Oct 29 2009
The Minister wriggled and wriggled
Yesterday in the Commons John Denham told us how much he and the government welcomed the idea of more publication and disclosure of information about how and where public money is spent. Yet it could not be done today.
In due course he might be able to go further than they envisaged when they legislated to do this in 2007. The exciting pilots in compiling all public spending in given locations might show us how to do it generally in due course. In the meantime the simpler way of just publishing what they already have lying around would not be sensible. Could you include all the spending on a university or a prison in a given area as publlic spending just for that area? Apparently this was far too big a problem to crack today, or anytime soon. A footnote or an assumption could not solve it. Sir Humprhey had been working overtime thinking up the objections to full publication. Quangos and outposts of central government posed bigger problems than Councils, who would have to publish.
Like all monopolists the government thinks its paymaster and service users are too stupid to understand the information they publish, so it’s better not to publish it. The sooner all the spending information is published the better. Knowledge is power. Many of the salaries, bonuses, expenses and consultlancy contracts the public sector fat cats have been signing should be put up for public scrutiny. The sooner we start to get more value for money the better. Our best ally to do so is publication of all the details so we can all judge.
11 Responses to “The Minister wriggled and wriggled”
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
I have just come off Dan Hannan’s blog where he maintains that the problem is that the legislature is now the dominant part of government instead of the legislature.
Somehow this ought to be changed, he thinks.
And so do I.
He also quotes this:
“They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords, Lords without anger or honour, who dare not carry their swords. They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes; They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies. We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet, Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street? Smile at us, pay us, pass us, but do not quite forget: For we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.”
And that cheered me up! Good old GK Chesterton.
At least we wouldn’t have to put up with the canard that it all goes on “schools and hospitals”, which acount for only 30% of government expenditure, leaving the other 70% unmentioned.
Earlier this week I read the government had to borrow £14bn last month “to keep front line services going”. Which front line services would those be – banking?
If accurate information for a given “service” can’t be published within six months, abolish it, and jail the minister responsible for fraud. That would concentrate a few minds.
Of course, the public is well aware that any legislation about “open information” was never intended to apply to the Government. Redacted expenses, anyone….?
What a surprise, its all too difficult.
Not too difficult to think up more ways of raising Revenue and introducing even more taxes though is it !!!!!!
Not too difficult to want half of the population to be CRB checked, and to PROVE their innocence.
It would seem attempting any debate, with a notion of getting any sort of result is almost a lost cause.
What a shambles.
Problem is we are all getting used to it !!!!!!
“Compiling”? What we need is not summaries or compilations, we just want the data. There are plenty of sufficiently clever people outside of government who can produce whatever compilations are necessary.
A close parallel is brought to mind: climate change scientists only ever publish the summaries, and the post-modelling charts. Getting the raw data out of them is incredibly difficult. Once clever chaps (like those at climateaudit.org) get hold of the data, they find all sorts of problems with the conclusions and methodology (which is excellent, that’s how science is meant to work). The same is true of government — I don’t trust any of them to be truthful in their conclusions.
They forget, that the reason opening up of government is a good thing is that it restores trust. That is only going to work though if they are completely open, the raw data must be made available, not just some spin-doctor-manipulated summary.
Someone in every department should be sat in front of a computer, with the department chequebook stubs and bank statements in one hand and a database in the other entering data all day every day. It’s not a difficult task, every private sector company is doing it already (one would hope every part of the public sector too, but I doubt it). That data should then be published. Apart from some rudimentary privacy-protecting changes, that data could go straight onto a website. Raw. A single file every day, with page after page of figures would be perfectly sufficient.
There are highly technically able, and motivated people (I am one) who can manipulate data and make web sites far cheaper, and more efficiently than government ever seems able (theyworkforyou is a perfect example), all they are lacking is data. What makes this even more awful is that it is public data they are lacking — it’s not the governments money, it is ours, we are entitled to see where it is being spent.
Another parallel that is brought to mind is that of open source software. It’s often remarked that open source software is written to a much higher standard than closed source software. The reason is that the writers of the open source software know that their peers will be looking at what they have written, and they will be ridiculed if they don’t do a good job. Pride in their work then offers more of an incentive toward quality than a salary does. It’s an aphorism in the open source world that “many eyes make all bugs shallow”.
The same is true of government. You want to cut spending? Don’t bother trying to find the places to squeeze, just force publishing of the spending, simple pride will take care of the rest. Once departments know that frivolous spending will be found. Let’s have open spending government then, and a new aphorism will arise, “many eyes make all spending justified”.
Rather than an army of bureaucrats watching the public, let’s have it the other way around for a while.
Do keep pushing on this one. We’d got quite excited when we read yesterday’s blog!
It’s not LCD – the good taxpayers from Burnley or Basildon – they have to worry about of course -but the forensic vultures ready to strip published info to the bone!
They must run very scared of the TPA these days not to mention blogs like these.
We’ll get ‘em though!
Like all monopolists the government thinks its paymaster and service users are too stupid to understand the information they publish, so it’s better not to publish it.
These very inadequate Labour people believe this of all who do not blindly support their stupidity.
I completely agree.
Recently one of your contributers said that they would like to see how much tax is payable in the cost of goods or services should also be made clear. For example (and especially) with petrol prices.
So instead of saying petrol costs £1.06 a litre, it would be shown as 48p per litre (or whetever it actually is), plus tax.
I think that is a fantastic idea, and it would (hopefully) cause more people to stop and consider why we needed to be paying so much tax, to fund these useless quangoes and agencies.
I can understand why they have no wish to publish much if anything before May 2010. The figures are monstrous and beyond any rational analysis. Moreover in the last few years the net has demonstrated that there are more than enough people out there all too capable of working it all out. In the 1970’s it was much easier for the public to work out the salaries and benefits of public servants than it is now. It is amazing how far this government have taken us down the road of secrecy and lies.
Congrats on your interventions yesterday JR. Denham was definitely uncomfortable with his brief from Sir Humphrey. He had obviously been told, that this detailed information, could be embarrassing for New Labour. It will undoubtedly show up how monies have been laundered into Labour marginals to buy votes.
You have to applaud his spoiler move though. This “Total Place” diversion is a classic delaying tactic. As was his reference to National Statistics data protocols. Mind you, he will have to come up with another wheeze in December, to delay publishing this data till after the election.
National Statistics introduced a database of “Super Output Areas” recently. I bet they could come up with Super (government / quango) Input Areas as well; if they haven’t already. The Treasury has to balance its cash book every day, so they have to know who spent what to do it, right down to the most detailed budget code at the bottom of the government spending tree.
Parliament needs the equivalent of the US Congressional Budget Office. I suggest the Whole Government Accounting Office takes on this job and reports directly to Parliament. That is the Legislature separated from the Executive.
Yesterday, was a classic example of Parliament’s inability to hold the Executive to account. A two year old Act of Parliament had been totally dismissed as irrelevant by this government.
“Lord, make me chaste ……………….. but not yet.”!!!!!!!!!