Friday 30 December 2011

GreenInk 4 – Private Eye blinks, misses a scoop

From: David Moss
Sent: 30 December 2011 10:39
To: 'strobes@private-eye.co.uk'
Subject: Brodie Clark

Sir

While the Eye joins in with the establishment rubbishing of Brodie Clark – in your case by quoting the ineffably smug Michael Mansfield – you ignore the improvised explosive device Mr Clark detonated when he gave evidence* to the Home Affairs Committee. The fingerprinting technology wished on UKBA is the least reliable identity/security check made at the border, Mr Clark said, it is the ninth and bottom priority and, if any check has to be suspended, it is "very sensible" to suspend the fingerprint check. It is presumably of no interest to you that the Home Office want to replace hundreds or even thousands of Border Force staff with a technology that might work in Hollywood films but certainly doesn't at Heathrow.

Yours
David Moss

* http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=9445&st=11:36:43, listen between 12:18 and 12:24.

GreenInk 4 – Private Eye blinks, misses a scoop

From: David Moss
Sent: 30 December 2011 10:39
To: 'strobes@private-eye.co.uk'
Subject: Brodie Clark

Sir

While the Eye joins in with the establishment rubbishing of Brodie Clark – in your case by quoting the ineffably smug Michael Mansfield – you ignore the improvised explosive device Mr Clark detonated when he gave evidence* to the Home Affairs Committee. The fingerprinting technology wished on UKBA is the least reliable identity/security check made at the border, Mr Clark said, it is the ninth and bottom priority and, if any check has to be suspended, it is "very sensible" to suspend the fingerprint check. It is presumably of no interest to you that the Home Office want to replace hundreds or even thousands of Border Force staff with a technology that might work in Hollywood films but certainly doesn't at Heathrow.

Yours
David Moss

* http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=9445&st=11:36:43, listen between 12:18 and 12:24.

Thursday 22 December 2011

GreenInk 3 – did Sir Gus O'Donnell abolish boom and bust?

Unpublished:
From: David Moss
Sent: 22 December 2011 10:23
To: 'dtletters@telegraph.co.uk'
Subject: Sir Gus O'Donnell, 21 December 2011 -- It’s risks, not rules, that must point the way

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8971893/Its-risks-not-rules-that-must-point-the-way.html

Sir

Sir Gus O'Donnell quite rightly alludes to his influence on Gordon Brown's decision for the UK not to join the Euro.

What other decisions did he influence?

Sir Gus co-edited two books with Ed Balls. One of them, in 2002, congratulated Gordon Brown and celebrated the end of boom and bust. The other, in 2003, congratulated Gordon Brown for providing opportunity to all.

Sir Gus, by then, had been our man at the IMF and the World Bank. He had been Director of the UK's macroeconomic policy and Head of the government economics service – every economist in HMG reported to him. He had been responsible for the UK's fiscal policy, international development and EMU. And he had become Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury. Gordon Brown had been none of these things.

Yours
David Moss

Refs:

1. Reforming Britain's Economic and Financial Policy: Towards Greater Economic Stability, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reforming-Britains-Economic-Financial-Policy/dp/0333966112/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317602734&sr=1-1

2. Microeconomic Reform in Britain: Delivering Opportunities for All, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microeconomic-Reform-Britain-Delivering-Opportunities/dp/1403912491/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317602189&sr=8-1

3. Whose bust is it anyway?, http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/10/whose-bust-is-it-anyway.html

GreenInk 3 – did Sir Gus O'Donnell abolish boom and bust?

Unpublished:
From: David Moss
Sent: 22 December 2011 10:23
To: 'dtletters@telegraph.co.uk'
Subject: Sir Gus O'Donnell, 21 December 2011 -- It’s risks, not rules, that must point the way

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8971893/Its-risks-not-rules-that-must-point-the-way.html

Sir

Sir Gus O'Donnell quite rightly alludes to his influence on Gordon Brown's decision for the UK not to join the Euro.

What other decisions did he influence?

Sir Gus co-edited two books with Ed Balls. One of them, in 2002, congratulated Gordon Brown and celebrated the end of boom and bust. The other, in 2003, congratulated Gordon Brown for providing opportunity to all.

Sir Gus, by then, had been our man at the IMF and the World Bank. He had been Director of the UK's macroeconomic policy and Head of the government economics service – every economist in HMG reported to him. He had been responsible for the UK's fiscal policy, international development and EMU. And he had become Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury. Gordon Brown had been none of these things.

Yours
David Moss

Refs:

1. Reforming Britain's Economic and Financial Policy: Towards Greater Economic Stability, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reforming-Britains-Economic-Financial-Policy/dp/0333966112/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317602734&sr=1-1

2. Microeconomic Reform in Britain: Delivering Opportunities for All, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microeconomic-Reform-Britain-Delivering-Opportunities/dp/1403912491/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317602189&sr=8-1

3. Whose bust is it anyway?, http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/10/whose-bust-is-it-anyway.html

Monday 19 December 2011

Festschrift: Sir Gus O'Donnell 3

GOD retires at the end of the year and the eulogies have started. We should be grateful according to the Times:
Prime ministers’ spouses these days, he thinks, require more official help. “They have some support. I suspect it probably should be a bit bigger ... we need to recognise that the role is a broader, more public role these days. The media pay more attention to them, what they’re wearing.”

So would he like a dress allowance for spouses for public events and more staff support? “It would be good to get the spouses together and it would be good for there to be cross-party agreement on this sort of thing.” He doesn’t want to prescribe whether they need a cook or hairdresser. “It’s one of those things you’d have to think quite carefully about. Different people might want to handle it in different ways.” And he doesn’t want their retinue to grow too large. “Keeping prime ministers grounded in the real world matters a lot.”
What a nice man. He thinks of everything. This new way of being generous with other people's money is his parting shot. A warm feeling to remember him by.

That's not how Sir Richard Mottram will remember Sir Gus. Sir Richard identifies seven problems which beset Whitehall:
  1. how to improve the efficiency of the civil service and the wider public service
  2. how the Cabinet Office can take charge of that improvement in efficiency
  3. how the centre (i.e. the Cabinet Office? Number 10? Not clear) can keep control of its satrapies, the various departments of state
  4. how the head of the home civil service can have any influence on the Prime Minister if he is not also Cabinet Secretary and permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office
  5. how to ensure cabinet government as opposed to Blair-style sofa government
  6. how to provide effective career planning/talent management for senior civil servants
  7. how to provide leadership for the civil service
Six of those problems – all except No.4 – were there before Sir Gus's arrival. He hasn't solved them. They're still there.

But at least the idea has been floated at last that the prime minister's spouse should have a hairdresser  or a cook paid for by the taxpayer.

Festschrift: Sir Gus O'Donnell 3

GOD retires at the end of the year and the eulogies have started. We should be grateful according to the Times:
Prime ministers’ spouses these days, he thinks, require more official help. “They have some support. I suspect it probably should be a bit bigger ... we need to recognise that the role is a broader, more public role these days. The media pay more attention to them, what they’re wearing.”

So would he like a dress allowance for spouses for public events and more staff support? “It would be good to get the spouses together and it would be good for there to be cross-party agreement on this sort of thing.” He doesn’t want to prescribe whether they need a cook or hairdresser. “It’s one of those things you’d have to think quite carefully about. Different people might want to handle it in different ways.” And he doesn’t want their retinue to grow too large. “Keeping prime ministers grounded in the real world matters a lot.”
What a nice man. He thinks of everything. This new way of being generous with other people's money is his parting shot. A warm feeling to remember him by.

That's not how Sir Richard Mottram will remember Sir Gus. Sir Richard identifies seven problems which beset Whitehall:
  1. how to improve the efficiency of the civil service and the wider public service
  2. how the Cabinet Office can take charge of that improvement in efficiency
  3. how the centre (i.e. the Cabinet Office? Number 10? Not clear) can keep control of its satrapies, the various departments of state
  4. how the head of the home civil service can have any influence on the Prime Minister if he is not also Cabinet Secretary and permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office
  5. how to ensure cabinet government as opposed to Blair-style sofa government
  6. how to provide effective career planning/talent management for senior civil servants
  7. how to provide leadership for the civil service
Six of those problems – all except No.4 – were there before Sir Gus's arrival. He hasn't solved them. They're still there.

But at least the idea has been floated at last that the prime minister's spouse should have a hairdresser  or a cook paid for by the taxpayer.

Festschrift: Sir Gus O'Donnell 2

GOD retires at the end of the year and the eulogies have started. We should be grateful according to the Times:
“There’s not a government that’s come in and said, ‘I want to increase child poverty’. They all want to save the planet. The ultimate goals are good, they just have different ways of going about them.” It sounds rather like Yes, Prime Minister with the civil servants running the show while politicians come and go. “No, we have this very clear view that we advise, they decide,” the Cabinet Secretary insists.
Officials advise, politicians decide? Is there anyone left on the planet who believes that?

We have a wide choice on this blog of examples of how officials have wasted money on NPfIT, FiReControl, ID cards, G-Cloud, midata, ePassports, C-Nomis and Libra, and how there seems to be nothing politicians can do about it.

Consider midata. BIS – the department of Business, Innovation and Skills – wants to spend our money on getting people to store all their personal data in PDSs, personal data stores. They get the minister, Ed Davey, to put his name to a BIS blog post. It is in that sense that the minister has decided. That's on 3 November 2011. The point of midata is that individuals will have control of their data once it's in a PDS. Several commenters ask the same question over the following few days – how? How will people be able to control what happens to their data?

46 days later, today, and there's still no answer. The minister hasn't responded. Either he doesn't know how to respond or he can't be bothered. He's obviously not in control.

His officials are. They have advised. They will proceed, without explaining themselves. And we will pay.

And that's the home civil service for you. The home civil service, of which Sir Gus O'Donnell has been the head for six years since 1 September 2005. Grateful?

Festschrift: Sir Gus O'Donnell 2

GOD retires at the end of the year and the eulogies have started. We should be grateful according to the Times:
“There’s not a government that’s come in and said, ‘I want to increase child poverty’. They all want to save the planet. The ultimate goals are good, they just have different ways of going about them.” It sounds rather like Yes, Prime Minister with the civil servants running the show while politicians come and go. “No, we have this very clear view that we advise, they decide,” the Cabinet Secretary insists.
Officials advise, politicians decide? Is there anyone left on the planet who believes that?

We have a wide choice on this blog of examples of how officials have wasted money on NPfIT, FiReControl, ID cards, G-Cloud, midata, ePassports, C-Nomis and Libra, and how there seems to be nothing politicians can do about it.

Consider midata. BIS – the department of Business, Innovation and Skills – wants to spend our money on getting people to store all their personal data in PDSs, personal data stores. They get the minister, Ed Davey, to put his name to a BIS blog post. It is in that sense that the minister has decided. That's on 3 November 2011. The point of midata is that individuals will have control of their data once it's in a PDS. Several commenters ask the same question over the following few days – how? How will people be able to control what happens to their data?

46 days later, today, and there's still no answer. The minister hasn't responded. Either he doesn't know how to respond or he can't be bothered. He's obviously not in control.

His officials are. They have advised. They will proceed, without explaining themselves. And we will pay.

And that's the home civil service for you. The home civil service, of which Sir Gus O'Donnell has been the head for six years since 1 September 2005. Grateful?

Festschrift: Sir Gus O'Donnell 1

GOD retires at the end of the year and the eulogies have started. We should be grateful according to the Times:
At times, the civil servants’ role is to save politicians from themselves. Sir Gus is proud to have been instrumental in stopping Britain joining the euro in 2003 when he was Permanent Secretary at the Treasury. “We did the biggest evidence-based piece of work I’ve ever done. My only regret now is we didn’t get it translated into Greek and send it across. There were a number of politicians who, out of a belief that the politics was the crucial part, wanted us to go in. Imagine what state we’d be in if we’d been in the euro.”
It could have been worse, yes, but just look at the state we are in. During the 10 years of plenty, 1997-2007, public spending went through the roof, much of it wasted, the planned budget deficit this year is £121 billion and the interest bill is £50 billion.

Is Sir Gus "proud to have been instrumental" in that success, too?

Festschrift: Sir Gus O'Donnell 1

GOD retires at the end of the year and the eulogies have started. We should be grateful according to the Times:
At times, the civil servants’ role is to save politicians from themselves. Sir Gus is proud to have been instrumental in stopping Britain joining the euro in 2003 when he was Permanent Secretary at the Treasury. “We did the biggest evidence-based piece of work I’ve ever done. My only regret now is we didn’t get it translated into Greek and send it across. There were a number of politicians who, out of a belief that the politics was the crucial part, wanted us to go in. Imagine what state we’d be in if we’d been in the euro.”
It could have been worse, yes, but just look at the state we are in. During the 10 years of plenty, 1997-2007, public spending went through the roof, much of it wasted, the planned budget deficit this year is £121 billion and the interest bill is £50 billion.

Is Sir Gus "proud to have been instrumental" in that success, too?