Jonathan Powell recently defended criticisms of Tony Blair’s style of ‘sofa government’ by saying that Labour Cabinets of the 1970s were hardly shining examples of how to make better, collegiate decisions. A strong decisive leader with a small circle of trusted advisers worked better.
That may well be true, up to the point of decision. But the merit of the Cabinet system with all its sub committees, agendas, minutes, inter-departmental discussion & cooperation, & cascade of formal papers is that it informs the myriads of people who need to know that the decision has been taken & what it is. Strange as it may seem these myriads rarely take their instructions from the news headlines or the prime ministerial soundbite.
This is a delicate business, needing the kind of attention to detail which seems tedious to those with loftier ambitions who can sketch out a new & better policy on the back of a dinner napkin & know just the company with the software to do it.
It goes much further than just making sure Sir Humphrey is not trying to subvert your brilliant plan.
The more all staff understand the purpose of what they do, how it fits into the bigger scheme, the better things will work out. For example the ‘lowly civil servants’ who do all the hard graft of getting the data on to the computer & checking that it is correct will feel a real flush of pride when the end result – say the government allocation of funds to organisations – gets its few seconds on the BBC 6 o’clock news: Oh that’s my work, I did that.
Another example is the very important role played by bus drivers successful implementation of the changes in policy on bus passes, which as I have spelled out before is very complicated outside London because of the vagaries of local authority boundaries. They did most of the hard work of explaining the changes to passengers who could sometimes be a bit confused, and even telling them where to go to get their new pass. But that could come only from good training from the bus companies, good documentation from all the local councils (including the county councils) & much all round cooperation.
Although this has much in common with good business management, the skills are not quite the same as when the ultimate test is the bottom line, & it is one reason why I maintain that there is a difference between administration & management.
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