Explorations in Governance : a symposium in honour of Professor Christopher Hood

A symposium in honour of Christopher Hoods sixty-fifth birthday was held at the Institute for Governance on 16 March 2012. Co-organized by Ruth Dixon (DPIR), and attended by Christophers colleagues and former students from as far afield as Japan, Brazil, Israel and the United States, the event resulted in much stimulating discussion between policy-makers and academics.

In Christopher Hoods keynote speech, he asked if we look back over the last four decades, can we find evidence of the UK government either working better or costing less? Over this time, public trust in government has decreased and complaints to ombudsmen have hugely increased. In the current period of austerity, Whitehall has a target of cutting administration costs by 34% in four years. Christopher Hood showed that there was no period in the past four decades that came close to this reduction. The nearest approach was in the final four years of John Majors government in the mid-1990s when all of the indicators moved in the direction of cost savings, but these changes were soon reversed under Tony Blair. Has the present administration realised the scale of the challenge it faces?

An account of the meeting can be found on the Institute for Governments website: http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/events/explorations-governance

Explorations in Governance: a collection of papers in honour of Christopher Hood,edited by Ruth Dixon (DPIR) and Martin Lodge (LSE), accompanied the symposium. This publication is available on Christopher Hoods Reshaping Executive Government website.