Achieving accountable government
Debates around the relationship between senior civil servants and ministers are likely to evolve rather than settle
Sir Jeremy Heywood’s guidance to civil servants working for Brexit ministers, indicating that they cannot provide advice and support that could be used to campaign against the government’s agreed position, has been met with fury from the Vote Leave camp. Nick Pearce writes that the issue of the relationship between senior civil servants and Ministers is unlikely […]
The handling of the junior doctors’ strike reinforces a vision of the NHS where key voices are neither sought nor listened to
Despite the rise of patient and public involvement, evidence from the junior doctor’s strike suggests that little has changed in terms of the power of Westminster and the lack of public accountability for decisions that lie at the heart of how the NHS is organised. Here, Jonathan Tritter and Mio Fredriksson discuss the tensions between […]
Think tanks in the UK are revealing who funds them, with the sector seemingly embracing transparency
At least nine major British think tanks will disclose who funds their research and advocacy over the coming month, marking a systemic shift towards greater financial transparency across the entire UK policy research scene that mirrors a similar, ongoing seismic shift in the United States and beyond, argues Till Bruckner. Similar PostsGovernment and ‘independent expertise’: think […]
The European Commission experienced a ‘subtle disempowerment’ during the Eurozone crisis
How did the Eurozone crisis affect the balance of power between the EU’s institutions? As Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt writes, opinion has been split over whether the crisis strengthened or damaged the European Commission’s role in EU decision-making. She argues that while some authors have highlighted an apparent increase in the Commission’s responsibilities over economic governance during […]
How can data-rich technology drive better citizen engagement and make government more effective?
The world is currently confronting numerous mutually reinforcing challenges, ranging from climate change to economic instability to security threats. Here, Beth Simone Noveck argues that meeting this challenges will require nurturing and taking advantage of the skills of citizen-experts and the emerging tools that they are creating. Similar PostsIs there a future for referendums?Towards a […]
Better than asking: An experiment on the effectiveness of FOI requests
In July 2015 the government appointed a new independent commissionto look into how the law on freedom of information (FOI) is working. Having received 30,000 pieces of evidence, the commission has also managed to unite the Guardian and the Daily Mail against it while Labour has responded with its own alternative review. Here, Ben Worthy, […]
The Eurosceptic invocation of the ‘Anglosphere’ rests on ideological, not sound geopolitical, foundations
The UK’s referendum on our continued membership of the European Union is set to take place later this year, following the Prime Minister’s now concluded renegotiation of our terms of membership. Nick Pearce looks at the Eurosceptic camp’s invocation of the notion of the Anglosphere as an alternative to a pan-European polity, and finds the […]
The growth of informal EU decision-making has empowered centrist parties
Legislative decision-making in the European Union is increasingly shifting toward informal secluded arenas, to allow for the early adoption of laws. Edoardo Bressanelli, Christel Koop and Christine Reh assess the implications of this trend for the behaviour of political parties in the European Parliament. They find that informalisation has strengthened the cohesion of the three […]
Interview: Alon Peled on open data, incentives, and ‘Traversing Digital Babel’
Governments across the world have attempted to improve their capacity for open data, with the UK improving its efforts since the turn of the decade markedly. Last year, Sean Kippin interviewed Alon Peled, an academic and computer software expert who has created an incentive-based system and programme for governmental informational sharing which he claims holds […]
The Government’s plans to water down the release of Cabinet papers to the national archive are bad for democracy
The Government has announced plans to reform the frequency and comprehensiveness of what is released to the national archives. Here, in a Westminster Hall speech, Richard Burgon argues that recent history shows these reforms to be unhealthy for democracy. Similar PostsBook Review: The House of Commons: An Anthropology of MPs at Work by Emma CreweAllowing MPs […]
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