Osborne pledges more and more transparency

The Post-Bureaucratic Age — mostly just plain and simple transparency, to you and me — barely got a mention once the Tories alighted on the Big Society, of which it is a component. But the thinking behind it never went away, as George Osborne’s speech to the Google Zeitgeist conference testifies today. It may be unusual to hear an address from the Chancellor in which he doesn’t mention the deficit, not even once. But, in talking about publishing details of government spending and contracts online, this is natural territory for him. The thinking behind much of the transparency agenda is simply to cut down waste and extravagance in the public sector. Not only does it help the public hold politicians to account, but it also helps the Exchequer in the political battle to control spending.

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But, crucially, it’s not all about cost.