A recent parliamentary report reveals the depth of the crisis facing governmental departments, which have been cut to the bone by Tory austerity and paralysed by the Brexit crisis. This is why we need a socialist Labour government.
The Fourth Annual Report from the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (‘PAC’) at Westminster provides a portrait of the deep crisis that lurks just beneath the surface for the Tory government.
By scratching away the usual diplomatic language, the highly critical tone of the report becomes all too evident. In effect, it is a warning from the serious strategists of capital to their political representatives, the Tories: sort your mess out before the system breaks down.
Put simply, the report presents an assessment that nothing is going well. Broken down into ten ‘key challenges’, and a section that spares no expense in detailing the numerous ‘departments of concern’, this is without doubt a crisis report.
Short-termism
In the foreword to the report, the Chair of the PAC, Labour MP Meg Hiller, notes that “good politics needs to be about planning for the long term as well as dealing with today’s concerns and reacting to events”. This is a swipe at the Tories, who have shown time and time again that they are incapable of achieving either of these goals.
Ultimately, the Tories’ problems stem from trying to manage a system in deep crisis. Hence their austerity programme, designed to force the working class to pay for the crisis of capitalism. Or the short-term gamble of Brexit – the result of a deep split in the Conservative Party over Europe. No amount of hand-wringing by the PAC will make the Tory Party capable of resolving the glaring contradictions of capitalism.
It is this fact that acts as a background to understanding the complete failure of the Tory government. The challenges and concerns outlined in the report appear as the direct result of an attempt to sustain capitalism long past its expiry date.
Challenges
As the Tories continue to trip over themselves regarding Brexit, the Chair takes note of the profound effects the deadlock is having on Parliament. She states that “Brexit is also crowding out other issues of vital importance”.
While Brexit is one of the ten “key challenges” in the report, it also features in other “challenges”, such as social care and the spending review, each time as an obstacle preventing any kind of action.
In effect, the PAC are lambasting the government for wasting time with Brexit, when further austerity – i.e. attacks on the working class – need to be made.
The government has been left paralysed by the Brexit crisis, and the report makes this very clear. The Brexit catastrophe is a reflection not only of the civil war in the Tory Party, but the larger decline of British capitalism.
Under the immense strain of attempting to find an agreeable Brexit deal, the Tory Party has ground to a halt. From the point of view of the ruling class – which requires a hard programme of austerity – this has caused a devastating lull that reaches through the entirety of the government.
Another “key concern” highlighted is that of the outsourcing of public services to private companies such as Capita. The report presents a damning indictment on the £254bn spent on outsourcing, noting the often-poor quality of services and spiralling costs. These flow from the logic of the market – providing services for profit. Yet no solution is offered by the report, other than to update “standards and procedures”.
Concern
It comes as no surprise that amongst the ‘Departments of Concern’ are nearly all of the key government departments.
Education is considered as a top concern. The financial strain affecting children’s social care is so acute that 58% of local authorities have been assessed as below “good” by Offsted. Financial instability has also led to an extreme rise in overspending, with 91% of local authorities going over-budget when it comes to children’s social care.
This is the reality of austerity, which will attack society’s most vulnerable in favour of patching up a rotten system.
Overall, what the report fundamentally lacks is the vital step that would connect this dire portrait of extreme crisis to the ongoing crisis of capitalism. This constant crisis and the last decade of austerity are directly responsible for the system-wide disaster.
It is only with a socialist Labour government that the dire state of Whitehall and its numerous deteriorating departments can be repaired.
