Whitehall bungling behind public service failures
WHITEHALL is letting down the public by not planning public services properly, a damning parliamentary report warns today.
The influential Commons Public Accounts Committee says Government departments are not incentivised to plan for the long term and often over-estimate what they can deliver.
And the use of short-term “cash injections” to plug gaps in the budgets of public services like the NHS has an impact on longer-term value for money, the MPs say.
Services, like mental health provision for the young, lack a sustainable funding model which would provide better support and save cash in the long run. The cross-party committee report calls for improvements to the Government’s system of Single Departmental Business Plans and said it was “disappointed” that departments refused to make the full documents public.
It also said action was needed to reduce staff turnover in order to retain “skills and experience” at the Treasury and Cabinet Office, to counter the tendency for younger and less experienced officials to be overoptimistic. The committee chairwoman, Labour MP Meg Hillier said: “The interests of users should be paramount in the delivery of public services. It is a grim irony, then, that these interests can be put at risk by the machinery of Government.
“Short-termism, over-optimism and a lack of joined-up working all threaten the quality and sustainability of services.
“Progress on improving the Government’s planning and spending framework has been slow. If the Government is serious about delivering lasting change, it should demonstrate clearly how it intends to do so on a department-by-department basis.
“Parliament and the public must be given the information they need to properly judge the Government’s performance.”