More interesting is his over-politicised conclusion:
The case has served to highlight the dilemma of the Coaltion government. How can it implement its stated aims, when there are habits of working and assumptions amongst some officials based on the previous 13 years which point in the opposite direction to the Minister’s policy? Will Ministers now devote more time and enegry to supervising and following up once they have set out their general policy aims? As a rule of thumb, there needs to be three times as much follow up, analysis and chasing after the policy launch and press realease, than before when constructing it. If there is insufficient interest in the execution of policy more Ministers are going to be wasting time defending their actions and claiming that the policy was fine, it was just a pity about the implementation.Strip out the special pleading about the problems of coalition. The problem is implementation of laid down policy.
An interesting regular at John's site, Mike Stallard, comments that
Over Free Schools I can tell you that it is the bureaucracy, not the Minister, who is calling the shots – successfully stopping the original reform in its tracks. I have personal experience of this.(He adds some silly stuff about William Hague having "Eurosceptic credentials of the highest degree", but let's not be distracted by his politics either.)
John Redwood’s ratio of 3:1 feels about right. Chasing and checking policy implementation should be junior ministers’ job.
Make these functions public, so that people with Mike Stallard’s dilemma know who is the minister for unblockages. It will have to be someone in each department with a dogged and pugnacious nature, nipping at the heels of officials to get things done.
Contrary to one A. Campbell, the responsibility of ministers is not headlines. The responsibility of ministers is to get things done.
That's a team game. Every department needs at least one minister for implementation.
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