HOW TO SAVE MILLIONS : SOME SUGGESTIONS TO THE NEW
COMMITTEE. THE Economy Campaign, with that facile abuse of meta- phor which is becoming current in political speech, is generally associated with an axe. While there can be no objection either to economy or to metaphor, it is necessary, if we are to have clear thinking ' in these important matters, that each should be used in its proper sphere. For our part, if it be necessary to refer to one thing in terms of another we prefer to identify economy with a wise and careful husbandry, with an efficient pruning and planning and laying out, rather than with a ruthless felling with axes or an indiscriminate tearing up of roots.
Speculation has been rife in regard to those services and activities of the State which the Sir Eric Geddes Business Committee will first cut down. That form of inquiry is a necessary outcome of the axe metaphor. It is our belief that no less a sum than £200,000,000 of annual expenditure could be saved to this country without dis- pensing with a single function of the central Government. As to whether these functions are in themselves unneces- sary, redundant or useless is, of course, another matter, to be canvassed on the merits of each of the functions involved. What we are concerned to do here is to point out with the greatest emphasis that the whole adminis- trative machine should be overhauled before a single one of the cogs, wheels, and springs are tampered with. To begin with, there are the countless everyday services of the Administrative Departments. Here it is incumbent on the Committee to see whether these departments cannot be brought to inter-working as regards the services which they now have in common, but which they now work each in their own sphere. Under the present method of Parliamentary procedure each Minister's vote is discussed separately and any extraneous consideration, however pertinent it may be theoretically, is at once ruled out of order in the discussion. A Minister says that a Medical Service, or an increased Medical Service, is necessary in his Ministry. If he can show that the activities of his Ministry necessitate the engagement of a medical staff he will get what he wants quite regardless of whether other departments have a similar service which might be utilised for his purposes. The time has come to consider whether votes could not advantageously be taken by services instead of by departments. Again, the internal organization of the Treasury and the Office of Works, those two great departments con- cerned in dealing with all the other Ministries, must be revised, and be adjusted to the requirements of an age when Government activity has reached dimensions for which such an organization was not intended. At present these two great departments work in water-tight com- partments, each compartment dealing with a Ministry. There is clearly no common principle guiding the com- partments as a whole and co-ordination between them might legitimately be described as non-existent. Consider the question of buildings. In every district each department has its own office. It either builds it or leases it. It never combines with other departments. The Post Office, the Labour Exchange, the Police Station, the Pensions Committee, the County Court, the Office of the Surveyor of Taxes, Sze., &c.—all these are in different buildings and in different parts of the same district. Not only is there a lack of combination between the local offices of the central departments, but there is no common agreement with the locality itself. The first principle, therefore, to be arrived at is an understanding between the departments—arrived at, if necessary, through the medium of the Office of Works—as to what provincial buildings each department needs. Secondly, there must be a close alliance with the Local Authorities. Distinction, of course, must be drawn between such buildings as may be required for permanent occupation and such as may be required only temporarily. So simple a reform as this would save the taxpayer many millions annually ; how i many it would be hazardous to guess. Then there are the Medical Services. The Ministry of Health, the Home Office, the Ministry of War, the Admiralty, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Pensions, to say nothing of the local Police, Lunatic Asylums, Boards of Guardians, and other Local Authori- ties, maintain their own several medical services quite regardless of whether another national or local institution has one next door. They have their own separate hos- pitals, sometimes their own separate medical boards and their own panel doctors. There is no co-ordination whatever. The taxpayer and the ratepayer pay ten times over for the same service. The moment is par- ticularly opportune for some combination between the departments, particularly as many of them—the Ministries of Health, Labour and Pensions—are engaged upon a policy of decentralisation.
Yet again, there is the anomaly of the Exchequer and Audit Department. The Controller and Auditor-General is the only officer of State who is appointed by Parliament direct. He is so appointed in order that he may be responsible to Parliament that money is rightly spent. He does not, in reality, satisfactorily fulfil this function owing to the constitution of his office, which imposes upon- him the duty of merely seeing that the proper authority is vouched for each item of expenditure. Into the region of co-ordination he dare hardly go. But even the function that he performs is duplicated in many depart- ments. The Ministries of Health, the War Office, the Ministry of Pensions, and the Treasury, for instance, all have separate audit staffs to check their central and local accounts on the same inadequate principle. There would seem to be no reason why an Audit Department under the Controller and Auditor-General should not, in addition to auditing mechanically the public accounts, be responsible for the introduction of business-like sug- gestion and control. Money spent on audit is never wasted.
In taking three great services of the State—those concerned with Health, with Accommodation, and with Auditing—we have not been inspired with the idea of suggesting a policy, but rather with putting forward some considerations which should be worthy of investigation by the new Business Committee. Whether or not our suggestions are adopted in detail is a matter of small moment. But it is not a matter of small moment—on the contrary, it is a matter of the most vital importance in the present state of our finances—that the main under- lying principle of these suggestions should be adopted without delay. That main underlying principle is nothing more and nothing less than this : the administrative machine must be overhauled and put into more efficient running condition than it now is. The machine was con- structed to serve purposes very remote from those which it is now called upon to perform. It was constructed when the predominant function of the State was that of negative control. Now that the Central Authority is becoming an agency of social and philanthropic activity on an unprecedented scale, now that the State is pene- trating more and more into the private lives of the citizens, the old methods of working will not suffice.
We are aware of objections which may be takento certain of our suggestions. Many people would view the proposal to combine and co-ordinate the Medical Services as a justification for a great Ministry of Health. This is, however, not the case. We hold no brief for the Ministry of Health, especially in the straitened condition of our finances. That, however, for many years to come both the Central Departments and the Local Authorities will find it necessary to employ or subsidize the faculty on a large scale is beyond dispute. We prefer, in the interest of the taxpayer and ratepayer alike, to see thai neither money nor the good works which it purchases be dissipated.
It might be urged that a centrally constituted authority responsible for co-ordinating such a service as Health might be ignorant of the precise requirements of other departments in regard to specialized work. Our answer is that we are dealing not with the service itself, but with administration. Moreover, one of the gravest charges that is to be brought against the Ministries of Pensions and of Health to-day is that they are squandering the specialized brains of the doctor, not in the work that he has been trained to perform, but in administration.
Never in the whole course of our history has public finance been in such a wretched condition. With the multiplication of State activities has come as a natural consequence the multiplication of officials concerned in dispersing the taxpayer's money. A multiplication of State activities might, in certain circumstances, be justified. A duplication of State activities can in no circumstances be justified. What the State shall or shall not do must remain at all times a question of policy. The manner in which it shall carry out its policy must at all times be determined by an efficient economy. We know from experience that if the proposals of the Business Committee entail the sacrifice of policy their suggestions will not be followed and the Committee will be like many of its predecessors. It will begin with an inquiry and end with a report. If, however, it concentrates first of all on revising and improving the methods of administration it will have incurred a debt from the country—which the taxpayer will -willingly pay. It will have incurred a debt of gratitude.
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