COMMENT
Joining the round table
Th e benefi ts of Sir Gus’s quest for joined-up government are
clear and other countries have shown it can be achieved
Simon
Parker
IF JOINED-UP GOVERNMENT is the holy Agreements introduced in 2008 required high priority, but more general, goals
grail of public administration, then Sir departments to work together. The result – with mixed results.
Gus O’Donnell might be a sort of King has been a wave of experimentation with Joining up seems to work best when it
Arthur. Over the past month, the cross-departmental governance on new has strong political leadership. The
Cabinet secretary has been quietly PSA delivery boards. Netherlands has done this by appointing
calling for a major reform in the way But governance is often all that the two programme ministers – one for
public money is spent. Rather than youth and families and another for
giving pots of money to departments
Joined-up
urban policy – who sit outside the
then hoping they will tackle traditional departmental structure and
problems such as climate change, he
government is the
work across organisations.
wants cash to be allocated to specifi c
cross-cutting problems – pooled holy grail of public
Finally, successful experiments often
use cash to help departments work
budgets for teen pregnancy and
obesity, perhaps.
administration
differently. For example, in
Canada, departments often
Over the past three months, have to enter joint bids for
researchers from the Institute for funds, setting out each
Government have been examining partner’s role and
how other countries have achieved responsibilities and ensuring
successful joined-up government. We PSAs have changed. Money clear and logical programme
think there are three vital lessons to still fl ows to departments rather design.
learn. First, keep the number of policy than problems and – What does this suggest for a
goals low. Second, joined-up unsurprisingly in the current British system? One option is to
government will fail unless it is political climate – ministers do not create pooled budgets at the
powerfully driven by politicians. appear to have made the joined-up goals centre and make
Finally, use money as a lever to a political priority. departments bid for them.
change behaviour in departments – From Canada to Finland, other The pooled budgets and
cash should drive collaboration. countries have experimented with a the outcomes they are
The argument for joining up is well- wide range of techniques. The fi rst designed to achieve could
rehearsed: many of the problems the thing their experience suggests is that be overseen by a lead minister
government faces involve more than governments should keep the number of or a Cabinet committee. A more radical
one department, and Whitehall has centrally driven joined-up goals to a option would be to create a handful of
not historically been very good at minimum. Cross-government working programme ministers for the
working across boundaries. So making takes up a huge amount of bureaucratic government’s top fi ve or so priorities.
the civil service work effectively on energy and vertical accountability to They would sit outside the traditional
complex problems probably means superiors will almost always trump departments in small offi ces and use
some changes to fi nancial fl ows and horizontal accountability to colleagues. their budgets to commission work on,
organisational structures. It defi nitely The Dutch have only ten cross-cutting say, climate change from across
means changing Whitehall culture. programmes, with pooled budgets Whitehall and perhaps even beyond.
Dealing with cross-cutting issues attached, and the Finns just three. This kind of reform might not be
often means thinking differently – Importantly, these are specifi c top-down enough to turn Whitehall into Camelot,
keeping your eye on the big picture of goals set out in agreements between the but it would defi nitely get civil servants
outcomes and citizen needs, rather ruling coalition parties. sitting at the same round table.
than just the bit of it that your team More ‘bottom-up’ approaches seem
happens to be working on. less powerful – Canada and New ■ Simon Parker is a fellow of the Institute for
The civil service is improving on this Zealand ask departments to show how Government. The results of the institute’s research
front. The 30 Public Service their work contributes to a handful of will be published towards the end of the year
DREAMSTIME
www.publicfi nance.co.uk JULY 31–AUGUST 6 2009 PUBLIC FINANCE 19
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