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.

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Report Card: Reforming the Department for Education