24 September 2024
Over at Bluesky, the German writer and historian Helene von Bismarck, an acute observer of British politics, posted this interesting question:
“One question I have been asking myself for many years about UK politics: Why does it – regardless of who is in government – appear to be this hard to solve problems & get things done? Schools, the NHS, defence procurement, etc. Lack of money, you (probably) say. But surely this isn’t all of it?”
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One answer, of course, is that there is a lack of accountability.
On the face of it, however, there is a great deal. of accountability in the politics of the United Kingdom.
There are general elections, where the government of the day can fail to obtain a majority – as in 1997, 2010, 2017 and 2024 – as well as by-elections and regional and local elections which often (are said to) give governments a ‘bloody nose’ (or something).
And between general elections, Prime Ministers can come and go – as in 1990, 2007, 2016, 2019, and 2022 (twice).
And then, at the levels below Prime Minister, ministers come and go, often with undue frequency.
We also have the theatres of Prime Ministers Questions and the various political shows on television and the radio (and increasingly with podcasts), and we have a well-connected and ambitious lobby of Westminster journalists.
And so, superficially at least, we have a near-constant buzz of accountability – almost all day, every day.
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But.
If the word “accountability” is taken to mean (as it should be) that the accountable person can be required to give an account of what they are doing, then things look rather different.
For in the United Kingdom we have a great deal of political accountability, we have far less policy accountability.
And by policy, it is meant the formulation, implementation and administration of things by government.
The theatres of political debate and discussion do not often go to the substance of policy – and often policy only seems relevant to the extent that it offers a ready “gotcha” against a hapless or hopeless minister.
The lobby system of journalism – and there are some outstanding lobby journalists – necessarily requires a focus on the politics of Westminster, rather than on what is happening in Whitehall – and still less on what is happening outside SW1.
The doctrine of individual ministerial accountability provides a mutually beneficial pact where a minister can (plausibly) say that they were not aware of something while officials escape routine accountability for what they do.
Parliamentary questions are easily evaded either in written or oral form, with no sanction for tardiness or non-compliance.
And as for Freedom of Information, the departmental section 17 letters refusing disclosure are perhaps the most dismal and insincere – if not outright dishonest – official documents in the history of our domestic bureaucracy.
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One illustration of how weak policy accountability is in the United Kingdom are the now (all too frequent) public inquiries.
These inquiries – sometimes long after the events being investigated – often do little more than what could have been done at the time, if the organs of the state had had the necessary powers and the requisite will.
To take one glaring example: the Covid inquiry is forcing politicians and officials to give an account – ie provide accountability – about everyday decision- and policy-making during the pandemic.
This should have been done in and by parliament at the time.
Many revelations that come out of that and other inquiries is an indication of the weakness of our traditional forms of accountability.
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Why is all this so?
Part of the reason is legal(istic) – inquiries have formal legal powers which are not generally available to (say) parliamentary committees and still less available to journalists.
But the main reason is there is no real incentive for government and parliament and officials and the media to have it any other way: no careers will be benefited, there is no electoral advantage, there are no extra viewers or listeners, and there no more newspapers sold (or fewer copies left unsold).
And the primary reason for this lack of incentive is, well, us.
If voters (and viewers and readers) wanted more real-time policy accountability then there would be career, commercial and/or electoral advantages in there being more policy accountability.
But that would mean us taking policy seriously, which is dull and complicated.
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There are, however, grounds for some optimism.
Parliamentary select committees – especially in their online manifestations – are becoming increasingly impressive in what evidence is made publicly available in their ongoing inquiries.
The House of Commons library also make their outstanding briefings available to the public as well as to parliamentarians.
The decline in specialist journalists is – though only to a limited extent – being offset by specialist commentators – on Substack or elsewhere.
But, even taking all these positive points at their highest, there is generally little or no incentive for there to be real accountability, as opposed to superficial (and theatrical) accountability.
And so the massive policy problems identified by von Bismarck in her post do not have ready solutions – though, no doubt, there will one day be a scathing public inquiry about each of them.
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Are you aware of a country or system in a democracy which does this well, or at least considerably better than the UK?
As a long time observer of both UK and NL politics I think you describe a situation that probably applies to most ” democratic”political systems.
It is just that UK is the most radical example, because the Prime Minister is not accountable for anything to anyone. Viz Boris Johnson and his antics, most particularly in respect of the so-called Russia report.
In addition, there is little effort to make policy that will last beyond the tenure of the current PM. Policy is made in tiny increments and the reasoning behind it hidden, especially if it avoids disclosure through FOI limitations. And there is still a hostility to experts that prevents good input to government – unless of course they are in fact lobbyists for particular interests. (See Liz Truss).
We should, now, be having a strong public debate about the Fiscal Rules, for example. But there is hardly a mutter. In the meantime, the government is working on its version, for good or ill. We are given hints by the chancellor. But this is not enough.
I was talking to a mayor here in France about 7 or 8 years ago. He pointed out that any decent sized project – even at the scale of a medium-sized town here – takes around 10 years to go from initial idea to cutting the ribbon. As he said, what he does today has little impact on his chances of winning the next election. So, how do things get done here? By – for example – getting into a ‘regional plan’. Yes, these are 5 year plans, but to get into one, and get financed, all the stakeholders have to agree. There is arguing. There is horse-trading. There are delays. But once agreed, things get done. My impression is that not enough stuff in the UK has ‘all stakeholder buy-in’. Ideas come. They go. They get revisited. But they don’t get bought into by everyone. It is as much about the process, the seeing everything in the round, as about the people and the individual project.
Even worse, the recommendations of the scathing public inquiries are not implemented, so nothing changes.
Ages ago I was an (un)civil servant. An old hand told me ‘keep your nose clean and when you get near retiring you will be pushed up a few grades – so long as you can be trusted not to touch anything’.
All our government ministers are within a few years of ‘retiring’ whatever their age – there will soon be another election, all change round. So all must be commanded not to touch anything, it will probably break and you blamed. Short termism reigns.
All democracies are a bit like this but in ours the Prime Minister’s role is derived from a monarchical role. Not quite absolute power but not far short. Functioning in the second hand glory of a monarchy.
This brings just a little too much power and just a little too little accountability. There is no shadow of the axe or revolution hanging over the Prime Minister. So it’s do as you please until election time.
If the monarch ever had a steadying role that has long since vanished. I can’t see King Charles pushing for millions of houses and a dozen nuclear power stations.
Elections roll round once every five years. Most people will never have heard of the folk you have listed and no one is about to remind us of how useless they were. The media are partisan and voters rarely read the media for the other side. Uselessness is never punished.
No good blaming the voters, only a few % follow politics, the rest follow the herd. Cushty.
Hence anyone who has worked long term in a publicly funded organisation will see the enthusiasm for the shiny new plan loudly proclaimed. They will see the often token implementation of that plan, but Things will still Not Be Good Enough, so there will be a new even shiner plan. Rinse and repeat until the first plan is dusted off, tweaked a little to become the NEW shinier plan. The length of the cycle varies between sectors, but it seems to happen in all I know anything about – mostly from disillusioned friends.
The sad truth is that while the effect of policies often is measured, usually by academics, but sometimes by conscientious insiders, the results of those studies are rarely used to inform future policy.
“And the primary reason for this lack of incentive is, well, us.
If voters (and viewers and readers) wanted more real-time policy accountability then there would be career, commercial and/or electoral advantages in there being more policy accountability.
But that would mean us taking policy seriously, which is dull and complicated.”
The problem is that for huge numbers of people their votes are worthless. I do take policy seriously, I read up on it, I care. But that’s all pointless because I live in a modern-day rotten borough where the candidate with the right colour rosette will win every time regardless.
So why is the lack of accountability the fault of me and people like me?
In any political system, such as the one you criticise, and I would aver in the one you would prefer, no one individual can make much of a difference. That does not change my central point: in a Westerm democracy, ambitious people in politics and media do what they do because that is what people want them to do.
There’s a difference between no single individual having a major influence, which will of course be the case in any democratic system, and large groups of people being effectively disenfranchised. Take the US system, for example, which is even more broken than the UK’s. Unless you live in specific areas of specific states, your vote is worthless.
Might an answer to your question appear if we consider not just the upside, motivational factors affecting individuals in positions of power in the UK but also the downside ones?
As well as the vast number of options that exist for lucrative and status-soaked benefits to ministers, civil servants and contractors of all sorts shouldn’t we simply implement the obverse menu of items to instill the detriments that will happen if incompetence or failure are delivered? These should aim to be just as effective a motivational force as the upside ones.
Your readers will be more creative than I could be in how to achieve these legally and simply but denying lifelong index-linked pensions from those who screwup, reclaiming salary and benefits payments for performance which quickly is shown to be illusory and rescinding gongs, directorships, sinecures and memberships awarded to nincompoops and criminals is not beyond the wit of decent people, is it?
Good grief, even vulture capitalists are beginning to do exactly this with some gusto to rein-in the worst excesses so surely the best legal minds of our day can work out how to manufacture these outcomes within the current structures of government?
Time to stop accepting the intolerable and deliver genuine government before the option to do so calmly is gone, in my opinion.
“…impressive Select Committees…”?
Stop right there!
While a few are, and there are some good Chairs, most are pretty useless.
1. They have no powers of sub poena.
2. Evidence is mot taken under oath, so misleading the SC or downright lying is commonplace.
3. Sanctions for misleading a SC are a joke.
4. The quality of questioning is often extremely poor. Some MPs just use the occasion to grandstand. Others who may be friendly with witnesses ask leading, exculpatory questions. Most ask long, tedious multi-pronged questions, where the witness concentrates on answering the easy bits and ignores the more awkward elements.
5. Chairs have no power to force an answer.
6. Like Public Inquiries, many hearings come long after the facts so “I can’t remember” becomes a frequent fig-leaf.
7. SC findings can be, and frequently are, totally ignored by the Gov’t of the day if they cause embarrassment to the Gov’t or their pals.
All in all, while they may sometimes cause a week or two of discomfort, they achieve very little…unless they come up with findings that suit the Gov’t’s agenda.
I too could have once typed most of that, but I did not because I have spent many fruitful hours looking at select committee reports and the evidence online, and I have found out a great deal which otherwise is not in the public domain. It does take tiem and effort though.
“If voters (and viewers and readers) wanted more real-time policy accountability then there would be career, commercial and/or electoral advantages in there being more policy accountability”.
But how?
Once upon a time project managers for government jobs used a project management system called PROMPT. Heavily bureaucratic and prescriptive, the idea was that very close tabs were kept on the project progress and spending. Every jot and tittle had to be signed off.
This very excellent control system worked beautifully right up until the day it didn’t and the project unaccountably ran into the buffers. All that paperwork was just a fig leaf to cover up the reality of large scale projects.
1 – Enthusiasm
2 – Disillusionment
3 – PANIC!!
4 – Search for the Guilty
5 – Punishment of the Innocent
6 – Praise and Honours for the non-participants.
The great and good heading up the management structure found good reason to move on before trouble struck and somehow all bets were off when the new incumbent took the chair. The nasty smell never reached the paperwork even though everyone could smell it. No evidence guvnor.
Every name on your housing list knows full well how the game is played.