There is a management fashion that believes that by imposing layers of generic managers, public spending will become more efficient because they will control the professionals, who cannot be trusted. It is true that professionals often have objectives which are dismissive of fiscal considerations – objectives like the welfare of those they are working for – and that some cannot be trusted not to act in their commercial interests. But there is surprisingly little evidence that the layers of generic management have worked well – most managers are not very good at evaluating themselves – and there are numerous anecdotes of them adding to costs with bullshit jobs or those which actually reduce the effectiveness of the professionals on the front line.
