of value for money audits in the public sector. Just sending in a regular additional auditor will not help much. To get gains the specialist needs to be part auditor part management adviser. The questions of a regular audit, what was spent, how was it categorised, was it properly incurred spending do not get you a more efficient organisation. You need to ask how could I do that better and cheaper? Do I need to do that at all?
The strategic question of what does a Council no longer need to do should have been answered by the political parties in the election. A new Leader and ruling group needs to say at their first meeting with officers on taking over what they intend to close down.
May 6, 2025
Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.
The Public Sector isn’t going to gracefully accept cuts to spending … whether Councils, Quangos, Charity-Quangos or the Civil Service.
Cameron/Osborne didn’t even try to cut spending. They just cut the rate at which it was due to increase and the howls of rage from the taxpayer-funded Blob were deafening.
That’s why you need a DOGE: To highlight to the taxpayers the appalling levels of waste; the ridiculous schemes which get taxpayer funding (the latest being £56 million on an experiment to dim the sun!) and what sometimes looks like blatant corruption.
The public needs to understand that cutting spending doesn’t mean front-line services will be attacked.
May 6, 2025
100% agree
May 6, 2025
Leave the USA to sort its own perceived probl. Their solutions are not necessarily transferable.
Our problems are that in many instances the employees act and exist outside the control of the electorate, the ones who pay the bills. In too many cases egged on by an elected body of councellors out of touch with reality. A reality that has not prioritised the interests of the bill paying electorate.
Where Reform have control I hope they first forensically audit what they have inherited and first report the results to the electorate. Where there has been spending in pursuit of a political ideollogy or just plain waste, end it, by instructing public servants to do so. Defiance should result in a P45. Be prepare for national government spite, bur again keep the electorate informed.
The time for the use of the cooperative norms of the past is long gone. They are an invitation to the long grass kickers. We are at the start of a very British revolution in which the electorate begin to take back control from a political and establishment blob, who living by the rules you suggest, are allowed to retain their power. Their time is over, whether they realise it or not.
May 6, 2025
DOGE many not be a good model for public sector reform, but it does put the public spotlight on spending and helps galvanise the political will to make changes. In this, it’s a first important step in the process of reform: if politicians don’t feel any pressure to cut spending, they won’t.
How many newly-elected local administrations have sat down on day one and said they want to their Council to stop doing x,y,z? Not many, I’d guess. And those that do are told there are reasons it “can’t be done”. If they’ve tracked spending while in opposition and then researched and formulated specific cuts that they’ve put into their electoral programs, it’s more likely savings “can” be pushed through.
Also, how many administrations are tempted to spend more? All of my local Councils are (Town, District and County), whether run by independents, Libdem or Tories. There are always some non-essential pet projects they want to do. If the public are kept aware of this sort of profligacy via a DOGE, it makes such waste difficult to hide.
So, I’m all for DOGEs.
May 6, 2025
@Wanderer; “If they’ve tracked spending while in opposition and then researched and formulated specific cuts that they’ve put into their electoral programs, it’s more likely savings “can” be pushed through.”
Exactly, and is that not what Mrs Thatcher’s government in waiting did.
Reply That is exactly what they did. I advised them in Opposition of where to get efficiency gains and where to sell off activities.
May 6, 2025
Not their money not they who get the value so they do not care. Stop all the thing that deliver no value or negative value for a start. Like net zero for a start.
Many cases where tax payers are funding both side of legal disputes a bit like one department of a company expensively suing another department (with possibly several appeals to) rather than the directors just making the decision and getting on with it. Politicians as we saw over the what is a “woman” and a “man” supreme court legal case, Politicians totally failing to do their job properly and leaving it to expensive court cases instead.
So much fat that could, so very easily, be cut out if only there was any will.
May 6, 2025
Good Morning,
So Sir J., are you saying that local government, and one presumes national government, are NOT doing the obvious management responsibility described in your penultimate paragraph – to review work practices and seek efficiency improvements and cuts in unnecessary expenses?
If so, then we know where the cuts should first occur!
May 6, 2025
So Prince Harry thinks the withdrawal of his automatic protection is “an establishment stitch” up yet he wants this. same untrusted “establishment” to do this protection! Does not seem to make much sense to me Harry.
Lots of commentators (including JR) on TV and Radio yesterday saying it was good to have a Royal Family as they were above politics and kept out of it. I agree it would be but climate alarmist and total hypocrite King Charles and Prince William do not keep out of it, They should do as his mother Elizabeth did. Especially as they are clearly deluded on climate and grade 1 hypocrites too.
May 6, 2025
The late Queen agreed to stripping all British citizens of their citizenship and placing unstated obligation on them when they were unilaterally lumbered with EU Citizenship. She agreed to give up the Monarchy! She became a common citizen of the EU.
How political can you get?
Her son is worse! He opened the WEF Conference in Davos. He speaks against the Christian church he supposedly heads.
May 6, 2025
Prince Charles: ‘Me, meddle as a king? I’m not that stupid.
Heir to throne tells BBC 70th birthday interview he will desist from his hobbyhorses if sovereign.
So was he lying or has he just become so stupid he does not realise he is being highly political – and on the wrong side of most arguments in general.
May 6, 2025
The monarch is obliged to take the advice of his ministers of course which does not always place him on the correct side.
May 7, 2025
The late Queen agreed to no such thing. All of my passports have always said “British Citizen”. No mention anywhere of the EU under the Nationality label.
I was a British citizen with the right to freely travel, live and work in 27 other countries until those rights were taken away from me. Now I waste time queueing for stamps and keeping a spreadsheet to ensure compliance with the 90/180 day rule.
May 6, 2025
Sir John,
The potential for reduction in council spending has been all but declared off limits by the increased LibDem representation in councils up and down the county.
The ongoing cooperation between Labour and LibDems will ensure policies of Woke continue unabated. The ongoing war on motorists will carry on fines for parking, or having the wrong kind of engine or being in the wrong lane or travelling at 23MPH will continue.
Making savings are easy. The issue is making policy that enables those savings to happen. The council officers or permanent staff as you refer to them are nothing more than an extension of the civil service. There role is to maintain big state control. That is one of the reasons nothing ever changes other than increasing cost of their presence every year along with increasing numbers.
May 6, 2025
The apolitical King Charles to Ed Miliband:-
“As we all navigate the transition to cleaner energy for our planet and energy security for our citizens, summits such as these are of vital importance in facilitating shared learning between nations, particularly those in the global south and across the Commonwealth,” What exactly is dirty about CO2 plant tree and crop food Charles?
The UK government wants 95% of Great Britain’s electricity mix to come from clean energy by the end of the decade – currently this stands around 60%. Miliband told the BBC’s R4 Today programme that this would “guarantee” lower energy bills by 2030. The man is totally deluded is 95% is wind and solar where will the power back up come from at night when there is little wind? Plus it will clearly be vastly more expensive than gas & coal as we we in the USA! Get real Miliband and Charles and stop lying(?)
May 6, 2025
Presumably he meant electricity and not energy and 60% is at peak times, not overall.
May 6, 2025
‘clean energy’ is very ‘dirty’ to enable production in the first place.
Solar panels are typically made in China, the energy used is made by burning coal.
Windmills are made from metal structures(steel) and carbon fibre, transported and erected at significant cost.
So, a serious rethink on whether 60% is really clean is needed.
May 6, 2025
Indeed
May 6, 2025
@LL – China has 55 nuclear power stations with a further 23 under construction. China hasn’t deindustrialised its nation, banned the use of resources or the creation of wealth. So, China gets to fund its future.
The UK has banned most things that earn money before viable alternatives have been found. So the UK doesn’t have an income stream to fund its future. So any future will be only for those that are immensely rich or work for the State
May 6, 2025
Who is going to fund the State?
It is very dangerous to be rich in a poor country – I’m thinking of hungry people with nothing to lose.
May 6, 2025
We should be in no doubt about the threat that a nuclear armed Iran regime would pose to Israel and the West following yesterday’s unveiling by Iranian Defence and Armed Forces Logistics Minister Brigadier General Aziz Nasir Zadeh of an upgraded Haj Quassem ICBM
Zadeh claims that the missile is equipped with a manoeuvrable re-entry vehicle (MaRV), infrared homing, an inertial navigation system, and EPM. Zadeh provided no evidence nor offered western journalists a view of this missile, but should the Ayatollah regime manage to develop a miniaturised nuclear bomb to arm it, the dangers are obvious. Source; ISW
Trump and the American delegation to the talks are demanding the end of the Iran regime’s nuclear program and zero uranium enrichment. The regime has refused, threatening to attack American and Israeli bases in the region. Trump stated on May 4 that “total dismantlement…is all [he] would accept”
May 7, 2025
Not such a good idea to allow thousands of potential terrorists from the Middle East to pour into the country, completely unvetted, then is it?
May 7, 2025
But Iran’s leaders know that if they launch a nuclear missile and it detonates on Israel they are signing a warrant for the total destruction of their country. They won’t be that mad.
May 6, 2025
Getting senior management buy in -easier said than done as a generation of “managers” are too frit to go against the grain.
As a policy We will not spend money on DEI, just good HR practice; we will reduce our gas and electricity use but not aim for net zero and we expect workers to be together in an office several days per week. Seems likely to save money and increase productivity.
At least Reform is getting cost cutting talked about. Even if, as ever, their solutions are simplistic. First move the Overton window.
May 6, 2025
The fact Farage has stated the Net Stupid and DEI (except Deport Every Immigrant) jobs are threatened needed saying. Then we can judge his success.
Senior staff salaries are out of control together with their eye watering pensions
I’m expecting good things from the Reform led councils and cheese paring will not suffice.
Bold moves are required and we can expect push back from the unions and reduced grants from Westminster. This will confirm to the voters that councils are wasting millions of their money on unnecessary programmes.
May 6, 2025
Councils have to ring-fence funds to pay for care home places for people who spent all the money they ever had, and put nothing by for their old age. This is a statutory duty they can’t avoid, no matter what councillors say in their election leaflets.
Make this duty only discretionary and the councils have the scope to reduce their spending enormously.
Councils also spend appreciable amounts on education. This I don’t begrudge, as the next generation have really been stitched up with a massive national debt to maintain, and they deserve better.
May 6, 2025
It is worse than that! I have never heard of a Care Home that gets it income solely from the local authority which pays a standard fixed rate. It is subsidised by the residents whose estate is being robbed, yes robbed, by an inflated rate without the family having any choice – they cannot pay the standard rate.
May 6, 2025
@Dave Andrews; Yes the government and LAs, could take your approach, but there are plenty of floating voters who do not see things your way, and are often heard to mutter “for the grace of God goes I”…
The problem is, there’s an abundance of cash poor, asset rich older couples were one spouse is in need of residential care but the other not; the State can not expect the other spouse to sell their home in such circumstances, nor is everyone able to ‘down size’. And another problem creeping in, those who are cash poor and have already cashed-in part of their assets via a release scheme, again not to then spend recklessly, but to be ‘the bank of mum and dad’ to their children or grandchildren, funding an otherwise unaffordable mortgage deposit on, or even outright purchase of, a starter-property. Being unable to pay for (unplanned for) social care is not always due to having been a spend-swift in the past, quite the opposite sometimes, many did the ‘right thing’ in the 1980s and tried to do the ‘right thing’ more recently.
May 6, 2025
@Ian Wragg; “we can expect … reduced grants from Westminster”
If Westminster cut grants to Reform lead Councils it will be an own goal, and will simply transfer the ‘Nasty Party’ label to the Starmer govt, punishing the electorate for voting for the wrong party never ends well.
May 6, 2025
Very much agree Sir John.
Changing organisational culture and practice takes time and determination. Staff need incentives to change with the stick being present but rarely used. There will always be one or two who resist the new broom, often behind your back. It is one reason why new senior management like to bring in their own middle managers into key positions, although this can also cause resentment. In my experience, the first year is frustrating with little or no real progress. The second year is when things really start to change as people begin realise they need to step up or get left behind.
The “new” Reform Councils are going to find their ideas, beliefs and policies challenged at every turn.
May 6, 2025
I suspect, as long as services don’t become clearly very bad, that will suit them in a disruptors role. “See, we’d love to do this but rules that can only be changed by UK government are holding us back”
Equally a certain part of the civil service will be quite happy for some chaos to try and demonstrate such policies won’t ever work
May 6, 2025
“Making threatening general statements about job losses makes the task more difficult”. Well as this comment is plainly directed at Reform we’ll see won’t we ? they are in full control of several large councils now and have the power to implement a cost cutting agenda.
May 6, 2025
well, we could invite staff to do the decent thing and resign with no financial encouragement. Pigs might fly.
May 6, 2025
In his own businesses Musk rules that the best part/component and the process that creates it is no part/component and process. He uses a process of constant and rapid reiteration to achieve that objective. In government the same idea is true because it will save taxpayer expense. How you get there in government is more challenging because it needs to start with persuading the electorate of your intent and there may not be the same opportunity or freedom to experiment with alternative solutions. If the implementation of your intent is not well thought out and the driven through, the chances are it will be frustrated by the blob. This is why the Brexit opportunity was blown.
May 6, 2025
Nothing coming out of America now is a good model for public sector reform or anything else. If we need reform we’ll have to design it ourselves – taking a sledge hammer approach is not the way.
May 6, 2025
Never hitting a nut is even worse!
May 6, 2025
very good Lynn !!
May 6, 2025
In my experience, large companies in the private sector tend to prune regularly and wait until something goes wrong and then partially re-instate. This is because EVERY manager tells the company that they cannot do without their staff. This renders having consultations pretty much useless.
Much better to prune too much (including the lying managers) and put back the essential staff afterwards, imho.
May 6, 2025
This appears to be a side swipe towards those now Reform UK controlled Counties and Councils. The four party political establishment must be quaking in their collective boots, all having failed to cut the Woke and partisan feel-good nonsense spending, preferring to either hike taxes or cut services, sometimes doing both!
Talk of ‘independent’ value for money audits always reminds me of when the company I was working for were (equipment) supplier to the Audit Commission; since then I have always wondered who audits these specialist auditors… After the back-office waste we saw from NHS Trusts the Audit Commission came a very close second.
In defense of DOGE, such changes often cost money in the immediate, the savings come later, thus it is far to early to judge DOGE a success or failure. If the Mrs Thatcher’s govt had been judges similarly, after just four months, Callaghan would have been back in Downing Street by September, fortunately the first judgement came after four years…
Reply No side swipe. I want more Councils to get costs down and service quality up, whoever runs them. I am offering advice here to any Council ruling group that wants to serve people better and charge them less.
May 6, 2025
“A new Leader and ruling group needs to say at their first meeting with officers on taking over what they intend to close down.”
Is the necessary data publicly available? Is it even available to councillors or do they have to ask the administrative staff for a report?
Reply Yes plenty of published data
May 6, 2025
So-called ‘DOGE’ is what it is a campaigning slogan that taps into political problems there are everywhere in the world – lack of management, responsibility and accountability. Milei, in Argentina is the only one anywhere that appears to have got a grip on what management means in government – that is controlling expenditure to meet income.
Governments have the power spend what they like, what they don’t grasp is the responsibility that come with it.
What nowadays has become theft from the taxpayer, the removal of resources to create wealth and is just squandered to keep chums and pals without real jobs close and contented. That is not economy management. that is rape and pillage of a nation and its people.
May 6, 2025
@Ian B; As I pointed out with regards to DOGE, it is still far to early to pass judgement on Milei and how Argentina is being run – a bit of fence sitting might be wise…
May 6, 2025
How many Councillor positions are paid a wage and aren’t just meeting attenders? Hopefully they already have the CV print outs of all the new councillors and their skills. I’d get organisation charts for every person in the Council and a list of their duties (that should already exist).
The first thing I’d do is take over the purchase order system. One person with purchasing experience, preferably in the private sector, who has had to make every 1p count, would have all ancillary purchases sent to them for a purchase order reference; no purchases without this number can be made. I’d meet all the workers in the purchasing and purchase accounting section. As a quick start I would look at stationery as a priority, what stationery is in stock, are stock lists kept efficiently. Is there stock that has been on the shelves for more than a year?
I would also ask a suitably qualified purchase officer on the council to review all regularly tendered purchases. Do council officers get involved with any new contract purchases? Or is it left to the council leader and staff?
May 6, 2025
Indeed, DOGE is not a good model. Far better is the original, from Javier Milei of Argentina: Afuera!
We hear hardly anything about that success in our media – I wonder why? – but success there is, if one call balancing the budget and reducing government spending by 28% a success …
May 6, 2025
From what I read, Musk’s team are upgrading computer systems. You know this takes more than 100 days, but the results of these new systems will reap returns. Billions of dollars spent on over-living-age loans were identified in 2022 by the last administration. Still, the systems were so antiquated that nothing has happened to find and fine the perpetrators.
Suppose they weren’t making spending decisions to save millions and billions of dollars. Why is everyone up in arms about USAID money being stopped around the globe on projects not supported by the new administration?
Either new administrations with different spending priorities can do as they promised the electorate that put them into power or what is the point of changing?
May 6, 2025
The reason why DOGE was so badly needed is the same reason why it hasn’t made as much progress as it should have. The entrenched US deep state put up blocks and legal challenges at every stage. The potential to save $Trillions is still there if the insane roadblock can be dismantled, and they should be.
The deep state lived well off US state funding – too well in fact. They do not like change.
It will take more than a few auditors to exhume the political waste in the UK – You have to have councils and a government committed to ending waste – We currently have the opposite with no sign that they give a damn!
Authorities are made up of individuals – I would start with investigating the money chain and who gained from it, as well as who authorised bad expenditure.
Expecting authorities to get themselves audit will never work.
May 6, 2025
“the idea of value for money audits in the public sector”.
We were doing this back in 1970 in the Private Horse nearly 60 years , by comparison.
I was recruited from university (B.Com) to a major international blue chip company based in London and extremely fortunate to be trained hands-on by world-class Internal Auditors by professionals in Accountancy, Systems and EDP (aka today as IT).
We worked in small teams challenging everything from basic physical security and to how things were measured, monitored etc and how could be improved, what was risks and threats etc it’s weakest links.
The ultimate question was basic common sense, i.e
” Is everything under control? ” inline with its core aim/s?
Not many organisations have a direct line up to the boardroom who took us very seriously and professional.
Self criticism found often in the Private Sector.
But extremely rare in the Public Sector.
You have small exceptions but there will definitely be much waste have seen it on special exercises internationally.
May 6, 2025
Err…. We were doing this back in 1970 in the Private Sector…..
Is what I wrote (this Amazon tablet changed it annoyingly).
Apologies.
May 6, 2025
I’ve worked for a couple of local authorities in a professional services office and they could not help more different. The only thing they had in common was that the chief was useless and overpaid.
The first worked effectively with a competent deputy who worked in the same office as the project professionals, who were allowed to use their skills in the same way as in private offices. In the second, which occupied a whole wing of a county hall, there was an incompetent and arrogant chief who was a bully and despised by the professional staff. He had two deputies, tied up with administrative projects, four group leaders who supervised the six project professionals and 2 technicians. In addition there was a job programmer and an accountant who checked costs. There were piles of standing order files which told the professionals what to do in all circumstances. The result was that any job would take about 4x as long to do as in a small private office. Some of the professionals took pride in ignoring the orders and frequently left after a few years.
I had expected to return to my old private office when the usual government arranged collapse had finished and didn’t mind letting slip that the office was a waste of money to a senior councillor. The office was closed later and money saved by using private consultants.
The best way to identify waste is to have a confidential whistle blowers line and a reward if money is saved.
May 9, 2025
Good idea on the whistleblower line and reward money.
May 6, 2025
I went online to examine my local Lewes District Council accounts for how much they were spending (wasting) on their declared “Climate Emergency”, only to find that the most recent published audited accounts were those for 2020/1. They hadn’t even managed to publish draft accounts for 2023/24 by the legal deadline. During this period the council has been variously controlled by Lib Dems, Greens and Labour. They claim that other councils have experienced similar delays.
How can the public hold these useless councilors to account when the record of their activities is simply unavailable?
May 6, 2025
As an addendum to the above, I used to be a borough councillor in Epsom & Ewell, controlled by Residents Association councillors of which I was one. Having gone on-line to their web site I find audited accounts for all years up to 2023/24 are available.
May 6, 2025
Real saving are not made in Councils. It’s the Government budget that needs to be restructured completely.
Firstly the BOE can be made to align with all other Central Banks by being made responsible for its own losses!
The judicial system should be made to manage its own budget too which should include prisons and lawyers fees. I wonder how many BBC licence fee dodgers would occupy a cell if that were so. They should assume the ‘victims compensation insurance too’ and they should have the power to deport and fine the border Agency if any deported person reappears in the U.K.
The NHS is a well that the US DOGE was not able to assess, but a U.K. DOGE could make massive savings simply by paying staff by the hour worked at their currently agreed rate. As far as I can see the entire staff are part-timers.
How do you assess savings? Savings to date or projected for the Parliament/US Administration?
May 6, 2025
I don’t think there will be a reform or reduction in the public sector unless there is a UK financial collapse and the financial markets take over.
May 6, 2025
Off Topic.
Something of a shockwave in German politics.
Friedrich Merz, leader of the German conservatives, suffered a humiliating and unexpected setback in parliament, failing to win a majority vote to become chancellor. On Tuesday morning, German MPs held a secret ballot to elect the country’s next leader. It was largely viewed as a formality because Mr Merz had already agreed to lead a coalition government.
Shocked CDU politicians left the chamber for urgent talks after the result, amid speculation in the German media that some of their MPs had rebelled due to policy disagreements with Mr Merz.
That meant Mr Merz would not be appointed as German chancellor on Tuesday, throwing his schedule for the rest of the week – which included several visits to European capitals – into disarray. Mr Merz’s coalition agreement consisted of his CDU party, its sister party Christian Social Union (CSU) and the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD). Last week, German intelligence services announced that they were classifying the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as an extremist party. Questions over whether this should lead to a ban may also have sown division between the CDU, CSU and SPD.
May 6, 2025
Since then a second vote has indeed elected Mr Merz, so a number of people scored a point and returned to the fold. Sounds a bit like our votes in the Commons!
May 6, 2025
I agree with the broad thrust of the article, both the what (in terms of change) needs to be done and how to go about it, at least initially.
There is mention of what local authorities, but also applies even more to governments, should be doing and, more crucially, what they should not be doing. This seems rarely to feature in discussions, there seems to be just an acceptance the answer is somehow more. How often do we hear “if we stopped doing x then we can re-direct that resource to y” vs “we need more money”.
Finally it seems to me that so much of governing is bound by laws / directives / run by quango’s that it takes a huge effort for elected representatives to make even quite a small change. Has this always been the case or is it now much more than say 30 years ago?
May 6, 2025
There’s one way to ensure good performance from our public servants – Reverse Bonus Deduction – Let the people decide by poll voting or other and if the work performance is not up to the mark then deduct from their salaries.
May 6, 2025
And the same for MPs? How about the bureaucrats?
May 6, 2025
I disagree. It is long overdue for Government, the Clvil Service and myriad quangos to be overseen for mismanagement of budgets by an independent organisation with no political affiliation. Look at the waste during covid? Look at the money wasted over Rwanda and with the Overseas Aid budget. Ministry of Defence and NHS are wasteful organisations where huge savings could be made. I completely disagree with the US Doge concept as it’s clearly politically motivated. However, saving tax payers money and getting value for money is an entirely necessary concept.
May 7, 2025
“backed up by senior officials who buy into the aims and undertake the detailed implementation”
That would only be possible if Blair’s senior cs appointees and those appointed by them could be sacked.
May 7, 2025
The real audit should be on what a council is physically doing and can be achieved more effectively and more cost effectively from outside sources. I am talking contracting things out that are then ring fenced by price, delivery and term – it’s called a contract.
It is also recognising that cheap(price) is not the same as ‘cost’. Unfortunately, that is little understood by the management employed by the taxpayer and run by elected representatives. Even those now elected don’t grasp what their duty as the board directors acting on behalf of those they serve means they are in charge and responsible. It is not about their ego, them pushing political terrorism – it is just about delivering those services that release the people to achieve and thrive – that is how the economy grows whether local or national.
May 11, 2025
It is preferable to get senior civil servants/managers on-side but what if they are part of the problem? Michael Heseltine brought Peter Levene from ourtside into the MOD for precisely this reason. It worked.