midata, the loneliest initiative in Whitehall – 1

You will recall midata, the initiative being sponsored by Vince Cable's Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS).

At least you will if you have that annoying capacity for retaining trivial information which afflicts some people.

For the rest of you, a refresher ...

midata is founded on the questionable belief that if the companies we deal with would only hand back all the details of business we have transacted with them in a standard, portable, digital format, then the economy would grow. These personal data stores (PDSs), so it is said, would foster innovation and competition and they would drive prices down and quality up. And we proletarians, armed with the record of our purchases, could at last start to make rational choices.

What kind of rational choices? At one end of the scale, fairly sensible ones, such as whether to switch to a different electricity supplier. At the other end, midata seems to be aimed at under-employed narcissists fascinated by how much coffee they drink, and chronic exhibitionists who want to let everyone else know when they mow the lawn:

Tallyzoo, a service dedicated to self monitoring, allows users to measure anything from their caffeine intake to the number of times they cut their grass. Users collect data using a mobile device or website program which creates interactive flashbased graphs enabling them to spot trends and patterns in their consumption habits, work, health and fitness goals. Data is manipulated so that users can share statistics and compare the end results.

The midata prospectus was for a voluntary scheme but its advocates are surprisingly tetchy about suppliers who won't join in, please see for example Government slams [mobile phone] operators for failing to sign up to Midata hub.

With next to no take-up among suppliers and next to no interest from consumers and no PDSs, clearly midata was in a bit of a mess under the nominal leadership of Ed Davey, the Lib Dem MP for Kingston and Surbiton, and minister for employment relations, consumer and postal affairs at BIS.

Then it got into more of a mess, when it lost its sponsor – Mr Davey went to Energy after Chris Huhne had to resign.

But the orphan midata didn't die. There's a new minister ready to bring it up, Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem MP for North Norfolk. And there's a review of midata progress to date and there's a public consultation to look forward to and there are three open forums you can attend at the London offices of BIS on 9, 16 and 23 August 2012.

DMossEsq attended the first forum for you and strongly recommends that you attend the other two. The event was hosted by Kirstin Green, a deputy director at BIS, flanked by David Miller, a BIS economist, and Gemma Lobb, another consumer empowerment strategist. So that's three of them – three BIS people – and there were three of us. Yes, three. Such is the interest inspired by midata.

Please try to get along to 1 Victoria St London SW1H 0ET. Please help. Kirstin, David and Gemma are utterly charming. It's not their fault that they've been landed with midata, a hopeless and friendless and pointless initiative on which their talents are indubitably wasted, and DMossEsq simply can't stand the idea of no-one turning up to their party on 16 and 23 August.

midata, the loneliest initiative in Whitehall – 1

You will recall midata, the initiative being sponsored by Vince Cable's Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS).

At least you will if you have that annoying capacity for retaining trivial information which afflicts some people.

For the rest of you, a refresher ...

The whiff of cordite in Whitehall 2

They spend about £700 billion of our money every year, much of it wasted. Whitehall's mandarins exercise the prerogatives previously reserved to Stuart kings. Their harlot power is jealously guarded, while all responsibility is taken by more or less hapless ministers. Challenges come and go. They're usually seen off, the politicians give up and we the public carry on paying.

You may as well know that the whiff is back, there is once again cordite in Whitehall. Francis Maude thinks that if ministers are to take responsibility, then they really ought to have some say in which officials manage the political initiatives and the associated budgets. The Guardian has the story – Ministers to be given say in civil service appraisals. So does Public Servant magazine – Ministers are to manage the Civil Service:

Maude's preference now is that ministers be involved in Civil Service appraisals and be given powers to hire and fire staff. And expert advice on how to ensure maximum efficiency should be sought from beyond Britain's shores if necessary.

Francis Maude v. the massed ranks of the senior civil service?

Good luck, Mr Maude.

The whiff of cordite in Whitehall 2

They spend about £700 billion of our money every year, much of it wasted. Whitehall's mandarins exercise the prerogatives previously reserved to Stuart kings. Their harlot power is jealously guarded, while all responsibility is taken by more or less hapless ministers. Challenges come and go. They're usually seen off, the politicians give up and we the public carry on paying.

You may as well know that the whiff is back, there is once again cordite in Whitehall. Francis Maude thinks that if ministers are to take responsibility, then they really ought to have some say in which officials manage the political initiatives and the associated budgets. The Guardian has the story – Ministers to be given say in civil service appraisals. So does Public Servant magazine – Ministers are to manage the Civil Service:

Maude's preference now is that ministers be involved in Civil Service appraisals and be given powers to hire and fire staff. And expert advice on how to ensure maximum efficiency should be sought from beyond Britain's shores if necessary.

Francis Maude v. the massed ranks of the senior civil service?

Good luck, Mr Maude.

Political will (if any) trounced by Dame Helen Ghosh and the Whitehall ancien régime

Trust the Home Office.

Last year's annual report and accounts to 31 March 2011 said that the UK Border Agency (UKBA) reduced its staff by about 1,900 during 2010-11 and planned to reduce it by a further 3,500 by 31 March 2015. These reductions would all be achieved by "efficiencies".

So there they were, dutifully implementing government policy, cutting staff.

On 22 November 2011, Dame Helen Ghosh DCB, permanent secretary at the Home Office, gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee and said that the Border Force – part of UKBA at the time – would be reduced by 900 or so:

... that is driven as much by technological introductions like e-gates, as well as a risk-based approach. Border Force will be getting smaller ...

Advanced risk management and technology, all very modern, just the ticket for 21st century government, spearheaded by the dependable brainpower at the top of the Home Office.

Since then we have had queues at Heathrow, one actual strike by the Border Force and one threatened one and now what do the Times tell us?

Border Force in recruitment drive U-turn Hundreds of new immigration officers are to be recruited by the UK Border Force weeks after it disclosed that 450 staff were cut last year to meet government spending cuts ... The Home Office also admitted that advertisements for the new jobs placed on a Civil Service website said, inaccurately, that 800 new staff were required ... Over the next few weeks it intends to recruit more officers than the total of 457 lost in the year to March 2012 ... Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “I find it extraordinary that a year after making so many people redundant and paying so much in terms of redundancy costs, the very same organisation is now recruiting more immigration officers. It shows a lack of strategic planning concerning staff at both the UK Border Agency and UK Border Force” ...

Given that the technology doesn't work and we're going back to the 19th century and using people, will the technology contracts for eGates and  Jackie Keane's Immigration and Asylum Biometric Service be cancelled?

No.

We shall simply pay for both – for the additional staff and for the technology that doesn't work. The budget deficit will have to be cut somewhere else, not at Dame Helen's 21st century modern Home Office. Predictable result:

Whitehall 1 - 0 Westminster

Trust the Home Office.

Political will (if any) trounced by Dame Helen Ghosh and the Whitehall ancien régime

Trust the Home Office.

Last year's annual report and accounts to 31 March 2011 said that the UK Border Agency (UKBA) reduced its staff by about 1,900 during 2010-11 and planned to reduce it by a further 3,500 by 31 March 2015. These reductions would all be achieved by "efficiencies".

So there they were, dutifully implementing government policy, cutting staff.

Barclays (ouija) board says "non nein" to O'Donnell

According to Robert Peston, the BBC's chronicler of the credit crunch:

From my conversations with senior Barclays sources, I have learned there is a favoured candidate for each of its top vacancies. The former head of the civil service, Lord O'Donnell, is the board of the bank's preferred choice as new chairman ...

Barclays faces the same problems as other banks at the moment – PPI, swaps, LIBOR, capital adequacy, maybe a bit of money-laundering thrown in, investigation by the US authorities, ... – with the added complication that it has to replace both its Chairman and its Chief Executive.

How likely is it that the board would choose as their new Chairman Sir-Gus-now-Lord O'Donnell, the architect of the credit crunch?

Not very, according to Martin Vander Weyer, Business Editor of The Spectator and son of an earlier Deputy Chairman of Barclays:

I don’t want to start a row with the hyper-sensitive BBC man as to who has the more senior Barclays sources — several of mine are so senior I can only reach them by ouija board — but I suspect someone has been feeding him hogwash. ... white smoke for the chair is unlikely before September ... everyone close to the process is sworn to secrecy, Gus O’Donnell is an underemployed ex-mandarin with minimal City experience ... So pace Pesto, I think the race is wide open.

Who is right? Peston or Vander Weyer?

No idea.

But our wellbeing and Barclays' will surely be better served if O'Donnell concentrates on his new responsibilities as Chairman of the Happiness Commission.

----------

Update
9 August 2012: Sir David Walker to succeed Marcus Agius as Barclays chairman
30 August 2012: Barclays names Antony Jenkins as chief executive

Barclays (ouija) board says "non nein" to O'Donnell

According to Robert Peston, the BBC's chronicler of the credit crunch:

From my conversations with senior Barclays sources, I have learned there is a favoured candidate for each of its top vacancies. The former head of the civil service, Lord O'Donnell, is the board of the bank's preferred choice as new chairman ...

Barclays faces the same problems as other banks at the moment – PPI, swaps, LIBOR, capital adequacy, maybe a bit of money-laundering thrown in, investigation by the US authorities, ... – with the added complication that it has to replace both its Chairman and its Chief Executive.

How likely is it that the board would choose as their new Chairman Sir-Gus-now-Lord O'Donnell, the architect of the credit crunch?

The next Governor of the Bank of England

Who will succeed Sir Mervyn King as Governor of the Bank of England?

Way above DMossEsq's pay grade, this is the sort of question for which one turns for an answer to the Thunderer.

Op
Camilla Cavendish, said in the Times on 12 July 2012, Wanted: one governor, two different skill sets:

Gus O’Donnell, the former Cabinet Secretary and bookies’ favourite, would be a shrewd manager with Whitehall knowhow, but he would need a strong cabinet of deputy governors with commercial track records.

Ed
But according to the next day's leader, The Short List:

Lord O’Donnell, the former Cabinet Secretary, has the economics but no commercial experience and surprisingly weak support in the Treasury.

Whitehall – SNAFU
What makes Ms Cavendish think he's a shrewd manager?

Whose bust is it anyway?
What makes the leader-writer think that the economics Lord O'Donnell "has" are the economics we need?

And why is his Treasury support weak?

----------

12 August 2012: An unworthy suitor woos the Old Lady

• Dominic Lawson considers the technocrat Adair "Widmerpool" Turner an unworthy suitor for the Bank of England, he doesn't mention Sir-Gus-now-Lord O'Donnell and trails the merits of Martin Taylor, sometime chief executive of Barclays

12 August 2012: Wanted: governor for wealthy Old Lady

• "Many of those who could have done the job have now been tainted by scandal. Remaining applicants have been told the post will be advertised in the autumn in a number of publications and that they should register an official interest then."

18 August 2012: The next Governor

• Adair Turner and Gus O'Donnell attract more flak, this time from the Spectator editorial, which floats the names of Glenn Stevens (Australia) and Alan Bollard (New Zealand). We might add – these names are not floated by the Spectator – Tim Congdon (England), Terry Smith (England) and John Moulton (England).

8 October 2012: O’Donnell withdraws from BoE race

• "Gus O’Donnell, former cabinet secretary, has decided not to apply to become Bank of England governor, restricting the already short list of candidates for one of Britain’s most important public appointments."

26 November 2012: Mark Carney named new Bank of England governor

• Mark Carney has been named as the new governor of the Bank of England by Chancellor George Osborne ... Mr Carney, the governor of the Canadian central bank, will serve for five years and will hold new regulatory powers over banks.

The next Governor of the Bank of England

Who will succeed Sir Mervyn King as Governor of the Bank of England?

Way above DMossEsq's pay grade, this is the sort of question for which one turns for an answer to the Thunderer.

Op
Camilla Cavendish, said in the Times on 12 July 2012, Wanted: one governor, two different skill sets:

Gus O’Donnell, the former Cabinet Secretary and bookies’ favourite, would be a shrewd manager with Whitehall knowhow, but he would need a strong cabinet of deputy governors with commercial track records.

Ed
But according to the next day's leader, The Short List:

Lord O’Donnell, the former Cabinet Secretary, has the economics but no commercial experience and surprisingly weak support in the Treasury.

Whitehall – SNAFU
What makes Ms Cavendish think he's a shrewd manager?

Whose bust is it anyway?
What makes the leader-writer think that the economics Lord O'Donnell "has" are the economics we need?

And why is his Treasury support weak?

----------

12 August 2012: An unworthy suitor woos the Old Lady

• Dominic Lawson considers the technocrat Adair "Widmerpool" Turner an unworthy suitor for the Bank of England, he doesn't mention Sir-Gus-now-Lord O'Donnell and trails the merits of Martin Taylor, sometime chief executive of Barclays

12 August 2012: Wanted: governor for wealthy Old Lady

• "Many of those who could have done the job have now been tainted by scandal. Remaining applicants have been told the post will be advertised in the autumn in a number of publications and that they should register an official interest then."

18 August 2012: The next Governor

• Adair Turner and Gus O'Donnell attract more flak, this time from the Spectator editorial, which floats the names of Glenn Stevens (Australia) and Alan Bollard (New Zealand). We might add – these names are not floated by the Spectator – Tim Congdon (England), Terry Smith (England) and John Moulton (England).

8 October 2012: O’Donnell withdraws from BoE race

• "Gus O’Donnell, former cabinet secretary, has decided not to apply to become Bank of England governor, restricting the already short list of candidates for one of Britain’s most important public appointments."

26 November 2012: Mark Carney named new Bank of England governor

• Mark Carney has been named as the new governor of the Bank of England by Chancellor George Osborne ... Mr Carney, the governor of the Canadian central bank, will serve for five years and will hold new regulatory powers over banks.