We turn our backs and what does Whitehall do?

Outlook Trust the civil service to do something sneaky in the midst of an election campaign.

I’m talking about efforts to prevent outsourcing companies from talking too much about the contracts they handle.

The FT reports that a letter has gone out to key government suppliers declaring that Whitehall will be the sole point of contact when it comes to talking about performance.

This will seemingly make it difficult for contractors to talk about controversial issues, and there are plenty of those when you consider that the state has handed them the responsibility for the provision of a vast range of services including, for example, housing asylum seekers and ferrying prisoners around.

Whether it is a good idea to contract out important, and highly sensitive, functions like this is questionable at the best of times. If contracts are badly drafted and mismanaged – and they frequently are – even the supposed efficiency and cost benefits of doing so can rapidly fade away.

Given mounting public concerns about issues like this, you would think Whitehall would understand the benefits of bringing transparency to the process.

Certainly the industry sees it that way, and no wonder. Companies in the sector have good reason to be concerned about their reputations, and about the public’s increasingly negative view. A negativity that has been fuelled by a string of ugly scandals.

But even though there have been attempts to improve things through, for example, the hiring of people with commercial experience to posts in Whitehall, it seems that the old school mandarins’ old school habits die hard. With the politicians all away, the Sir Humphreys are making hay. Those politicians will need to get a grip on them when a new government is sworn in. Otherwise they will pay a heavy price for these sort of shenanigans.