In December last year, Tony Collins headed an article in his blog: Government IT reforms – can Ian Watmore force change on Sir Humphrey? Less than a year later, Ian Watmore finds himself becoming the Sir Humphrey of the Cabinet Office!
The news comes as Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, announces his retirement from the Civil Service. His role is to be split three ways. Watmore will take on O’Donnell’s role as Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office (head of the Cabinet Office), while Jeremy Heywood, the permanent secretary at No. 10, will take on the role of Cabinet Secretary (most senior policy advisor to David Cameron and Nick Clegg). The role of the Head of the Civil Service will be filled by an internal Whitehall competition.
Having spent most of his career at Accenture, Watmore is clearly now a rising star within UK Goverment. Collins’ Blog related, of course, to Watmore’s existing role as UK Government Chief Operating Officer (COO) within the Efficiency & Reform Group (E&RG - within the Cabinet Office) – see Ian Watmore appointed UK Government COO. A role which saw him tasked with eking out efficiencies from Departments. However, he admitted to the Public Accounts Commitee (PAC) that he had limited powers to tell Permanent Secretaries what to do.
Now Watmore finds himself in the position of power as Head of the Cabinet Office. But it is unclear from today’s announcement who will take over Watmore’s role as Head of the E&RG. Coincidentally, the announcement comes on the same day that the Public Accounts Committee has published a report looking at the E&RG’s achievements to date, as well as its role and responsibilities. It praises the Group’s achievements but calls for more clarity over the Group’s long-term aims and what it is accountable for. PAC is looking for confirmation that the Head of the E&RG is accountable to Parliament and is looking to clarify the split of responsibilities between the ER&G and individual departments.
Most interesting is PAC’s conclusion that “in the long-term there will need to be a much deeper change in the cultural and institutional structure of Government”. We made this point in our report ‘What needs to change in UK Government?’ published last year. This morning, we chaired a roundtable debate (hosted by Updata), on the challenges of implementing the Public Service Network (PSN) across local government and health; the debate once again highlighted the radical changes required to enable the 'right' decisions to be made.
During the debate it became apparent that the majority of people working in local government and health want to work together across organisational boundaries for the ‘common good’ i.e. to put a network in place that will efficiently and effectively support public services across Government. But everyone shared the same frustrations. The same hurdles keep raising their heads: political, organisational, cultural, financial (funding structures) etc... They are the sort of barriers that can only be overcome if there are some big changes instigated by those sitting at the very top of Government. Ian Watmore will be very well aware of the challenges as he takes on his new role.