One of the consequences of the economic downturn is that government has lost faith in itself. It no longer appears to believe that the levers of the state can be used to deliver the policy outcomes it seeks and instead departments are busy looking after themselves.
This Coalition was certainly very clear when it came to office that the state had become too powerful and that government will be less active than it once was, especially under Labour. However, one of the myths of the Thatcher era was that she reduced the role of the state – she centralised decision making to an unprecedented degree (if you don’t believe this then just read Simon Jenkins’ book, Accountable to None).
Localism remains in the vocabulary of government but the letting go remains extremely difficult for Westminster and Whitehall, just look at the example of Council Tax – nominally a locally set tax but within the clear boundaries set by central government! Moves towards Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP), whilst potentially shifting powers away from central government, are still constrained. A senior civil servant is on hand to ‘advise’ each LEP and the LEP itself is majority controlled by business, not local government.
We are also seeing increasing competition between Ministers and a reversion to the practice of bidding wars between departments. A Minister is once again seen to be doing a good job if they can defend their department’s spending. This means that any semblance of joined-up government or common goals are lost. Things have got so bad that the PM has had to tell Ministers to stop making public pronouncements and stop their ‘nimbyism’. There also appears to be a concerted effort to focus cuts on the welfare state as if that would save other departments from having to make their own difficult decisions.
Some of biggest changes in the culture of government have been the moves to longer terms budget arrangements, a move away from annual settlements. There are, however, rumours that in some places, HM Treasury wants to bring this back. That would be a disaster for long term thinking, especially in the development of infrastructure projects. Yes, it may give the Treasury some of its power back but it would be a short term, retrograde step which is being fought by many.
These turf wars also affect the delivery of infrastructure and its future development. The Treasury seems to enjoy its reputation as the department that other departments do not like. But the increasingly tribal behaviour in a time of no money is leading to perverse outcomes. Infrastructure UK which produces infrastructure plans is largely ignored by other departments despite some excellent people being involved. It is viewed as a child of the Treasury. This means that IUK’s plans are hobbled from the outset.
Any sign of weakness is jumped upon and Ministers are less likely to defer to each other. Add in a dose of politics, the tensions inherent in a Coalition government, then coherence is lost.
Take the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, it has taken around 6 months to go through Parliament and has been used as a catch-all for a number of measures that the Government hopes will deliver growth – planning, IP etc. The Bill, in effect, reverses the Government’s previous belief that it is not the state’s role to legislate for growth.
This is all hugely important when dealing with government. Knowing how discussions about finance are progressing and who listens to who are fundamentals in good political relations and communications. As the next General Election starts to loom then it will take a strong Prime Minister to pull Ministers back not line and show that the Government itself really are ‘all in it together’.