The Green report on procurement efficiency is an indictment of governance structures across Whitehall

Sir Phillip Green’s report to the PM on government procurement looks thin and is underwhelming in citing evidence. Yet Patrick Dunleavy argues that its key weaknesses essentially reflect the very poor state of the civil service’s budgetary and costs information. After two decades of ‘new public management’, Whitehall is light years away from the modern organization architectures of the world’s most efficient private corporations, which often stress ‘intelligent centre plus devolved delivery’ patterns. Green’s brief was efficiency, but his recommendations that government procurement become more integrated actually imply far-reaching governance changes across central government and beyond.