Planning

The previous chapter was about getting things done. We now need to look at the processes through which policy goals are determined. The British system has not been conspicuously successful at sorting out priorities and evaluating policies. Or perhaps not until recently. The Plowden Committee proposed in 1961 that public spending should be brought under proper control by looking ahead, reviewing existing policies and forcing the Cabinet to take collective decisions on priorities instead of dealing with specific schemes piecemeal. 1 Most of the Plowden recommendations have been implemented. After a faltering start, techniques have been developed for forecasting expenditure and enabling politicians to make better-informed choices on key developments. The visible sign of this has been a succession of White Papers on public expenditure, including the unfortunate National Plan of 1965, which tried to relate public expenditure to changes and growth (that did not in fact materialize) in the rest of the economy. 2 Less visible has been the annual Chequers weekend at which groups of Ministers try to thrash out the competing merits of their departments’ expansion schemes. At the same time economists and other specialists have been brought in to help with evaluation.