#TheReset Podcast: "Why can't government do things (anymore)"?

Ed Straw has been in and around government and state led projects for a large part of his later working life. He has also been involved with the UK Labour Party using his trained engineer's eye to look at how things work. His new book throws new light on the problem of poor "government agency".

Governments are hooked on a systematic approach which assumes society remains as simple as it once was. This results in what Ed calls the 'end stage fallacy': ie, the naive assumption that government does not suffer a long decay between conception and the reality of deployment. Ed says that what we need is a more systemic approach, which requires if anything a more relaxed approach to problem solving in which you wider the boundaries of the thing you're trying to fix and the framework in order to the greater context in which it sits. Finding wider and more resilient solutions that are fit for a future that is both fast in arrival and departure means bringing the electorate into the deal between major electoral events. It also means employing a disciplined pluralism to see what works and doesn't before scaling up.