Has the government run out of steam already?

The political party conference season is loooming and if I were a government minister I would be increasingly worried that my policy cupboard was looking bare after hardly 18 months in power. The question now is what does the Coalition stand for? What does David Cameron stand for? What is the direction of travel?
Absolute core to the government's economic policy is reducing the deficit but this is increasingly suspect due to the feeble state of the economy and rising inflation. George Osborne's gamble was to hope the private sector would pick up in time to offset early public spending cuts. This looks unlikely and in UK cities and regions where public spending is already a large part of the local economy, spending cuts are tipping them back into recession.
The Prime Minister's White Paper on public sector reform early in the summer was a disappointing mish-mash of existing policies and vague expressions of intent. Big Society, which once defined Cameron's political philosopy, was hardly mentioned. The recent riots have placed a question mark over cuts to police budgets. The health reform plans have had to be revised. Housing is rapidly moving up the political agenda with no apparent strategy to tackle shortages. The welfare reform plans are still in their infancy. Only in education has Michael Gove's academies and free schools moved inexorably forward.
The paucity of policy contrasts with the deep-seated fundamental challenges faced in UK society. They range from inner city youth crime to long-term pension provision, elderly care, the impossibility of finding mortgages for young housebuyers, the decline in the average standard of living, the long-term position of financial services as engine of the UK's economy. Let;s have some serious policy papers on these.

Opening up public services

The other day as part of our series of articles on winners from The MJ Awards 2011 I visited Wiltshire Council which won the best political team category. Virtually all the cabinet members as well as the leader Jane Scott was there to talk to me about progress as a new unitary since 2009 and it has been an impressive story.
What is interesting is their attitude to outsourcing. They may be Conservatives but they maintain they take a pragmatic view to who delivers services. They have even taken a previously outsourced service contract back in house because they felt the supplier was under-performing and say the service has since improved. They argue that had more services been outsourced it would have been difficult to make savings since they would have been tied into inflexible contracts.
David Cameron's recent White Paper on opening up public services seemed to miss this essential point namely that what matters is what works and that it is not always the case that transferring a service to an outside provider necessarily makes it always better. And the idea that a council has less potential to make savings if its services are all tied into externalised contracts adds another dimension.
The private good-public bad or public good-private bad argument is a stale debate that has long outlived reality. Local government has been dealing with mixed provision for decades and knows there is no right or wrong about delivery. The public doesn't care and pragmatic councillors, like those at Wiltshire, will make their own minds up about who is best placed to deliver the best services to their residents.
I'm away now for two weeks in Italy - which considering the economic circumstances coulld prove interesting!