THE PRIME Minister has launched a website where government departments publish their business plans and timetables for achieving them.

David Cameron said the new website would "change the way that government works" by allowing people to check on the progress of policies on a month-by-month basis.

He believes that the previous government’s "target culture" encouraged short-term thinking – a point of view shared by many of those at the sharp end of delivering so many of our public services.

The new "transparency website" brings together a range of information – including basic details of ministers’ meetings and hospitality received, gifts and overseas travel, timetables for implementing policies, staffing structures and salary ranges for top civil servants. Some of this information was already publicly available but was published separately.

Other information – such as working out how much individual police forces cost each taxpayer, how much it costs to produce and issue a passport and how much it costs to collect each £1 of income tax – will be published over the course of the next 18 months. 

Who knows, they may even publish details of how much this initiative alone is costing us...

But, there is a serious point to what is being done – and, critically, how it is being achieved.

For the government to instruct civil servants to use technology in this way may not represent the biggest departure from old fashioned ways and means but, surely, it makes for a refreshing change.

The old target culture may have provided the raw data for reams upon reams of performance tables to be compiled and published, often annually, but was their usefulness or effectiveness in raising standards or improving value for public money ever established?

A rush to fulfil a key performance indicator may have led to a flurry of activity to avoid awkward questions or damaging rankings, but did it raise standards of service or the degrees of value offered in return for spend?         

Instead of the spotlight landing once or perhaps twice a year, those involved will always be under constant scrutiny.

Why not decide for yourself by checking out the official website at http://transparency.number10.gov.uk/