How to Run a Government: So That Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers Don’t Go Crazy

It’s not obvious whom the intended readership is for this how-to book from the head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit under Tony Blair. Barber is certainly an expert on the discipline that’s been dubbed the science of delivery—the implementation of government policy—and his practical achievements, such as working with police to end a 2001–2002 mugging epidemic, are laudable. But his organization of the material, centered on the “57 Rules” of delivery science, is likely to strike government leaders as too simplistic, and lay readers as too complex. Some of the principles are pretty basic—e.g., “Have an Agenda,” “Guard Against Folly”—and the chapters expanding on them rehash familiar material, such as anecdotes from Barbara Tuchman’s landmark survey, The March of Folly, about misguided policies throughout history. Data tables, such as capacity review summaries and charts showing delivery chains, won’t make the concepts more accessible to the citizens who are the intended beneficiaries of delivery science. And the title is a bit of a misnomer—efficient delivery is no guarantee that taxpayers opposed to the policies behind it won’t still “go crazy.” (Oct.)