Colin Talbot

About Colin Talbot

Colin Talbot is professor of government and public administration at the University of Manchester Business School, and a former adviser to the Treasury select committee. He writes and comments widely on public management reform. Colin has worked with numerous national and international public sector organisations, as an adviser, consultant and researcher. He blogs at Whitehall Watch.

Civil service blame games

14 May 2012 | Colin Talbot

Who should take responsibility for civil service underperformance? Judging from past experience, ministers will just blame the infantry Read more

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Whitehall woes revisited

27 April 2012 | Colin Talbot

The Jeremy Hunt debacle raises again the issue of Whitehall reform. Our reputedly ‘Rolls Royce’ civil service actually has deep flaws in its institutional make-up and needs to be modernised Read more

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Farce over ‘facilities time’

12 April 2012 | Colin Talbot

Coalition plans to restrict trade union activities reflect a view that public sector staff are the ‘enemy within’. This is an out-of-date and out-of-touch approach to employee relations Read more

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NHS Titanic: battered, but not yet sunk

2 April 2012 | Colin Talbot

With the Health and Social Care Act a reality, critics and supporters are predicting extreme results. In fact, it is more likely just to chug along, getting increasingly worse for wear Read more...

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Budget cuts: this time they’re permanent

21 March 2012 | Colin Talbot

The Budget data shows that we are heading for US-style public spending levels, as a percentage of GDP. And many of the cuts could be irreversible Read more...

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Busting the myths about ‘saintly’ GPs

12 March 2012 | Colin Talbot

Handing power to GPs is a central purpose of the Health and Social Care Bill. But it is based on many myths about GPs being closer to patients than other healthcare professionals Read more...

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Ghosh is misguided on localism

24 February 2012 | Colin Talbot

The Home Office’s permanent secretary uses an inappropriate metaphor when she compares localism to a toddler learning to ride a bike Read more

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Can the Work Programme work?

9 February 2012 | Colin Talbot

The government’s much-vaunted welfare to work scheme could end up having no effect on the overall numbers of long-term unemployed people Read more

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Reviewing the spending situation

7 February 2012 | Colin Talbot

Frequent Spending Reviews were meant to be so old Labour. But could George Osborne be about to pull another one out of the hat in his 21 March Budget? Read more

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Whitehall: new buzz words, old woes

24 January 2012 | Colin Talbot

Will the new civil service regime be any better at ‘implementation’ than its predecessor was at ‘delivery’? It seems highly unlikely Read more...

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