Delivering the goods

18th January 2008
By Sir Michael Barber

On July 17 2007, the Public Administration Select Committee quizzed me for close to two hours on the content of my recent book Instruction to Deliver. The debate was lively and engaging. At a critical moment, David Heyes MP said sharply, ‘The most dismal result [of the recent Capability Reviews of government departments] is in delivery. Four years of [you] working on delivery, we do the reviews and delivery is a big failure area. Why is that?’

It is clear from the…