Civil Servants SPEECHLESS As Rupert Lowe Reads Their Own Failures Back To Them

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[00:00:00]I think you're going to waste billions more of taxpayers' money on this what I call dream, which is I am seriously concerned sitting here representing the taxpayer that you're going to fail and I Rupert Lowe just did what most MPs are too cautious to do. He walked into a government committee room, read the official report better than the officials defending it, and told them directly that they are heading for failure. A multi-billion pound Whitehall efficiency program, years of missed targets, and not a single person accountable when it all goes wrong. This is the moment that should make every UK taxpayer sit up and pay attention. Before we dive in, make sure you're subscribed for more UK political updates. Watch the clip. Um I firstly start with our questioning to Rupert Lowe, please.

[00:00:46]Thank you, chairman. It was rare for me to start, but thank you for picking me first.

[00:00:51]Um good morning, everybody. Um So So I I read this report and you know, all of the witnesses here today as they were. I mean, they've been changed for for various reasons today. I I Cat Little's not here and it's been changed at I didn't realize that until just now.

[00:01:07]But I mean they've all built their The witnesses have all built their careers on driving efficiency.

[00:01:14]Now, I I think I think you would ask a question here.

[00:01:18]Either they're not the right people to deliver the project or the project is wrong and doomed to fail. And it sounds good, you know, it sounds great like all civil service initiatives.

[00:01:29]Let's get shared services. Let's get some pri- equivalent to private sector efficiencies. That sounds great, you know, it's a great strap line.

[00:01:37]But you know, again I read the inefficiencies here.

[00:01:40]Applicant Applicant Tracking System ATS shelved.

[00:01:44]Shared Services Portfolio incomplete.

[00:01:46]Project ownership vague. We're going to I want to talk about that in a minute.

[00:01:50]Risk management patchy. Managing interdepen- interdependencies concerning.

[00:01:55]Okay, I'd say impossible. That's my view on that. So, another question for you is how can you deliver efficiency across shared government systems when the entire approach to the project itself is inefficient?

[00:02:07]I don't understand. I I I I mean, I run lots of private sector businesses. I don't see and I you know, you can give me the verbal baby food, Jerome, but at the end of the day, I want to drill down and know I want to understand this has been going on a hell of a long time. A lot >> On verbal baby food, that line cuts through everything. Low isn't performing scrutiny for the cameras. He's actually done his homework. The NAO findings he's quoting aren't opposition spin. The applicant tracking system shelved.

[00:02:32]Project ownership described as vague.

[00:02:34]Risk management patchy. These are the government's own auditors flagging a program in serious trouble. That's our taxpayers' money has been spent on this.

[00:02:42]Our job is to protect the taxpayer.

[00:02:44]Not anything else. Yeah. The taxpayer wants value for money. So, I want to I'd like an answer to that. That's and I haven't had one yet. Say two things. So, firstly, if if I can just come back on your previous point about either the the strategy to fail, we don't have the right people in place. I think the strategy is not doomed to fail and I think we do have absolutely the right people in place and I you know, I might let um Nathan and Diane speak, but these are people with deep expertise precisely in uh in delivering this uh this sort of transformation. So, I think we do have right across the clusters and remember this this is a >> agree with what you're telling us here.

[00:03:19]The clusters, if you read the report, the clusters actually contradict what's been So, they contradicted what was what was said, but but you know, the NAO uncovered that as they usually do in their excellent reports. So, so that's not entirely consistent. So, I I mean, I again, if you can't even build and maintain a routine dashboard, which which is in this report as you probably know, I fail to see how you can deliver resounding success and value for money on this project. If you can't even deliver the dashboard, how can you tell?

[00:03:46]Shall I say I again, I would sort of question that your assumption that. So, I I would have said that the dashboard is one of the big points of progress that we've made actually. And yes, you know >> the NAO would agree with you. Well, say that is a development since the last report. Uh it is something that the And and again, the quality of the returns is now much better. But, you know And more importantly, you haven't got any one person who's in charge of this project.

[00:04:15]Nobody gets fired This is the structural rot at the heart of almost every failed Whitehall project. Five clusters, five senior responsible owners, five people who can point at each other the moment a deadline is missed. Low isn't describing a management problem, he's describing a system deliberately designed to dilute accountability.

[00:04:33]>> fired for not delivering.

[00:04:35]There's nobody I can't see who's actually If you have a project in a private sector company, somebody's given the job, and if they don't deliver to timelines, they get fired. Historically, you haven't delivered timelines. This This is a We're reviewing progress, and I can't see any progress. I think you've seriously, and you mentioned AI during I think you've got to sit down with a cold towel on your heads and decide are you going to be overtaken by the digital revolution, and are you going to eventually do what the NAO did?

[00:05:06]Uh the Sorry, the National IDS did.

[00:05:10]Are you going to junk this when you get overtaken by by the digital revolution, which I can see happening?

[00:05:16]This is the sharpest warning in the entire exchange. Britain has been here before. The NHS National Programme for IT, scrapped after 10 billion pounds and a decade of delays. Universal Credit, years behind schedule and billions over budget. Low is asking whether this program is simply the next entry on that list. And the civil servant sitting opposite him had no convincing answer to that question. Continue final clip. Cuz I I just don't see that this is fit for purpose, and I think you're going to waste billions more of taxpayers money on this what I call dream, which is which is sounds great, but you're not going to be able to deliver it. So, I I am seriously concerned sitting here representing the taxpayer that you're going to fail, and I think you need to seriously think about that now.

[00:06:05]Let me just pick up with you the point you said. The first thing to say is that we made a conscious choice in designing this that we would take a cluster approach.

[00:06:14]>> You weren't there. We We government ministers made a conscious choice to deliver this via five clusters, each of which have an AO and an SRO and so on. So, You've been there a month. You just said so.

[00:06:29]You're in charge now, but this has been going on a long time. Yes.

[00:06:33]Doesn't it? Yeah. So, so that's precisely my point. So, each of the five clusters has an AO and an SRO who are who are responsible for each of their each of their program.

[00:06:43]>> I think you all need to sit down and reappraise the entire thing, cuz I think you're going to fail. I'm sorry to say.

[00:06:49]And I think, you know, you're you're going to make the same mistakes that have been made in the past. We're going to have come back to this meeting and tell us, "Oh, progress has been made a bit here, a bit there." And whoever takes over, if you plow on with this, I want to see somebody in overall charge of this. Not clusters, not lots of different people who can all blame each other. I want one person, and when they fail, I want them fired. That's what we need to start getting in government, and then we might get some action. So, that's my view, Jeffrey. Thank you, Rupert. I think we will reflect very carefully on the questions and the answers. What we just witnessed wasn't simply another parliamentary committee session. It was a masterclass in holding the establishment to account. Rupert Lowe walked in with the NAO report in hand, exposed the absence of a single accountable leader, challenged the entire cluster model as a blueprint for blame shifting, and warned that digital disruption could render this program obsolete before it even delivers. The civil servants had no real answer, and that silence speaks volumes. This is exactly the kind of taxpayer-funded drift that erodes public trust in government. And if Lowe's prediction proves correct, the political cost won't just fall on faceless officials, it will land squarely on the ministers who designed this structure and the party currently defending it. Let us know your thoughts in the comments, and don't forget to like and subscribe for more analysis.