Are the taxpayers of Kent best served by financing so many council buildings, senior officers, councillors and portfolio holders – all drawing salaries and allowances?
Plus: The reshuffle – who may be in, who may be out. I am a wet lettuce liberal on prison reform. And: Lightning strikes twice in Camden.
Dame Sally Coates’s review, published this week and accepted yesterday by Michael Gove, sets out the right forward.
Here are three proposals for change.
Ministers must consult and build alliances before rushing ahead with more ambitious reforms.
For the first time in a decade, there is the potential to have policy which looks beyond the height of prison walls to the people within.
The clamour about last week’s elections and June’s EU referendum is obscuring the deep problems that the Government and the country face.
The last thing we want is a ‘miners moment’ in our NHS, but the doctors’ union is making unreasonable demands.
We want to enable academies to move from a model where parents are chosen for their expertise.
The Budget ducked the hard choices that need to be made.
It would be a tragedy if our reforming zeal and the important changes we are making became lost in a sea of negative internally-generated noise.
The academies plan could mark the start of a more effective, cheaper, de-centralised, responsive and accountable way of running the nation’s services.
The case for May. Which candidate in these momentous times can you imagine dealing best with the likes of Obama, Merkel and Putin – or terror attacks?