Well, he did ask #2

The Telegraph Business Club asked a question based on:

Would you give a senior management job to someone who had no experience of business management and no experience of the subject area? No. I thought not.

So maybe Patrick Barbour of the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) is onto something when he argues that politicians face an impossible task when they are appointed to run complex government departments.

"They generally have little or no knowledge of their subject area and no management experience," he says, "yet they are made chief executives of huge organisations like the NHS that would be beyond the best business brains in the world." As a result, he points out, the British Medical Journal ranks British healthcare as the second worst in the industrialised world.

Barbour suggests that politicians should set policy but have no direct involvement with the management of vital services like health and education. "People with genuine experience should be responsible for day-to-day management," he says.

His argument is given some added credence from an ICM poll commissioned by the TPA that shows nearly 70 percent of the population believes more than a fifth of Government expenditure is wasted. The poll also reveals majority support for taking politicians out of the management of health and education.

Barbour concludes that "we need serious structural reform of Government so politicians are no longer trying to do impossible jobs and talented people from outside politics can be brought in to run things better." Is he right? In a funny way, Gordon Brown set a precedent for such a change when he gave the Bank of England control over interest rates. There is a huge amount of business talent in the UK. Maybe it could be put to use at the highest levels of government.

Or am I being naïve in giving any credence to the views of a single-issue lobby group like the TPA. What do you think? Come to my blog and let me know by clicking here.

I answered:

"Short answer to a much bigger, and complex, piece of research and opinion: yes, why not? There couldn't be much worse mess and waste created. And logic does dictate that those educated, trained and experienced in delivering an end-result of benefit to the real stakeholders (for consumers - and a happy consumer is a successful company - read the public, tax and/or ratepayers), as opposed to ones to meet target, career or agenda-driven criteria, will make for better ROI all round.

I am currently looking a barrel-load of discrepancies between what is being broadcast, done and hyped with environmental, 3rd sector and social entrepreneurship issues, and what is actually being done and/or (mis)-managed."