Taxpayers deserve value in public services
Britain’s public sector is plagued with waste, inefficiency and incompetence, with billions upon billions of taxpayers’ money squandered every year. Its productivity has declined scandalously, with Covid and lockdowns triggering a seeming collapse in financial rigour and management ability across the state sector.
It is good news that Jeremy Hunt now wants to start tackling this problem. He is right that the level of waste is “immoral”, and that the number of civil servants need to be brought back to pre-Covid levels. Taxpayers deserve value for money and ensuring the state performs its basic functions in the most efficient way possible.
The Cabinet Office this week unveiled plans to spend £110 million on artificial intelligence tools and technical staff in order to accelerate “dogsbody work” in Whitehall. John Glen, the Civil Service minister, rejected calls from officials to work four days a week for the same pay.
The civil service bill mushroomed from £9.7 billion in 2016 to £15.5 billion in 2023. A total of 5.9 million people are now employed by the state yet public-sector productivity has been essentially static since mid-Covid, and is still down 7.5 per cent on 2019. Resources have flooded in, demands to plug gaps in output with extra spending are a constant feature, yet there has been precious little to show for it.
Without market pressures which force private sector organisations to focus assiduously on the bottom line, government departments or arms-length bodies can become petri dishes for progressive causes, with the demand for a 20 per cent reduction in working hours with no corresponding reduction in wages no exception. Officials may come to regard it as perfectly acceptable to devote working time to issues not directly related to serving the public. Last year, this newspaper revealed that the Competition and Markets Authority was encouraging staff to spend 10 per cent of their working week on activities that built “an inclusive culture and working environment”.
It is most welcome that Jeremy Hunt has acknowledged that major productivity gains can be made to our public services. He will now need to move fast to convince taxpayers that he is on their side.
