06.06.13
Lord Brown calls for civil service review
There should be a royal commission into the civil service, Lord Browne will recommend today.
In a speech to the Institute for Government, the Government’s lead business adviser to the civil service will criticise the service’s structures, processes and lines of accountability as outdated.
He is also to recommend a thorough review of the roles and responsibilities of ministers and parliament and their relationships with the civil service.
Browne told the Guardian that “failure goes hand in hand with excellence” and “rather than being frowned on, it should be seen as an inevitable and desirable consequence of informed decision-making”.
“Risks have to be taken but you have to learn from it, you mustn't make the same mistake again.
“What we mustn't do is make pure perfection the standard because then we can guarantee there will be no risks taken, no improvement, no progress, nothing. So we need to be careful, all of us, about how we comment and criticise.
“Having said that it seems to me, people in the civil service have to get used to making mistakes. There have been plenty of initiatives in the corporate sphere that are the same.”
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Image c. Parliament