The government of business

An interesting morning at the Institute for Government – David Sainsbury’s brainchild, a think tank trying to make government function better.

With Editorial Intelligence, they put on a panel discussion on whether business and government understand each other. Business, in the form of Simon (Lord) Wolfson and John (CBI) Cridland were pleading for government to relax planning and speed up decision processes respectively.

John Cridland said that for Whitehall putting the ball in the back of the net can be “a career limiting decision” – better, most Whitehall hands think, just to “to keep the ball in play.”   Simon Wolfson (of Next fame, now Tory peer) said governments (he didn’t specify a particular colour of government) all proclaim they “want growth” but then they wrap it in political regulations for “green growth,” “intelligent growth” and the rest.   He said it was like people saying they wanted babies but “didn’t want do nappies … it’s like asking for poo-less babies.”

David Sainsbury said civil servants were chopped and changed too much around Whitehall and that as one Tony Blair’s longer serving ministers (covering the science brief) he found himself briefing the civil servants.

John Authers of the FT said that the banking crash suggested that business understood the goverment all too well and that’s how it got its financial deregulation.   Patricia Hewitt said she’d wished her career had been the other way round, going into business for longer before going into government.   Anyway, you can see the whole thing here on the Editorial Intelligence website.