Count Down: Reforming the Cabinet Office

The Adam Smith Institute’s latest discussion paper, written by Tim Ambler, proposes a number of reforms to improve the efficiency and value for money of the Cabinet Office.

This paper is part of the Adam Smith Institute’s “Reforming the Civil Service” series.

• The structure and working of the Cabinet Office is complex, confused and unwieldy;

  • The Cabinet Office does not appear to know how many people it employs and it is unclear how approximately one-fifth of the workforce contribute towards its priority outcomes,

  • Large recent increases in Cabinet Office spending are unexplained.

• Several key responsibilities of the Cabinet Office are better suited to other departments—its role should be limited to managing the civil service and coordinating policy formulation and delivery;

• Many of the Cabinet Office’s departments, agencies and public bodies should be privatised, closed, integrated into the core Cabinet Office or investigated by the National Audit Office;

• Various high profile groups within the Cabinet Office should be privatised, closed or moved to different departments;

• Significant reform is vital to ensure value for money for taxpayers and efficient governance;

  • One possible outcome of these reforms would reduce the Cabinet Office headcount to 1,286, i.e. by about 90%, through redistribution, restructuring, or redundancy.

  • This could be partly accomplished through the application of a reverse ‘Parkinson’s Law’—discovering what will not be done in the event of a drastic headcount reduction (before any redundancies take place) and easing numbers up until all essential work, and only that, is covered.