Transparency

There was a sense of inevitability this morning as Cameron & Clegg went about announcing yet further reforms that would “revolutionise” how central government operates. Targets are out and business plans are in. Strategies will remain but will now have milestones added as an extra active ingredient.

PM and dutiful deputy seemed torn between talking up the concept of service “horizon shift" – a Letwinism which greatly entertained the Commons later in the day – and keeping it all in a downbeat businesslike perspective. The same conflicting thoughts were clearly going through the minds of bemused cabinet members who sat behind trying not to look appalled whilst the pair of old PR pros swapped sound-bites.

Yet for all the blather about 'empowerment', the biggest problem facing ConDem transparency is that you can see right through it. The same goes for facile suggestions that a new government website somehow increases accountability. The sad truth is that the already top-heavy reporting system carries too many overtones of Blairite bean-counting whilst failing to provide anything more than could be learned through a reasonably well crafted FoI enquiry. As one observer remarked afterwards, "It's a repackaging of what Whitehall does best .... blame-shifting and bullshit".

What this initiative is supposed to add to the sum of good government is questionable. What it is likely to achieve is negligible. Overall, you are left with the impression that any citizen with sufficient time or inclination to digest the mountain of ministerial trivia on offer would automatically qualify for ‘workfare’. Hey, have we hit on something?