Sue Gray’s report into Partygate is coming out soon and the PM is announcing a big shake-up of the structure of the Civil Service by way of a pre-emptive defence against criticisms of chaotic management in 10 Downing Street, as the Guardian reports.
Under the shake-up, the Government announced changes that will “enhance the support that is offered to the Prime Minister and to the Cabinet”. The Cabinet Office will be split into two, with domestic policy oversight, national security and legislative units handed to No 10 under Jones. The remaining Cabinet Office functions including Whitehall changes and Civil Service administration will remain under the Cabinet Office permanent secretary, Alex Chisholm.
This raises the question: ‘Who is Jones?’ In April 2021, Samantha Jones was appointed the Prime Minister’s top adviser on NHS transformation and social care.
It is perhaps unsettling news that an NHS management guru is now suddenly a permanent secretary under the beleaguered Simon Case, based in 10 Downing Street. She is the second most important Government official in the state, with a brief covering national security. As the Daily Mail reported:
She began her NHS career as a nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital but quickly realised life on the wards was not for her. While still a trainee, she went to see the Chief Nurse at the London Children’s Hospital and declared she wanted to go into management. She later recalled: “I said, ‘I don’t know why I want to be a manager, but I’ve got four brothers. I’m too stroppy. I have to stand by my beds while the consultant does his ward round and I’m not allowed to speak until I’m spoken to – and I’m not having any of that.’”
The Mail interview goes on to say that her favourite book is Machiavelli’s The Prince, a 16th-century guide to ruthlessly obtaining and maintaining political power, perfect for life in the byzantine 10 Downing Street court. Her dream dinner party guests would include Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, David Walliams and Nelson Mandela, so she will fit perfectly with Sir Michael Barber, the PM’s manager of ‘delivery’ and former close aide to Tony Blair – the Blairite tendency grows apace. So the NHS, a truly broken institution, is now the source of salvation for our nation’s administration, supplying top officials to Downing Street. Matthew Taylor, who is Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, is a former political strategist to Tony Blair.
Ms. Jones was involved in a minor scandal when, as Chief Executive of Epsom and St Helier Hospital, she was involved in appointing her sister-in-law, Ruth Harrison, to a £50,000 a year job after Harrison, Chief Executive of Stoke Mandeville Hospital, had been criticised for her management of a hospital in which patients died due to poor infection control. Ms. Harrison also got a pay off of £140,000, which attracted criticism from MPs and the Tax Payers’ Alliance.
On the face of it, NHS management would seem the very last place for 10 Downing Street in its state of utter chaos to recruit an administrator. So who is Samantha Jones and why has she been propelled to the top of the Civil Service so fast? Her claim to fame appears to be that she was in charge of the implementation of the Vanguard programme of restructuring care in the NHS via new ‘care models’ between 2015 and 2017.
This extremely open-ended, costly programme described itself in September 2016 as follows:
Between January and September 2015, 50 vanguards were selected to take a lead on the development of new care models which would act as the blueprints for the NHS moving forward and the inspiration to the rest of the health and care system. Through the new care models programme, complete redesign of whole health and care systems were being considered.
Vanguards are local collectives which offer health care and which can experiment and develop new ways and models of provision.
How might the effectiveness of Ms. Jones’s project be evaluated? With difficulty it seems, according to the Manchester University Evaluation Report of 2019. Referencing the 2018 National Audit Office Report, it says:
The recent NAO report (2018) suggests approximately £329m direct investment between 2015 and 2018 with an additional £60m on the Vanguard NCM programme, support and monitoring (including national and local evaluation and staff costs). However, support costs are approximate, as there is no clear accounting for the time of staff seconded from other roles in NHSE to support the programme.
The project clearly costs a lot of money, but is it worth it? This Manchester University report concludes that the project is muddled, to use lay language:
In terms of future policy making and planning we suggest that the multiple purposes underpinning the NCM Vanguard programme may have been problematic. For example, there is a tension between the need for ‘good news’ from a programme and the need to really understand in depth whether and how particular changes to services are actually beneficial. We have highlighted the lack of clarity over how the NCM Vanguard programme was intended to be disseminated and spread and shown a tension between approaches to ‘scaling up’ and ‘spreading out’. It may be useful for those involved with the NCM Vanguard support and evaluation programme to work closely with the team now responsible for supporting developing ICSs, with the explicit intention of considering whether and how the different local NCM Vanguard service models might best be implemented over a wider population.
A major difficulty with the Vanguard project erupted with a threat of strike action by staff affected by one of the new Vanguard models introduced in Manchester. Unions warned that they could see support workers given potentially dangerous tasks like administering controlled drugs. They were concerned that the Vanguard new model would involve “piling duties on to unqualified workers”.
Vanguard has been very expensive and is hardly a storming success story. While Ms. Jones may have been an effective hospital chief executive, her record doesn’t really explain why she is now a permanent secretary atop the British Civil Service and a close advisor to the PM in 10 Downing Street across all policy areas. Just what criteria is Downing Street using to make these appointments?
Dr. Timothy Bradshaw is a retired Lecturer in Theology at the University of Oxford.
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No deaths?
Time to lockdown until next summer…… just in case
Lockdown forever is, it seems, the plan.
Lockdown glorious lockdown. Be thankful to your overlords for introducing wonderous lockdown to you, the best thing to ever have happened!
That’s a blow. Possibly a glitch in the reporting system.
Better rustle up some variants sharpish. What about the Bolton / Indian because India and the corrupt WHO have said the Indian doesn’t exist.
Come to think of it C1984 hasn’t been isolated has it?
I knew something was wrong .i saw that picture of lots of people in masks looking concerned somewhere in the world at some time or other .So believable isnt it ?????????????????????????.A bit like the photo of the Indian lady on her phone during the recent Covid crisis .Pictures say more than worsd or something
It is transmitted by moonbeams too.
Surprised they haven’t got Russia in on the act…how about a Siberian Tiger variant (so called because – we can think up something later…)
I think a ‘Vietnamese’ variant might be next on the menu.
Caught it on the World Service yesterday.
And fudge some more figures, there must be a way that the many people who have died in car accidents, falling off ladders, heart attacks cancer etc can be put down as Covid deaths.
“England recorded zero Covid deaths for the fifth time since the Government started collecting figures on Monday.”
I think you mean “On Monday, England recorded zero Covid deaths for the fifth time since the Government started collecting figures”
But it’s still Monday here in Northamptonshire, so are you talking about last Monday, the 24th?
Exactly. Piss poor grammar.
First Vaxopropaganda twists your mind and then it twists your syntax.
Bit harsh, we’re not here for perfect grammar and we’re not paying for it. Fair enough if it was the Telegraph or something.
So i shouldn’t ever of made any effort to write english good because it doesnt effect my pay packet?
Wales?
Wales doesnt report anything today – its a bank holiday.
So its not reported 0 deaths at all, its reported nothing and Wednesday will have the figures applied.
As a B/H weekend deaths don’t get recorded. However, on Tuesday the MSM will be screaming 100% increase in covid deaths, whist forgetting to mention this includes an extra day.
The plan is not to return to normal, it is for continuation of loss of liberties and enforced restrictions.
There will be many days of zero scamdemic deaths as we approach summertime which presents the demise of the seasonal corona viruses.
This is terrifying news. If someone dies tomorrow we have the signature exponential death curve. The rate of change of deaths means that afer 23 days 93 million brits will be dead.
But the bbc news at 10 is full of doom and gloom about a third wave, the Indian variant, scientists demanding final lockdown restrictions are not lifted etc etc etc
Because the Beeb is right at the front of the queue of mouthpieces for this utter sham. ‘Kin b*stards.
“Government guidelines say only people over the age of 30 are eligible for the jab but medics offered it to all adults in an effort to ensure nothing is wasted.” ….
… except lives
And countless billions of pounds, businesses that have been built up over many years, Young people’s educations and futures, culture and countless travel opportunities but hey hoe.
Interestingly every headline I’ve seen today has been about “advisors urge delay to reopening”. It’s all I’ve seen.
You know what’s coming………
What’s that nonsense bar chart about?
They’ll say that you can’t die on a bank holiday (as it was yesterday). Wait for the ONS weekly reports in two weeks time – they always use that rationale to explain why the numbers look low cf the 5 year average etc. After all, 31/5 is the latest possible bank holiday in Spring. That’ll happen whatever the real causes of death; loads of certificates ‘in the queue’, perhaps. Then it’ll look spiky in the following week.