Letter: High price of change in public services

Sir: It is usually going to be funny when a thousand words of journalism promises to give meaning to otherwise meaningless abstractions. Andrew Marr did not disappoint (23 February).

He rightly points to the benefits of the new managerialism in the public services. But the price to be paid, he suggests, is that Whitehall will have to tolerate mistakes - and the occasional scandal.

Oh dear. A slip of the word-pro, perhaps, but a telling one. It has been obvious for a while that the effects of the changes are understood within the walls of the public services. But by the public at large - who unwillingly provide the money? Public money has always had to be treated differently and it is not obvious to me that this has in any sense changed.

In the same issue, you report that a salary of pounds 80,000 for a public servant was a large barrier to appointing a businessman ('Former Virgin boss to take over at Oftel'). Are we really ready for that? The economy in tatters. The gap between rich and poor growing. Public servants commonly earning pounds 80,000 a year, flying first class, staying in luxury hotels - because in a make-believe market they 'earn' money?

The new managerialism will yet fill your pages with scandal, which Whitehall may, and we may not, tolerate.

Yours sincerely,

ROWAN JONES

Professor of Public Sector

Accounting

The Birmingham Business School

University of Birmingham

22 February