Academic: Reviews never deliver what they promise
Professor Colin Talbot, professor of public policy at the Manchester Business School, comments on the Today programme on news that Sir Philip Green will lead an external efficiency review of government spending:
“In government, apart from some fairly basic items, it doesn’t purchase standardised products from the private sector, so it’s not the same situation at all as a retail chain.
“We’ve had loads of these efficiency reviews. Derek Raynor was brought in in 1979 by Margaret Thatcher. He only managed to deliver about half of what they identified as savings.
“Identifying savings in public organisations isn’t the difficult bit. It’s actually making the changes to achieve them.
“He’s not even going to be based in Whitehall in the way in which Derek Raynor was. He’s simply going to be conducting an external review… Derek Raynor had the problem even when he was in the system of trying to get things implemented.”
