In May 2010 it was clear that the new cabinet arrived in Whitehall with almost no knowledge of its processes and even less sympathy with existing programmes and initiatives. Any new management is bound to want to make changes and the perceived risk is that if this is not seen immediately that criticisms will arise that despite the election, we simply have business as usual.

In 1997 when the Blair Government was ushered in with the sound of ‘things will only get better’ I was not close enough to any who worked in Government to know how poorly the new intake (who had been out of Government for even longer than our current crop) handled the transition. However in 2010 I was able to listen to colleagues who described large-scale shredding and disposal of perfectly good material for schools and the cancellation at literally a week or two’s notice of events being held to thank stakeholders (including school children) for their excellence in programmes of overseas development. In at least one case an event was cancelled even though the Government department had already financed train and plane fares, and the venue was booked and caterers paid. The only reason that the event was not to go ahead was that the new Government did not have the emotional intelligence to thank people for something they did on another persons watch. If the examples I know about were replicated in other places, the cost of these changes and cancellations was a significant one, and yet the real losers were not the Government Ministers, but the Civil Servants who had the job of explaining why the events and resources were no longer to be used, and those who had expected to be travelling and those who had been trained to use material that was now being taken off the curriculum.

New Governments are not an everyday occurrence and the cost (both financial and emotional) of the 2010 knee-jerk changes has now been paid. We are nearly 18 months into the 60 month term  of this administration and so if usual organisational dynamics are at play we should now be reaching the period when stability is achieved and the best work is underway. However in the last month we have read two stories that indicate that some  Government departments are still in a state of chaos and disruption and that rather than getting down to business that the Ministers are instead working to disrupt and frustrate their own departments.

First we heard towards the end of September that Michael Gove at Education (DfE) was working around the usual systems of communication, using private email systems to correspond with colleagues on matters of policy. This was being done to avoid informing civil servants of discussions, and also to keep the discussions outside of the Freedom of Information powers. However having been found out the deceit has done far more damage than one supposes any ‘good’ the subterfuge could have achieved.

Now we have the rather more confusing story of Atlantic Bridge which is threatening to end the Ministerial career of Liam Fox. I have never personally found Dr Fox endearing and many of the things he has done have irritated me from the comfort of my sofa. His politics and mine do not share common strands. However many commentators appear to suggest he was doing a good job at the MOD and like Gove at education he was deemed to be competent. The failure to admit to the real issues must have caused his family far more pain than had he owned up to running a private defence department under the auspices of a charity in the first place. The law that has been broken here is charity legislation and the commission has already made its judgement (I would have liked to have seen them make a prosecution but this Government have already stripped the Charity Commission of most of its powers and resources).

Both Gove and Fox stood voluntarily at the last election, both accepted Ministerial roles when they could have refused them, both of them are free to step down and return to the back benches (and in the case of Fox this could yet be the outcome). The FOI Act and Whitehall culture was in place when they were elected, they have both had time to consider if they can work within these limits (or as Government Ministers make changes to the system in an open manner). However both of them clearly felt they were clever enough to work around the limitations of state that they agreed to be bound by when they took ownership of their red boxes.

The question that I think needs answering is not who financed Atlantic Bridge or what is the nature of the sex life of Liam Fox, but are Gove and Fox alone in their determination to subvert the very system they are supposed to be upholding? Are there similar problems with the other Government departments? The known unknowns are what Gove said in his emails, and what Atlantic Bridge has been doing to subvert the MOD. The unknown unknowns are how many other Government Ministers are carrying on with their own deceits and is this a cultural problem. Proving a negative is impossible but Cameron needs to find a way of restoring confidence in the whole of Government, Mr Cameron when will your cabinet stop trying beating the system?