@dialectics
Interesting thread. I have read all comments. While grateful for the quote from Machiavelli I am particularly struck by @trevorgleet above.
Government should commission fewer one-off consultancies and instead support long term research programmes at arms length in independent academic research institutes ...
The underlying mood in Whitehall is that commissioning consultancies 'doesn't get things done'. There is a problem in translating research or consultation into 'outcome'.
What has actually happened is a break down in trust, and the other side of that coin, an erosion of respect. Two words that have been on Cameron's lips quite frequently in his speechifying.
There has been a party while Rome has been set ablaze. A party where spending by ministers to 'get things done' has been funded by bankers with the acquiescence of Whitehall. We have heard the ribaldry through the revolving door with industry. It's like a Bob Dylan song (who painted these pictures of the Vietnam era in the US) we were all invited, most of us attended.
The destructive consequences of the current consensus could begin to be averted were Whitehall to clean up its act, which it could only do with the very firm will of Parliament behind it.
But I must admit there is more to the issues involved here than restoring the balance of state, or, even, regaining respect for individuals and institutions.
The fundamental problems are what we mean by 'getting things done' and 'outcome' even if we begin to redefine it as something further in the future and more meaningful than 'what will be measured tomorrow'.
For instance outcome for whom, and what do we mean by benefit?
While capitalism wants tomorrows profit, a commercial habit that is wounding the human race, forgoing that imperative must find its own meaning.
For this we must be tirelessly inquisitive.