Government has become so incompetent that it cannot even give money away. That's the message of this report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which reckons the failures of the Rural Payments Agency could cost £500m.
The report says:
A culture where ministers and senior officials can preside over failure of this magnitude and not be held personally accountable creates a serious risk of further failures in public service delivery.
This, of course, is not a forecast - we've already had countless failures in public service delivery.
What's the solution? Wat advocates more Tesco government. But this raises the question: if ministers are only appointed after they've proved their competence, how will we ever fill the jobs?
I suspect all this merely vindicates the prediction made by John Stuart Mill back in 1848 - that big government is bad government:
Every additional function undertaken by the government, is a fresh occupation imposed upon a body already overcharged with duties. A natural consequence is that most things are ill done; much not done at all, because the government is not able to do it without delays which are fatal to its purpose; that the more troublesome and less showy, of the functions undertaken, are postponed or neglected, and an excuse is always ready for the neglect; while the heads of the administration have their minds so fully taken up with official details, in however perfunctory a manner superintended, that they have no time or thought to spare for the great interests of the state, and the preparation of enlarged measures of social improvement. (Principles of Political Economy, Book V, Ch11 para 8)
I'd like supporters of Polly Toynbee to note the last clause. If they do, there's a faint chance that thinknig about the role of government might progress more in the next 159 years than it has in the last 159.
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