Cabinet Minister Pat McFadden was in UCL East earlier today where he called on “innovators and disrupters” to help reform the system of Government.
He said the state needed to operate “more like a startup” and vowed to make even more efficiency savings across Government departments.
But he refused to say whether he would be slashing jobs in the Civil Service, telling journalists that he doesn’t have a target for headcount as he is focused on making it more productive.
It follows Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s comment last Thursday describing the Civil Service as a “tepid bath of managed decline”.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster also announced a £100m “innovation fund” to implement its “test and learn” approach to reform across all levels of government.
He said: “The question isn’t how we do we get this absolutely right the first time. Instead, it’s how do we make this better by next Friday.”
He added that the first wave of reforms will begin in January when small “test and learn teams” will be working with local authorities in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, and Essex to tackle the soaring cost of temporary accommodation and family support.
The minister insisted that the point of these “test and learn teams” will not be to dictate how local governments should operate but rather to “set them a problem and leave them to get on with it.”
He said the Government hopes to expand this approach to the rest of the country and will begin setting these teams bigger challenges, such as dealing with the root causes of the demand for temporary accommodation.
Echoes of Dominic Cummings’ attack on Whitehall
McFadden also fended off accusations that his call for “disrupters and innovators” rang “echoes of Dominic Cummings”, the former Chief Adviser to Boris Johnson who once called for “misfits and weirdos” to be recruited into Government.
He said: “Sometimes good people work in structures that don’t work well for them, and the people themselves are frustrated by that.”
He added that the Government’s new “test and learn” model will allow it to “try things and learn from experience”.
It follows Starmer’s attack on Whitehall last Thursday where he insisted that many civil servants will welcome reforms.
Let’s see how Musk gets on, says McFadden
Today’s announcement was also likened to Twitter owner and three-time divorcee Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory body that will call for huge spending cuts to the American civil service.
Asked whether the UK Government has reached out to Musk, McFadden said: “Let’s see how he gets on.”
While he hailed Musk as an “incredible innovator”, he also said having business leaders in government has not always been successful in the past.
“I was around in the government last time, and we brought in various people from the business world to help out.
“Some of them were an enormous success, made great ministers, did great things. Some others less so.
“Let us see what he can do.”
UCL stands for excellence, says Stears
For UCL students, today’s announcement was particularly notable for its choice of venue.
Politicians across both aisles have developed a certain fondness for using UCL’s £480m campus in Stratford as a backdrop for policy announcements, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer and then-Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
McFadden was introduced by the Director of the UCL Policy Lab Marc Stears, who said of the University: “Here at UCL we stand for excellence.
“We are truly global in our aspirations and our outreach. We are also truly open to people from all backgrounds, from all parts of our community.”
However, a report by The Cheese Grater today revealed that better understanding is needed for overseas students who say they feel “alienated” by the campus community both culturally and geographically, as some 4,000 students based in UCL East – many of whom are postgraduate students from abroad – have had longstanding grievances with the University and the Students’ Union over the lack of community in the Stratford campus.
Stears went on to say: “We’re here to talk about how we can rewire a state, how we can improve public services, how we can enhance opportunities for people of all backgrounds.”
