Throughout private sector business and industry, managements are under constant pressure to remain competitive. They cannot afford to let quality slip, to miss an opportunity to improve productivity, or to fill a new market need. No one accepts pressure through choice. The need arises only because competition can overtake a business, even cause its demise.

Monopolies do not suffer such pressures, so it is easy for service standards to stagnate or fall back. Yet there is an escape route for dissatisfied customers: you can always opt out. If your electricity supplier really annoys you, close the account and light your home with oil lamps. Inconvenient perhaps, but the option remains, for though a monopoly supplier, your power company cannot require you to use its services. It is not an enforced monopoly.

It is in this respect that Government stands alone. Government is not only a monopoly, it is unique in being an enforced monopoly, there is no option to reject it, and refusal to pay its taxes will land you in prison.

The simple result has always been that taxes and debts slide slowly upwards, services remain stagnant or decline, and government departments proliferate. Periodically government finances reach a level of indebtedness which requires urgent and drastic action if disaster is to be averted. When this happens, governments traditionally offer two choices: higher taxes, or lower standards of service. Or most probably, both.

So “programmed” were the good citizens, so constantly fed with these two options as being the only options, they could never imagine that government be demanded to meet, and to subject itself to, the same standards existing throughout the “real” world of commerce.

Unknown in government circles was the “P” word – Productivity – the concept of striving continuously to give a better service at less cost, a concept taken for granted throughout the business world. So the burden of government, its size and its cost, steadily increased.

In the New Age government is strictly disciplined, first in the range of legislation, and second in the productivity of its operations and services. “Productivity” becomes the dominant discipline in government, demanding at all times the best possible service at the lowest possible cost.

Confronting the “P” word

Quality, Productivity, and Service –
three words not normally associated with governments of old, but of prime importance in the New Age.

If these ideals are to be applied effectively, the function of Government must first be precisely defined; we cannot measure the productivity of a service without first defining its purpose.

The need for, and the purpose of government can be defined by the adverse effects of its absence. Society needs government, law and order to provide protection from robbery, violence and the excesses of individual power, from dishonesty and deception in commerce and industry, to resolve conflicting demands on the natural resources and to prevent pollution and destruction of the shared environment.

The provision of Law is the essential “core function” of Government: the formulation of Law and its Enforcement, or more specifically, those Legislative, Protective and Constitutional Services essential to and directly related to the protection of Liberty.

However governments now undertake additional services, and the current activities of Government fall into three broad categories: Laws, Infrastructure, and Welfare.

If Government is to exercise its regulatory function without bias it cannot own or operate any non-political services or industries, including Infrastructure and Essential Services which must be operated outside Government, but with Government’s strict supervision.

With the purpose and function of Government clearly defined, it becomes much easier to apply strict financial and administrative disciplines to ensure that Government fulfils its own core functions as efficiently and as cost-effectively as possible with continuously rising productivity, public disclosure and accountability. Clear job descriptions and benchmarks for each department allow for accurate assessment of performance.

Following in-depth analysys, many previously existing government departments and programs were inevitably abandoned as being non-essential, while each of those remaining is required to state clearly what it is doing, what it is costing, and the extent to which it is fulfilling its stated objectives productively.

Government is a service to its consumers and as such should be subject to the strictest possible commercial disciplines; its performance should be at least as good as and preferably better than the Private Sector. Any Commercial Legislation relating to accounting, standards, productivity or quality of Private Sector business and commerce should immediately and automatically apply to any and all functions of Government.

Such and similar measures considerably reduced the burden of taxation which, in retrospect from a New Age viewpoint, was coming near to crippling the population. At the same time, service quality was vastly improved. But discipline and regulation are required in large measure, for no institution, least of all Government, can be trusted to discipline itself.

Magna Carta is revered and respected as being the ‘grand-daddy’ of constitutions, and while it is studied, analyzed, and to a large degree copied, a fact rarely considered is that the Magna Carta was ‘consumer-driven’.

The King did not write a constitution in which a few crumbs of monarchial self-discipline graciously thrown to the public were greatly outweighed by his own rights and privileges. It was the barons, nobles and clergy who, as objects of the king’s whims and the taxpayers who funded them, drew up the Great Charter and compelled the King by force of arms to agree to it.

New Age Governance is based on the assumption that the motivation to improve government efficiency and standards of business conduct is unlikely to come from inside government itself, and even if it does, the disciplines thus created are likely to be more cosmetic than real. Governments frequently pay lip-service to improving productivity and financial discipline, but seldom make any real changes. Self discipline is a noble ideal, but it rarely if ever comes about. It is for this reason that the Constitutional Executive ensures continuous monitoring of the costs and service quality of all government departments, calling on independent specialist accountants and productivity advisors where necessary.

Additional pressure can and should come from activist groups. The Constitutional Executive welcomes collaboration from The Press, Rating Agencies of various kinds, and alert citizens' groups.... they can all help to ensure 'Good Government'. But the most important safeguard is Total Transparency, which gives The People the knowledge they need to empower their own enforcement.