Thinktank launches attack on government reforms

The coalition's plans for public services are "mired in inconsistency and contradiction" and policy that is "all over the place", according to a leading thinktank today. In a scathing review of the coalition government's efforts to reform public services, the centre-right Reform thinktank says in a report that ministers have been resorting to "halfway house" compromises to push through policies. Despite controversial policing reforms and the stripping of child benefit from those better off, the Home Office and Department for Work and Pensions' performances are praised for "coherent reform programmes". But most other policy programme are "failing to observe the government's own principles of reform," concludes the report, published ahead of the government's March public service reform white paper. "Most departments are lagging behind," it says. "Despite much rhetoric to the contrary, neither health nor education have dismantled central regulation and made services accountable to their users. Defence has failed to reduce the nation's strategic ambitions in line with reduced budgets. The higher education reforms may be controversial but they do not provide significant extra freedoms to institutions." In rankings of nine major government departments, the report places the Department for Communities and Local Government third behind the Home Office and the DWP. Summing up its 'C' rating, the report says the "review of business rates could be first step to proper link between local taxes and spending." The Department of Health scores a 'D' for the government being "right to reform the NHS" but proposals failing "to provide accountability to patients or workforce flexibility" and the Cabinet Office comes last for "intervening into public service markets in favour of mutuals and SMEs, and failing "to make civil servants personally accountable for performance and value for money." It adds: "The Cabinet Office has made one of the strongest attacks on the reform programme by deciding against making the civil service accountable." The authors of the report, including Reform director Andrew Haldenby, say they made their assessments by rating each department's actions against three key criteria extolled by the prime minister – accountability, flexibility and value for money. They conclude that key policy areas need overhauling before spending cuts start. One of the main areas on conflict, the report says, is the government's claim that budget cuts do not mean reduced services and that it is protecting frontline areas such as health. "The government is failing the test of practical reform. Its policies are inconsistent between departments and sometimes within them, often failing to observe the government's own principles of reform." The report continued: "The coalition may argue that these inconsistencies are good politics. In fact they are bad politics because they undermine confidence that the government is serious about reform. Viewed as a whole, the government's public service reform policies are all over the place." In one of its most damning political indictments, the report says David Cameron has failed to break away from Labour prime minister Tony Blair, in a "striking degree of continuity" since the last government. "In both cases, a committed group of reformers at the heart of government failed to see through a consistent and coherent programme. In both cases, ministers have offered 'halfway house reform', such as free schools, rather than comprehensive reforms of the mainstream of public services." "The need to get value in public spending means that the coalition will never have a better chance to reform public services," says Haldenby. "David Cameron has the rhetoric and the commitment but as Tony Blair found, that is not enough. The other departments must follow the Home Office's example if he is to deliver his pledge of a 'complete modernisation' of public services."