Cameron supports accountable transparency

This blog has argued that accountable transparency would be a hugely democratic innovation. In this age of databases it should be easy to put details of state spending on the web so that anyone can view them.

Click the label at the end of this post if you want more on this theme.

In his speech on Monday, David Cameron focused on state sector cost and waste, highlighting three themes. It's worth setting out passages as a reference point.

First, the cost of social failure. Family breakdown, unemployment, drug and alcohol addiction - these social problems rack up the biggest bills for government, so we've got to get them down.

Second, the cost of unreformed public services. Massive top-down state monopolies cost more and deliver less, so we need to improve the running of public services through more choice, competition and non-state collective provision.

And third, the cost of bureaucracy itself. All bureaucracies have an inbuilt tendency to grow, so we need to call a halt to the wasteful spending and inefficiency we've seen under Labour.

He claims that "there is now a distinctive modern Conservative approach to public service reform, based on clear thinking about how we can give power over services to those who use them".

Where services are individually consumed we will transfer power over those services to individual people, giving them a choice between competing providers.

And where services are collectively consumed, we will transfer power over those services to the lowest practical tier of government, opening up provision to social enterprises, private companies and community organisations.

But the list of examples isn't ground-breaking.

So in education we will end the state monopoly and allow new schools to be set up by a wide range of expert organisations, giving parents real school choice for the first time.

We knew that.

In the NHS we will get rid of the top-down political micromanagement and put the power in the hands of patients, who can choose the GP who they think will get the most out of the NHS on their behalf.

I've always chosen my GP.

And in prisons and probation we will empower the local managers - and pay them by results.

Heard that before too.

Then Cameron comes to accountable transparency.

We are using the best private sector expertise to find ways to save taxpayers' money and improve service delivery. But I do not believe that it's enough to just stand here and make promises about efficiency. I believe we need to create additional pressure on ourselves - and that's why I believe transparency in public spending is an absolutely vital part of this.

In this "post-bureaucratic age", he says (I must have missed that) "the information revolution makes such detailed accountability possible for the first time".

That's why last year, we introduced a Bill in Parliament to force the government to list on a public, easily searchable website, every item of public spending over £25,000.

"Unsurprisingly, Labour blocked it - but I can promise you that this will be one of the first innovations of a Conservative Government.

Civil servants will hate that. Bring it on for local authorities, agencies, quangos and the BBC.