OCP predicted a hung parliament in 2007

OCP's February 2007 newsletter gave our view of the possible implications of a hung parliament for the public sector, including:

• less frantic law-making
• a more intelligent approach to performance monitoring
• a renewed focus on productivity improvement, and
  
• greater understanding of the interaction between front, middle and back office activity across Government and its agencies.
  

Trouble is, we made our predictions pre-Northern Rock, Lehmans and AIG.

So we didn't entirely anticipate the extent of the fiscal reconstruction required.

But we do think there's still a need to think hard about the interaction between the front office activities serving the public, the middle office layer which defines policy in response to political whims and the opportunities for increased productivity in the back-office factories.