People do "fully benefit" things all the time - a good example is the totally bullshit brief concocted to argue for a new royal yacht [or really, embarrass Tony Blair] back in 1996 which did things like totting up all the supposed exports and investments resulting from supposed events aboard the supposed yacht even though the real, non-supposed yacht had been used for this purpose for 2 (two) weeks of the 1980s. Even though it didn't work, this drivel was still circulating in 2023 and wasting people's time.
Another example from a different corner of the political spectrum is the habit of loading up any proposal with concocted second- or third-order benefits, so moving the bus stop comes with a £-number for the benefits to the NHS from greater active travel [i.e. it's further to walk] or to schools from exercise [i.e. it's further to walk so the kids are more shagged out and therefore less unruly or at least slower getting out of the way of the chalk].
As I was saying in another place, one reason why it would be great to have better estimates of simple first order things like "how many passengers will take the train" is that it would reduce the incentive to claim that any project must be the solution to all possible issues.
What's often left out in the business-scented discussions of efficiency in general is that it isn't a global property- it's inherently relative to a particular resource and output, and in the case of government the worthwhile output is actually something like 'resilience' or 'access in emergencies' that fundamentally entails excess capacity.
And fundamentally the efficiency hawks feel comfortable making these strafing runs at public institutions but would never dream of, say, taking a swipe at the ten-ply toilet paper and executive k-hole suite at the publicly traded companies that make up their portfolio. A small part of that reticence might even be sensible- capable organizations aren't capable because they put knockoff sodas in the vending machines, it's because they do their jobs. Now if only that logic could be extended to public services that have been bleed as a conservative moral imperative for forty years...
So, in software development, we tend to get into lofty, intellectual debates (*cough*) over when it is appropriate to optimize. I personally have always been partial to the Donald Knuth rule of thumb, "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%".
Very strong agreement here, although ... without giving away too much of my hard-won experience, it's often not hard to juice the benefits of a project if you're prepared to take a wide view of the secondary effects.
More focus on 'Is this a good idea?' and 'What are you proposing to do, and how will the good things you hope will happen as a result come about?' would be good. So many of the absolute banger projects I've seen in my time have been the result of someone having the initiative and permission/forgiveness to change the brief slightly and end up delivering something that was not quite as imagined at the start but clearly much better.
To be fair to the government efficiency side, though, in the context of government (below ministerial/council cabinet level) it is typical for even the most senior staff to have no discretion whatsoever about what must be done - and indeed with the rule of law, once legislation is passed saying something must be done, it must be done. At that point the only obvious improvement you can make is doing it more efficiently. Doing a better thing instead for less money is not an option there.
Good luck computing benefit-cost ratios for the National Science Foundation.
Who knew that supporting number theory would produce twp-key cryptography? Who knew that it would produce secure internet communications? Who knew that the $Trump meme-coin would grace our political economy?
This entry produced a stronger than usual resonance in my own bonnet.
As several other commenters have pointed out, benefits are often a lot more difficult to measure than costs. Something something accounting system something prison.
Re: “Public sector bodies must always be conscious of efficiency because resources which are wasted through inefficient processes are a reduction in what can be achieved”
The evil peabrain pondered the idea of what can be achieved. As in all human affairs what can be achieved might just be more power, prestige, money, sex, trophy wife or a bigger boat. Inefficient processes might be a way to get those. Is it at all possible through a committee to root out those "achievements"?
Liked "evil peabrain." Maybe this could become the name for an annual award, like the Oscars? The "Evil Peabrain" awards? All in good fun...
Who should get the first one? Shall we round up the usual suspects?
BTW, we need to update the way to identify possible recipients: It is no longer enough to have a single "trophy wife." Also, the "wife" part is now optional, bc loyalty = empathy, a boo boo.
Additionally, it is now a requirement to own at least one social media company.
In these times..a little cynicism goes a long way :-)
Non-rhetorically: do you think that famously not-worth-it-in-cost-benefit-terms projects like the Channel Tunnel would be in the black if "fully benefited"?
"cancelling the free coffee". A thing that in the US government happened ages ago, across the board. Fed offices I know have "water clubs", where you have to pay in to get water from somewhere better than the bathroom sink.
As a career public financial manager (NYC government and public higher education), I always try to think about public value (i.e. benefits and costs) not just cost.
You do raise an important point. It's true that we are often too conservative in estimating benefits and that the public and the media focus on the denominator and forgets the numerator in the benefit:cost ratio. That can warp decision making when you are punished for cost overruns but not for unseized opportunities.
The classic example of fully costing but never fully benefiting is the spending review. Priorities are determined by the spending envelope rather than the spending envelope being determined by priorities. See also manifesto promises, where saying a policy is fully costed doesn’t mean that it’s a good .
My addition would be that 80% (probably more) of the efficiency gains available in government (and many large private sector organisations) are non-monetary. Which is why every efficiency program eventually turns (or almost immediately turns in the case of DOGE) to saving money by cancelling activity, usually stuff that helps the people with the least political clout. Mulgan knows this, but is happy to try to ride the tiger it seems.
Dan: liked your idea of examining the benefits, monetarily and otherwise, of actions.
There must be an existing bias towards measuring costs, which are literally $$$ expenditures, so they are right there in your spreadsheet. There is another bias: not measuring or counting "social costs" or "external costs," never mind benefits.
Dollars in the hand!
This is what happened at Boeing...
And how do you count intangibles, like social trust? It is harder, it is "woo-woo" stuff, so it doesn't get done. How do you count future consequences, like killing fish in the water the factory dumped wastes into? Nobody did that until forced to.
Coming from a "business" family, I know the overwhelming bias is that government is of course the problem, it just gets in the way, so of course it always wastes resources. Also: unions = communism.
Whatever the opposite of rose-colored glasses is (green eyeshades?), that is what they look at "government" with.
Yet, pay a guy a billion dollars or more to extract money from the economy by screwing up the country...sure, what is the matter, are you against "private enterprise"?
Even when a company like Musk's got huge benefits from Uncle $am...we See No Evil.
Today's fun fact (ignoring Trump v Musk) that may not fit into any of these schemes: the CEO of Vail Resorts just got ousted, and replaced with her predecessor. You may recall that Vail, the giant ski conglomerate, got struck by their own ski patrollers back in January, and gave in to their demands.
Still seems like the company is devoted to Wall Street, not winter sports. Just check the resumes of the management "team."
Web site used that word "transition." I love it! See, the CEO walked the plank of her own free will, but "will remain in an advisory role to the Company for an interim period to facilitate a smooth transition."
Wonder if her car is still in the parking lot?
The business world: where "down" is rebranded "up." Kinda like politics.
Besides all of this, the U.S federal government already had two actually effective DOGEs- USDS and 18F, which were widely recognized as improving government efficiency. Trump destroyed the former by turning it into an inept DOGE and simply disbanded the latter
People do "fully benefit" things all the time - a good example is the totally bullshit brief concocted to argue for a new royal yacht [or really, embarrass Tony Blair] back in 1996 which did things like totting up all the supposed exports and investments resulting from supposed events aboard the supposed yacht even though the real, non-supposed yacht had been used for this purpose for 2 (two) weeks of the 1980s. Even though it didn't work, this drivel was still circulating in 2023 and wasting people's time.
Another example from a different corner of the political spectrum is the habit of loading up any proposal with concocted second- or third-order benefits, so moving the bus stop comes with a £-number for the benefits to the NHS from greater active travel [i.e. it's further to walk] or to schools from exercise [i.e. it's further to walk so the kids are more shagged out and therefore less unruly or at least slower getting out of the way of the chalk].
As I was saying in another place, one reason why it would be great to have better estimates of simple first order things like "how many passengers will take the train" is that it would reduce the incentive to claim that any project must be the solution to all possible issues.
What's often left out in the business-scented discussions of efficiency in general is that it isn't a global property- it's inherently relative to a particular resource and output, and in the case of government the worthwhile output is actually something like 'resilience' or 'access in emergencies' that fundamentally entails excess capacity.
And fundamentally the efficiency hawks feel comfortable making these strafing runs at public institutions but would never dream of, say, taking a swipe at the ten-ply toilet paper and executive k-hole suite at the publicly traded companies that make up their portfolio. A small part of that reticence might even be sensible- capable organizations aren't capable because they put knockoff sodas in the vending machines, it's because they do their jobs. Now if only that logic could be extended to public services that have been bleed as a conservative moral imperative for forty years...
So, in software development, we tend to get into lofty, intellectual debates (*cough*) over when it is appropriate to optimize. I personally have always been partial to the Donald Knuth rule of thumb, "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%".
Props for citing Knuth. \Props I say!
Liked: (*cough*)
BC truth sometimes needs to wear a coat of parentheses: ( )
These days, the lies are shamelessly parading around in the mud wearing their Emperor's Finest:
LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE
That's a lot of mud splashing around.
So, our hero (Truth) needs a coat ( ) to keep the mud off. Maybe a pair of boots, too: L L
And a hat: T
That mud is getting pretty deep!
Very strong agreement here, although ... without giving away too much of my hard-won experience, it's often not hard to juice the benefits of a project if you're prepared to take a wide view of the secondary effects.
More focus on 'Is this a good idea?' and 'What are you proposing to do, and how will the good things you hope will happen as a result come about?' would be good. So many of the absolute banger projects I've seen in my time have been the result of someone having the initiative and permission/forgiveness to change the brief slightly and end up delivering something that was not quite as imagined at the start but clearly much better.
To be fair to the government efficiency side, though, in the context of government (below ministerial/council cabinet level) it is typical for even the most senior staff to have no discretion whatsoever about what must be done - and indeed with the rule of law, once legislation is passed saying something must be done, it must be done. At that point the only obvious improvement you can make is doing it more efficiently. Doing a better thing instead for less money is not an option there.
Good luck computing benefit-cost ratios for the National Science Foundation.
Who knew that supporting number theory would produce twp-key cryptography? Who knew that it would produce secure internet communications? Who knew that the $Trump meme-coin would grace our political economy?
This entry produced a stronger than usual resonance in my own bonnet.
As several other commenters have pointed out, benefits are often a lot more difficult to measure than costs. Something something accounting system something prison.
Liked: Something something accounting system something prison.
Re: “Public sector bodies must always be conscious of efficiency because resources which are wasted through inefficient processes are a reduction in what can be achieved”
The evil peabrain pondered the idea of what can be achieved. As in all human affairs what can be achieved might just be more power, prestige, money, sex, trophy wife or a bigger boat. Inefficient processes might be a way to get those. Is it at all possible through a committee to root out those "achievements"?
It's not the achievements...it's the filthy poors who get them that are the problem. But that sounds so unpleasant to the poors.
They just don't understand that not paying your share is far more efficient!
Liked "evil peabrain." Maybe this could become the name for an annual award, like the Oscars? The "Evil Peabrain" awards? All in good fun...
Who should get the first one? Shall we round up the usual suspects?
BTW, we need to update the way to identify possible recipients: It is no longer enough to have a single "trophy wife." Also, the "wife" part is now optional, bc loyalty = empathy, a boo boo.
Additionally, it is now a requirement to own at least one social media company.
In these times..a little cynicism goes a long way :-)
It occurs to me that "Evil Peabrain" might be a bit harsh, even as a synonym for "reptilian brain."
How about "Benefactor of the Year!" awards?
Also, ditch the "roast" where it was going to be presented, in favor of a "worship service."
Isn't that nicer?
(Yes, it is true that a couple of PR/Mob outfits "reached out" to me, and were per$ua$ive...why do you ask?)
I would never invest where the Bowling Green Massacre occurred!!!!!
Non-rhetorically: do you think that famously not-worth-it-in-cost-benefit-terms projects like the Channel Tunnel would be in the black if "fully benefited"?
"cancelling the free coffee". A thing that in the US government happened ages ago, across the board. Fed offices I know have "water clubs", where you have to pay in to get water from somewhere better than the bathroom sink.
As a career public financial manager (NYC government and public higher education), I always try to think about public value (i.e. benefits and costs) not just cost.
You do raise an important point. It's true that we are often too conservative in estimating benefits and that the public and the media focus on the denominator and forgets the numerator in the benefit:cost ratio. That can warp decision making when you are punished for cost overruns but not for unseized opportunities.
You should check out ryan cooper's best tax system on earth, which is about an interesting approach to streamline the tax system https://prospect.org/world/best-tax-system-on-earth-faroe-islands/
Your complaint about measuring costs but not benefits typifies most campaigns for better regulation.
The classic example of fully costing but never fully benefiting is the spending review. Priorities are determined by the spending envelope rather than the spending envelope being determined by priorities. See also manifesto promises, where saying a policy is fully costed doesn’t mean that it’s a good .
My addition would be that 80% (probably more) of the efficiency gains available in government (and many large private sector organisations) are non-monetary. Which is why every efficiency program eventually turns (or almost immediately turns in the case of DOGE) to saving money by cancelling activity, usually stuff that helps the people with the least political clout. Mulgan knows this, but is happy to try to ride the tiger it seems.
Dan: liked your idea of examining the benefits, monetarily and otherwise, of actions.
There must be an existing bias towards measuring costs, which are literally $$$ expenditures, so they are right there in your spreadsheet. There is another bias: not measuring or counting "social costs" or "external costs," never mind benefits.
Dollars in the hand!
This is what happened at Boeing...
And how do you count intangibles, like social trust? It is harder, it is "woo-woo" stuff, so it doesn't get done. How do you count future consequences, like killing fish in the water the factory dumped wastes into? Nobody did that until forced to.
Coming from a "business" family, I know the overwhelming bias is that government is of course the problem, it just gets in the way, so of course it always wastes resources. Also: unions = communism.
Whatever the opposite of rose-colored glasses is (green eyeshades?), that is what they look at "government" with.
Yet, pay a guy a billion dollars or more to extract money from the economy by screwing up the country...sure, what is the matter, are you against "private enterprise"?
Even when a company like Musk's got huge benefits from Uncle $am...we See No Evil.
Today's fun fact (ignoring Trump v Musk) that may not fit into any of these schemes: the CEO of Vail Resorts just got ousted, and replaced with her predecessor. You may recall that Vail, the giant ski conglomerate, got struck by their own ski patrollers back in January, and gave in to their demands.
Still seems like the company is devoted to Wall Street, not winter sports. Just check the resumes of the management "team."
Web site used that word "transition." I love it! See, the CEO walked the plank of her own free will, but "will remain in an advisory role to the Company for an interim period to facilitate a smooth transition."
Wonder if her car is still in the parking lot?
The business world: where "down" is rebranded "up." Kinda like politics.
https://news.vailresorts.com/2025-05-27-Vail-Resorts-Announces-Leadership-Transition
Besides all of this, the U.S federal government already had two actually effective DOGEs- USDS and 18F, which were widely recognized as improving government efficiency. Trump destroyed the former by turning it into an inept DOGE and simply disbanded the latter