Failing to Figure
Whitehall's Costly Neglect of Statistical Reasoning
Published on 15. June 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
88 pages
978-1-906837-07-5 (ISBN)
Description
As the size and scope of government grows, so do the resources allocated to public services. But how are decisions taken when departments are sharing out very large pots of money? How do we know that allocations are fair or reasonable? In "Failing to Figure" Mervyn Stone examines the process and finds it lacking in transparency, and even common sense. Government departments put the calculations relating to their policies out to contract, usually to universities, and the bids are assessed by committees that are described as 'independent', but which largely consist of public sector employees directly involved with the outcome. The whole process is shrouded in secrecy: the public may not know who has been asked to tender, which proposals have been turned down or why the winning tender was accepted. Mervyn Stone argues that this level of secrecy is undesirable, particularly when billions of pounds of public money are involved.
He offers examples of failures in public policy relating to the National Health Service, police forces and local authorities, and shows how these failures emerge from a dysfunctional machinery of government that implicates ministers, civil servants and their contracted advisers, consultants and experts. Professor Stone also argues that the process is compromising the integrity of the universities that participate. To stay in business, universities have to compete for lucrative government contracts. Loyalty to their institution can tempt academics to remain knowingly silent on contestable issues they could help to resolve. In place of the present system, he recommends wider consultation, more openness and the publication of the reasons for accepting the winning tender.
As the size and scope of government grows, so do the resources allocated to public services. But how are decisions taken when departments are sharing out very large pots of money? How do we know that allocations are fair or reasonable? In "Failing to Figure" Mervyn Stone examines the process and finds it lacking in transparency, and even common sense. Government departments put the calculations relating to their policies out to contract, usually to universities, and the bids are assessed by committees that are described as 'independent', but which largely consist of public sector employees directly involved with the outcome. The whole process is shrouded in secrecy: the public may not know who has been asked to tender, which proposals have been turned down or why the winning tender was accepted. Mervyn Stone argues that this level of secrecy is undesirable, particularly when billions of pounds of public money are involved.
He offers examples of failures in public policy relating to the National Health Service, police forces and local authorities, and shows how these failures emerge from a dysfunctional machinery of government that implicates ministers, civil servants and their contracted advisers, consultants and experts. Professor Stone also argues that the process is compromising the integrity of the universities that participate. To stay in business, universities have to compete for lucrative government contracts. Loyalty to their institution can tempt academics to remain knowingly silent on contestable issues they could help to resolve. In place of the present system, he recommends wider consultation, more openness and the publication of the reasons for accepting the winning tender.
He offers examples of failures in public policy relating to the National Health Service, police forces and local authorities, and shows how these failures emerge from a dysfunctional machinery of government that implicates ministers, civil servants and their contracted advisers, consultants and experts. Professor Stone also argues that the process is compromising the integrity of the universities that participate. To stay in business, universities have to compete for lucrative government contracts. Loyalty to their institution can tempt academics to remain knowingly silent on contestable issues they could help to resolve. In place of the present system, he recommends wider consultation, more openness and the publication of the reasons for accepting the winning tender.
As the size and scope of government grows, so do the resources allocated to public services. But how are decisions taken when departments are sharing out very large pots of money? How do we know that allocations are fair or reasonable? In "Failing to Figure" Mervyn Stone examines the process and finds it lacking in transparency, and even common sense. Government departments put the calculations relating to their policies out to contract, usually to universities, and the bids are assessed by committees that are described as 'independent', but which largely consist of public sector employees directly involved with the outcome. The whole process is shrouded in secrecy: the public may not know who has been asked to tender, which proposals have been turned down or why the winning tender was accepted. Mervyn Stone argues that this level of secrecy is undesirable, particularly when billions of pounds of public money are involved.
He offers examples of failures in public policy relating to the National Health Service, police forces and local authorities, and shows how these failures emerge from a dysfunctional machinery of government that implicates ministers, civil servants and their contracted advisers, consultants and experts. Professor Stone also argues that the process is compromising the integrity of the universities that participate. To stay in business, universities have to compete for lucrative government contracts. Loyalty to their institution can tempt academics to remain knowingly silent on contestable issues they could help to resolve. In place of the present system, he recommends wider consultation, more openness and the publication of the reasons for accepting the winning tender.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-906837-07-5 (9781906837075)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Mervyn Stone is an emeritus professor of statistics at University College London where he has been teacher, researcher and statistical adviser since 1968-before that, at the universities of Cambridge, Princeton, Aberystwyth, Michigan and Durham. He has been associate editor and trustee of Biometrika, editor of the methodology journal of the Royal Statistical Society and a member of its executive committee. His academic work in the theory of experimental design, formal Bayes methods, large deviations, cross-validation, coordinate-free estimation and in a wide range of applications of statistical reasoning from psychology to stem cells-has appeared in over 100 papers and in Coordinate-free Multivariable Statistics, Oxford Science Publications, 1987. For the last two decades, his work has embraced issues of public concern-water privatisation, changing clocks to save lives, attempts to measure the efficiency of police forces and universities, daytime vehicle lights, speed cameras, cycling accidents, NHS decision procedures and primary care trust funding. For the latter, he gave written and oral evidence to the House of Commons Health Committee inquiry into NHS deficits. Recently the tenor of his work has become openly critical, as in pieces published in the Statistics Corner of Civitas and in Civitas's immigration portfolio.
Mervyn Stone is an emeritus professor of statistics at University College London where he has been teacher, researcher and statistical adviser since 1968-before that, at the universities of Cambridge, Princeton, Aberystwyth, Michigan and Durham. He has been associate editor and trustee of Biometrika, editor of the methodology journal of the Royal Statistical Society and a member of its executive committee. His academic work in the theory of experimental design, formal Bayes methods, large deviations, cross-validation, coordinate-free estimation and in a wide range of applications of statistical reasoning from psychology to stem cells-has appeared in over 100 papers and in Coordinate-free Multivariable Statistics, Oxford Science Publications, 1987. For the last two decades, his work has embraced issues of public concern-water privatisation, changing clocks to save lives, attempts to measure the efficiency of police forces and universities, daytime vehicle lights, speed cameras, cycling accidents, NHS decision procedures and primary care trust funding. For the latter, he gave written and oral evidence to the House of Commons Health Committee inquiry into NHS deficits. Recently the tenor of his work has become openly critical, as in pieces published in the Statistics Corner of Civitas and in Civitas's immigration portfolio.
Mervyn Stone is an emeritus professor of statistics at University College London where he has been teacher, researcher and statistical adviser since 1968-before that, at the universities of Cambridge, Princeton, Aberystwyth, Michigan and Durham. He has been associate editor and trustee of Biometrika, editor of the methodology journal of the Royal Statistical Society and a member of its executive committee. His academic work in the theory of experimental design, formal Bayes methods, large deviations, cross-validation, coordinate-free estimation and in a wide range of applications of statistical reasoning from psychology to stem cells-has appeared in over 100 papers and in Coordinate-free Multivariable Statistics, Oxford Science Publications, 1987. For the last two decades, his work has embraced issues of public concern-water privatisation, changing clocks to save lives, attempts to measure the efficiency of police forces and universities, daytime vehicle lights, speed cameras, cycling accidents, NHS decision procedures and primary care trust funding. For the latter, he gave written and oral evidence to the House of Commons Health Committee inquiry into NHS deficits. Recently the tenor of his work has become openly critical, as in pieces published in the Statistics Corner of Civitas and in Civitas's immigration portfolio.