WIREDGOV

The shape, size and activities of Whitehall changed profoundly in the last five years.

Understanding what happened offers insight – not only into next week’s Spending Review, but into the five years that lay ahead.

This year’s Whitehall Monitor examines the changes of the past five years to understand where pressures are likely to increase in the next parliament.

For example:

• On workforce, the civil service is now the smallest it’s been since the Second World War. The amount of people working in senior positions has also increased, and it has also become older: 40% of civil servants are over 50 years old. A lack of fresh talent and skilled staff could put many cost-saving reforms, particularly around the digital agenda, at risk.
• On finances, the Government’s net liabilities have increased from £1.2tn in 2010/11 to £1.8tn in 2014/15, driven by things such as the provision for clinical negligence claims and nuclear decommissioning. As these liabilities continue to rise, selling off assets, such as stakes in the banks or property, is only part of the story if the Government is serious about balancing the books.

The report also argues that the Government does not publish, use or understand its own information as well as it should, if it wants to use open data to run the country more effectively. An example of this is financial data, improvements to which – given the spending reductions expected during the next parliament –should be a priority.

Gavin Freeguard, lead author, said:

“Looking back also allows us to look forward. The comprehensive picture of government over the last five years built up in Whitehall Monitor allows us – and others – to anticipate and prepare for the challenges over the next five years.

“Wanting to do ‘more for less’ makes it even more important that data is published and used. Departments and parliament must use it to do their job, and the public must be able to access it to hold the Government to account.”

Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said:

“The Whitehall Monitor report allows us to see at a glance the size and cost of Whitehall. But departments need to up their game and release data in a more manageable form so that individual citizens can more easily access information about how their tax pounds are spent.

“It’s clear that the civil service and Government services will be facing very tight spending cuts over the next four and half years. As a number of our recent reports have shown the squeeze is now on – we are well beyond efficiencies and into the realms of reshaping and reducing public services.”

Jeni Tennison, Director of Open Data Institute, said:

“It is fantastic that the Government is publishing more open data than ever before. The Whitehall Monitor demonstrates how this open data about spending, organisational structures and decision making can be used to improve our understanding of government, strengthen accountability to Parliament and the public, and ultimately to make government more effective.

“The Institute for Government has done a great job at making sense of the data that is available, but it’s clear that higher quality, more timely, more consistent and better documented data could provide even greater insights about how government is working.”

Technology is beginning to affect the way citizens access public services, but the Government as a whole is still bad at explaining key data. The report notes it was particularly difficult to find information on:

• Departmental spending changes – departments such as DECC and the Foreign Office publish explanatory documents, but many departments do not. The Treasury – the department at the heart of all budgetary planning – was bottom of the transparency league for the second year in a row.
• Impact indicators (used to measure the impact of government policies and reforms) – looking for the Treasury impact indicators leads to a series of dead links, while the Cabinet Office scored badly as their results were so far out of date. DWP, DCMS and DCLG score highly because they publish complete datasets in an open format.

For more information, please contact Nicole Valentinuzzi on 07850313791.

The Institute for Government is an independent charity founded in 2008 to help make government more effective.