The Reform Act of 2010 - Part 2

The Grammar School I attended in the 1950s was managed by a Headmaster, one secretary, a Senior Master and a Senior Mistress. There were teachers who taught their specialist subjects and prefects who gave teachers some relief by patrolling the school grounds at breaks and lunchtimes. As far as I could tell everything worked very well. Nowadays an equivalent school requires a Head, Deputy Head, Assistant Heads, Heads of Year, Heads of Departments, Assistant Heads of Department and a phalanx of secretarial staff. I don't sense that schools have become more effective over the past 60 years.

I make this observation because over the same time period Parliament has grown its administration from a handful of ministers and a few PPS's to a bewildering array of ministers. I don't doubt that highly developed arguments could be put forward for each of them but I cannot escape the conclusion that jobs have been developed to keep MPs occupied. Many of these functions could be properly done by trained civil servants. More ministers has led to less accountability and again I don't get a sense that government is more effective in delivering services.

My second reform is to reduce the number of government ministers - basically to one minister per department and put them all in the cabinet. Abolish junior ministers and keep one PPS to act as House of Commons liaison.