Civil servants: No, minister
By politics.co.uk staff
Ministers should pass fewer laws, but make them better, a team of civil servants has suggested.
A proliferation of targets and policy initiatives had had a perverse effect on the proper running of government, the group insisted.
The Better Government Initiative consists of 14 former civil servants, many of them already known to the public. Lord Butler, who chaired the former Iraq inquiry, and Sir John Chilcot, which is covering the current one, are both in the group, as is Sir Thomas Legg, who oversees the audit of MPs’ expenses.
The Dangerous Dogs Act, the Hunting Act and the near-disastrous Millennium Dome were all cited by the group as examples of poor laws.
Frequent changes of staff as a result of a plethora of policy initiatives sucked expertise out of the system and creates “perverse initiatives”, they claimed.
“Policy failures have often been cumulative as one new initiative and one act of parliament has followed another on the same subject,” the group’s report, out later today, will read.
“The objective should be that parliament should do less through legislation but do it better”, with policies evaluated on a “cost-benefit and net fiscal impact” basis.
