David Cameron aims to “turn government on its head”, forcing every Whitehall department to become accountable against set milestones for what they want to achieve.
The prime minister say he wants to change the way the country is run, meaning that rather than being focused on centrally imposed targets and bureaucrats, public services are geared towards their users.
From Thursday, departments will start to publish “structural reform plans” explaining their top priorities and key milestones to allow voters to measure their performance, beginning with the Department for Education and the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Mr Cameron will tell civil servants at a conference in London that competition and transparency would help improve choice.
He will say that at a time when public spending is being slashed, “radical reform” is required to raise standards of services, adding: “We need to completely change the way this country is run.”
The prime minister will accuse the previous government of creating a system of “bureaucratic accountability” in which everything is inspected centrally, usually against targets.
“We want to replace the old system of bureaucratic accountability with a new system of democratic accountability – accountability to the people, not the government machine,” he will say.
“We want to turn government on its head, taking power away from Whitehall and putting it into the hands of people and communities.”
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