Evidence-based policy making?

Do you remember a government paper, "Modernising Government" published in 1999?
No? You're not alone. Tony Blair and Charles Clarke seem to have forgotten it too.
Modernising Government said:

Government must be willing constantly to re-evaluate what it is doing so as to produce policies that...are forward-looking and shaped by the evidence rather than a response to short-term pressures.

"Shaped by the evidence"? Tony Blair said yesterday that "there is now the technology to move to a biometric passport." But evidence shows the technology has a high failure rate.
Not a response to short-term pressures? He said yesterday: "There is now an unstoppable political momentum across the developed world for countries to use the opportunity of the new technology to make their borders more secure."
Modernising Government continued:

We will base our decisions on a careful appraisal of the benefits any measure seeks to achieve, the costs it entails and the cumulative burden of regulation.

Which is why new UK passports will cost much more than those in other countries. And where is the cost-benefit appraisal of ID cards?
MG went on:

Rather than defending policies, government should lead a debate on improving them. This means...consulting outside experts.

Those outside experts would be the LSE, which reckons ID cards could cost up to £19bn, or the Information Commissioner (pdf), who says they "risk an unnecessary and disproportionate intrusion into individuals' privacy."
MG said:

policy making must also be a process of continuous learning and improvement.

That would be learning from the long list of failures of government IT projects, including those in the police service.
And MG says better policy making means "learning lessons from other countries."
Like Australia and New Zealand where the proposals were dropped, France where the cards are used as a pretext or harrassing racial minorities, or Spain where they failed to stop the Madrid train bombings.
I'm tempted to say the government is making it up as it goes along. But I couldn't do that. After all, MG promised us that government would be "ensuring that policy making is more joined up and strategic."

Comments

[Angry Economist]

Many of these requirements have long been bundled into Treasury Rules for pubic expenditure in the Green Books plus other guidance.

Big government gets away with ignoring most of these rules, as they make them, and Big Gordon holds the purse strings ultimately. Meanwhile little government has to do all the paperwork to the MG agenda (usually).

That's because MG is as much about controlling spending than improving government. Its a way of turning the tap off, saying no. But if Tony and Gordon have the odd pet project (of which they are many) they can circumvent the plumbing and drop a nice surprise come budget day.

Usually when one part of government is tidying up wasteful duplication and inefficient practice, another part is inventing new things to do and opening up new opportunities for inefficiencies and duplication...

[dearieme]

I'm just baffled about this government's attachment to ID cards and to PFI. Either there must be some compelling, but presumably cynical, explanation which is as yet unknown to me, or they're just losing all grasp of reality.

[Cruella]

What is the arguement for not just saying everyone has to get a passport. Since they're notably cheaper than ID cards!

Also how can ID cards cost so much. I will hire a roomful of data-inputters and erm, thats about all we need. 2inches x 3 inches of waxy card per person... I estimate £1 a card is more than enough!

It is a waste of time anyway. It will have no impact on crime levels and will only result in a whole new "invented" crime of not-having-an-ID-card, which mentally ill people and forgetful people and infirm and elderly people and people who've had their bag stolen will be caught out on and less room in the jails for people who've actually done nasty stuff and more government money being spent of prisons. Isn't it obvious its a waste of time?

[Angry Economist]

Hey, maybe they are trying to avert the crisis of thousands of unemployed management consultants hitting the streets of London.

The likes of D&T et all will be ordering their custom built luxury yachts already in anticipation of fat government contracts...

[John East]

"Government must be willing constantly to re-evaluate what it is doing so as to produce policies that...are forward-looking and shaped by the evidence rather than a response to short-term pressures".

This is typical Nulabour verbiage. I read on another blog somewhere recently that a good test to identify verbal crap is to re-run it in your head whilst transposing the statements to their opposite meanings. If the new rendering is hilariously ridiculous and certain to get near zero support from everybody, then the original version was just so much hot air.

For example, applying this rule to the above we get:

"Government must be unwilling to re-evaluate what it is doing so as to produce policies that...are backward-looking and shaped by short-term pressures rather than the evidence.”

See this rule seems to work. I think I’ll use it a lot in future.

I don’t know if Blair or his advisors were responsible for the above example of verbal diarrhoea, but this is typical Blairism. A hollow soundbite stating the obvious with near zero utility.