One further point on this, I think. If you are looking to improve the effectiveness of government you certainly need to look at who is at the centre of government (advisers and managers, as Cummings says, but also Ministers).
But you also need to look at governance systems: ways of ensuring that important decisions are stress-tested, that they have been taken with the benefit of information not held by government,
and that (as far as possible) they are seen by those affected to have been taken fairly and properly.
For example, without wanting to defend every aspect of our procurement and State aid rules, government grants and contracts should not be granted just because a brilliant official has been impressed by project P supplied by company C.
You need to have processes to check that P is value for money compared to other things the money can be spent on and that C is indeed the best supplier.
And on many areas of policy - trade, tax etc etc - (a) policies formulated in an ivory tower will (and do) crash to the ground if not informed by practical realities known only to those who have to live with those policies and
(b) any policy involves trade-offs, which are hard to gauge from centre, no matter how competent and brilliant it is.
That is why good policy making often requires (real, not sham) consultation.
A lot of administrative law is about processes and procedures before key decisions are taken. And it should be regarded not as a block on good policy making, but as assisting good policy-making by ensuring that good processes are actually followed.
Cummings has always struck me as being entirely impatient with processes and procedures. They can be tiresome (and are sometimes unnecessary). But they are in the end a critical part of good government (and of perceptions of good government).
A concluding French joke, inspired by Cummings’ emphasis on quantitative/numeracy skills. ENA - the college that educates the French administrative elite - insists on such skills.
A graduate of ENA goes into la France profonde to audit agricultural grants. He sees a farmer in a large field of sheep.
The farmer sees the obvious Parisian and says “if you can tell me the exact number of sheep in this field you can have one of them.”
The ENA graduate takes one look at the sheep he can see, notes the size of the field, does some quick as a flash mental arithmetic and says “87”.
The farmer is impressed. That is the right number. “Go ahead, choose a sheep”, he says. So the ENA graduate picks up the nearest animal and walks back to his car.
“You are a graduate of ENA, aren’t you?” says the farmer. “Yes: how did you know?” says the official. “Because you have picked up my sheepdog” says the farmer.
Good policy-making is not just about calculating the number of sheep. It is also about giving the farmer the chance to point out that you have just picked up the sheepdog.
