Whitehall business plans website 'to shift power'
David Cameron: "This is a complete revolution in how government operates"
David Cameron has launched a website where government departments set out their business plans and timetables for achieving them.
The PM said they would "change the way that government works" by allowing people to check on the progress of policies on a month-by-month basis.
He said the old "target culture" had encouraged short-term thinking.
But Labour's Douglas Alexander said most people just wanted ministers to get on with the job.
The transparency website brings together a range of information - including basic details of ministers' meetings and hospitality received, gifts and overseas travel, timetables for implementing policies, staffing structures and salary ranges for top civil servants, some of which was already publicly available but was published separately.
Other information - like working out how much individual police forces cost each taxpayer, how much it costs to produce and issue a passport and how much it costs to collect each £1 of income tax - will be published over the course of 2011/2.
Mr Cameron launched the website surrounded by cabinet members and flanked by deputy PM Nick Clegg and the Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell - the head of the civil service.
He said it would be a move towards greater transparency in Whitehall, part of a "power shift" giving people enough information to hold government to account.
Each department will have to produce a monthly progress report - and the secretary of state will have to account to the prime minister if they are not on track.
The government dismisses suggestions that Labour had a similar scheme, with its widespread use of published targets.
Mr Cameron said "bureaucratic accountability" under Labour - including public service agreements - had "bred bureaucracy", created inefficiency, crushed morale in the public sector and encouraged people to go for "short term wins".
"Instead of bureaucratic accountability to the government machine, these business plans aim to bring in a new system of democratic accountability, accountability to the people."
"So reform will be driven not by the short term political calculations of the government but by the consistent long-term pressure of what people actually want and choose in their public services."
He said the website would strike a blow for "people power" by "shining a bright light of transparency on everything government does".
"Because each of these business plans does not just specify the actions we will take, it also sets out the information we will publish so that people can hold us to account - plain English details about the progress of the reforms and the results they are achieving."
But Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Douglas Alexander dismissed Mr Cameron's claim Labour had made things too bureaucratic.
"Well we were able to build a lot of schools, build a lot of hospitals, cut waiting lists, cut levels of unemployment," he said.
He added he had no objection to more transparency but added: "My honest sense is people getting up this morning... probably don't think this is a transformative shift in power between government and the citizen. They basically want their politicians... to be getting on with the job of delivering decent standards in schools, a better health service and making sure there's more work in the economy.
"And they feel they have a pretty good accountability mechanism, it's called a general election."
Credit: BBC
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