Public services

"Reading the atrocious story of Baby P sums up so much of what has gone wrong in the UK public sector. There was no shortage of highly paid managers, auditors, box tickers and process controllers. The more of these we employ, the less well it seems the task is performed that they are meant to be doing. The UK public sector needs to deliver more for less. It needs its teachers, nurses, doctors and social workers, but it does not need such a colossal army of pen pushers, time servers, mock managers and reviewers, let alone its battalions of spin doctors and management consultants. If the government wishes to speed the end of recession, it needs to start to get the government to live within its means. That requires changes within every service, and a very different approach to inefficient banks paying their senior staff too much."

Seems like a good summary to me, thanks to John Redwood for the article.