ABSTRACT
Just as the start of the French Revolution is conventionally taken to be 14 July 1789, so the start of the Thatcher managerial revolution can be dated with some precision, 17 May 1982. No buildings in Whitehall were stormed, no Bastille fell, and there is unlikely to be dancing in the street on the anniversary of the event in future years. However, on that day the Treasury sent out a note to a variety of government departments (Prime Minister and Minister for the Civil Service 1982) resonant with implications for the inhabitants of the Whitehall village. This called for ‘a general and co-ordinated drive to improve financial management in government departments’, so launching what came to be known as the Financial Management Initiative (FMI). The principle underlying the FMI was simple and was to be elaborated in countless documents. It was that managers at all levels in government should have ‘a clear view of their objectives; and assess, and wherever possible measure, outputs or performance in relation to these objectives’. There were thus three critical, and mutually dependent, components in the new management system. The first was the specification of objectives not only for government policies but for individual units within the government machine. The second was the precise and accurate allocation of costs to particular units of activity and programmes. The third was ‘the development of performance indicators and output measures which can be used to assess success in achieving objectives’. The question to be addressed, the Treasury note stressed, is ‘where is the money going and what are we getting for it?’ Accordingly ‘systems should be devised to provide answers to both sides of the question wherever and to the extent that it is possible to do so. Relevant information on performance and (where possible) outputs will often be non-financial in character’.
