Why every Whitehall reform ends in failure

Tim Knox and Nada Kakabadse have a useful CAPX piece on a perennial UK problem, the failure to reform Whitehall. Well worth reading if only as a reminder that politicians we vote for have no great interest in tackling the problem - there are too few rewards for doing so.


Why every Whitehall reform ends in failure

• 17 attempts to reform government since 1968. Not one has made a lasting change
• Does Civil Service reform make things better or worse? No one ever checks
• The system rewards announcing change. Not delivering it

Talk about reforming the machinery of government often sounds like a wine tasting. One expert raises the glass, considers the latest initiative and says: ‘An interesting effort, but not enough depth.’ Another detects ‘promising notes of delivery, rather spoiled by departmental silos’. A third finds ‘hints of innovation and accountability, but with a disappointingly familiar finish’.

Everyone knows the vocabulary. Everyone has heard the speeches. Whitehall must be more agile, more mission-focused, more digital, more accountable, more joined-up, more innovative, more outward-looking. The words change a little with each administration, but the ritual is repetitive. A new government arrives, a new review is launched, a new unit is created, a new organogram is drawn, a new acronym is born. Then the system absorbs the initiative, waits for ministerial attention to move elsewhere, and carries on much as before.

The problem is not that Britain lacks reviews. It is that the system is exquisitely designed to produce them, praise them, file them and forget them: since the Fulton Report of 1968, there have been 17 major attempts to reform government, and not one has made a lasting change. The failure cannot credibly be blamed on one party, one ideology, one prime minister or one awkward generation of officials. It is too consistent for that.