Lessons from history

Incremental reforms to government are most likely to succeed

Throughout history, reform of the state has legitimately been a priority for progressives in British politics. Towards the end of the first world war, a coalition of liberals and Fabians established the Haldane committee which developed the modern departmental system of government that still predominates today, driving the major social reform achievements of the interwar years. After 1940, Labour’s contribution to the war effort was in part to open up Whitehall, bringing a legion of experts into the civil service to improve economic policy and industrial planning. This was the seed-bed for the 1942 Beveridge report establishing a comprehensive welfare state and the NHS.

After 1945, the Attlee administration sought to further update and modernise the central civil service. By the 1960s, in the face of relative economic decline and industrial stagnation, it was clear that the system of government needed further reform, a challenge seized by the Wilson government which established the Fulton committee in 1968. Fulton’s proposed reforms sought to improve civil service training and capacity, strengthening departmental coordination and sharpening policymaking expertise. And after Tony Blair’s 1997 victory, Labour set about improving the capacity of Whitehall to carry through a new generation of social reforms.

Despite these successes, however, there are practical lessons from the post-1997 governments which ought to be heeded. The first is that successful policies more often build on, but also adapt, what went before: do not rip up policies or institutions for the sake of it. Incremental reforms are often those most likely to succeed in the long term.

A further lesson of the New Labour years is that No 10 cannot circumvent departments and ‘frontline’ public agencies. It is in departments where expertise, knowledge, policy memory, resources and experience of frontline implementation are often greatest. Labour’s experience demonstrates that a ‘top-down’ delivery regime will help to shift a public service from ‘incompetent’ to ‘acceptable’, but rarely from ‘good’ to ‘great’.

The third lesson of the post-1997 period is that governments need to boost their strategy and delivery capacity. Governments should have the ability to foresee problems and understand policy challenges more forensically than is the case at present. At the same time, the civil service urgently needs more people and capabilities. The slimming-down and ‘hollowing-out’ of the British state to cut costs and promote efficiency has resulted in worse outcomes.

Fourth, the New Labour years demonstrate conclusively that ‘joined-up government’ is still a long way from reality in the British machinery of governance. Much greater emphasis on genuine departmental coordination and inter-agency collaboration will be required.

The final lesson of the post-1997 era is that governance reforms are harder because the UK has remained a highly centralised state with few checks and balances on central executive power, stemming from the nature of our political tradition. This too needs to be urgently reformed – part of a long-term process of political decentralisation. A reforming, centre-left government must fashion a credible and robust statecraft, revitalising the civil service and our machinery of government for the challenges of the contemporary age.

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