http://idealgovernment.com/2009/12/what-of-long-term-it-contracts-still-being-signed-under-labour-administration/ What do we want from Internet-age government? Wouldn't it be better if... Wed, 14 May 2014 08:35:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://idealgovernment.com/2009/12/what-of-long-term-it-contracts-still-being-signed-under-labour-administration/comment-page-1/#comment-3922 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:10:56 +0000 http://idealgovernment.com/?p=1905#comment-3922 It’s a good question, but not as clear cut as it first looks.
In the UK system of government, the government stays being the government until it stops being the government, and it is a fundamental tenet of the civil service that it serves ‘the government of the day’. Its current job is to keep implementing the policy of the Labour government. At some point next year, it is possible that there will be a Conservative government, and from that day on it will be the job of the civil service to serve that government with equal assiduity.
So there are two sets of questions. The first is constitutional:
Do we want to change the assumption and invite the cabinet office to have an eye on opposition as well as government opinion? If so, from when? Is that always in the last 3/6/12 months of a parliament, or only when the governing party is behind in the opinion polls? Does opposition opinion become a veto at some point, and if so, when? Or is there some category of decisions which simply should not be made in the closing stages of a parliament, and if so which ones? Is this about contractual decisions, or should new legislation which has an impact beyond a likely election date be similarly limited? If not, would a parliamentary vote approving the making of a contract change anything?
The second set is more practical. Can no project expected to take more than three years be started later than the second year of a parliament? Should projects expected take more than about four years be banned altogether?
Guidance at the last election – and there is no reason to suppose that the next one will be different – does set limits on new commitments during the election period itself – http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/propriety_and_ethics/assets/electguide.pdf page 18. So the absolute principle I started with is already constrained to a certain extent. That makes it reasonable to ask whether the beginning of a campaign is a sufficient period. My point, finally arrived at, is that it is not really a question of contract arrangements, it’s a rather deeper and broader one than that.

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