The establishment of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the United States — led by Elon Musk and his troop of youngsters cutting federal government back down to size — has inspired many in Britain to establish something similar.
Journalists are chronicling frivolous public spending and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, herself no ally of Musk or President Trump, has embarked on an efficiency drive in the Home Office, cancelling away days for civil servants in the name of the taxpayer.
While shining a light on wasteful public expenditure is always welcome, this approach commits a category error in the definition of government efficiency. Finding spending to trim and belts to tighten misses a far greater prize, which is ultimately about a total rewiring, re-democratisation and rejuvenation of the British state.
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This is not lost on our American friends, who are pursuing a radical approach to government reform alongside DOGE, shutting down whole departments like the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Education, and passing Executive Orders to restore democratic control over government agencies and rid the whole structure of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. This is a far cry from government by press release to which we have become accustomed in Britain. This was a persistent trait of the recent Conservative government, in which I served as an adviser, and the current government seems to be pursuing the same approach.
British public spending is ballooning out of control, and ministers seem to sit impotently, watching the public finances crumble. Take public procurement, for example. The British taxpayer spends over £300 billion on public procurement. This makes up around a third of public spending overall. Any attempt at doing a British DOGE must examine what public money is spent on public procurement, and — more importantly — how it is spent and what it is intended to achieve.
Salami-slicing government spending should no longer be the order of the day
Parliament changed Britain’s procurement laws after we left the European Union. Despite this being one of Dominic Cummings’ highest priorities for reform, the Conservative government paid little attention to the Bill, leaving it largely on bureaucratic autopilot, unloved by various responsible ministers. The Bill was beset by setbacks and confusion, with contradictory ideas thrown into the mix from different ends of Whitehall.
Possibly the most damaging of ideas in the mix is the inclusion of so-called “social value” in procurement considerations. This undermines the prioritisation of value for money in public procurement and strikes against any notion of government efficiency. The Government has published its new guidance statement for how it expects social value to be implemented, and the importance of social value is weaved throughout the document.
Contracting authorities will be encouraged to maximise their work with charities and social enterprises, procurement will be expected to deliver green objectives, reduce deprivation, and increase economic opportunities for “underrepresented groups, including people with protected characteristics”, which ultimately amounts to the implementation of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) through public procurement. Previous recommendations that procurement processes must neither be overburdensome on suppliers, nor gold-plate the Equality Act have been removed.
While one might say that this is simply the expected behaviour of a left-wing government, this obscures the way in which the current system was created by its Conservative predecessor. The Social Value Act was passed in 2012, and it allows and encourages procurement to enact DEI policies, and furthermore, during the passage of the Procurement Bill in Parliament in 2022 and 2023, this point was made repeatedly.
Though explicit encouragement of social value was not in the final Procurement Act — this was changed to “maximising public benefit” — other laws like the Social Value Act and multiple procurement policy statements remained in force. The level of enthusiasm among Labour MPs in Parliament for social value — including using it to advance trade unions in the workplace — should have been sufficient warning to remove any and all references to social value in law, and refocus procurement entirely on value for money. It is a great shame this did not happen, and now it must be added to the growing list of costly laws which must be repealed by a forward-thinking government in the future.
This is just one area where legal duties undermine government efficiency and value for money. The exploding costs of the asylum system and disability-related benefits are two other pressing examples. These bills are climbing into the billions without any sign of slowing down, while government departments with unprotected budgets are being asked to find cuts of around 11 per cent. The cost of managing the asylum system is at record highs, well over £4 billion per year. This is mandated by the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 which means the state is required to accommodate asylum seekers. This is an almost irresistible pull factor for illegal immigrants, who are given room and board under its requirements, and no amount of “smash the gangs” rhetoric from the government will change that, until the law is repealed.
Similarly, the spiralling costs of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and related benefits like the Motability scheme for supposedly disabled drivers, has its roots in law and policy, like the decision to weaken eligibility criteria during the pandemic, and the parity of esteem between mental and physical conditions in treatment and severity. Until eligibility for PIP is radically reduced, by imposing time limits and conditions for payments — especially to young people without physical conditions — these costs will continue to grow, crippling the public finances and the economy.
These should be the guiding principles behind all thinking behind “British DOGE”. Salami-slicing government spending should no longer be the order of the day. Instead, all efforts should focus on government transformation and the radical reduction of the tax burden. A government committed to halving the tax burden and achieving 4 per cent year-on-year economic growth will do far more for government efficiency than one which publishes a press release boasting that it has cancelled a civil servants’ away day.
