Split ends – and means

Anyone remember ‘joined-up government’? The once vogueish term was first popularised by Tony Blair in 1997 in the context of the public sector. It changed and influenced how structures are organised, how targets are set, how budgets are allocated, and indeed the daily work of local agencies and professions. 

‘Joined-up government’ returned to mind during my interview with Mick Antoniw MS, counsel general for Wales and minister for the constitution. Any social scientist interrogating the concept would do well to study the administration and funding of justice in Wales. Because I can’t think of a better example of how not to do it.

As the devolved government in Cardiff continues to make new law, the current hotchpotch of devolved and reserved responsibilities pertaining to justice becomes ever harder to justify.

‘Progressive politics without the justice function is like Hamlet without the prince.’ So says professor Richard Rawlings, of University College London, in his review of a recently published book which exposed how criminal justice in Wales is marooned in a constitutional limbo.

Social justice and prevention are at the heart of Cardiff’s priorities. Retribution and confinement are core to the Conservative administration’s at Westminster. What gives? It all makes increasingly little sense. To take the most obvious example. Cardiff considers short prison sentences to be ‘counterproductive’ and wants cash diverted from prisons to areas such as treatment programmes. ‘Justice for us is not about laws, courts and punishment. It is about people, families and communities,’ Antoniw said last year. Dominic Raab doesn’t see it that way.

Would an incoming Labour government at Westminster devolve justice to Cardiff Bay? Antoniw is optimistic, but there is reason to be sceptical. For all their decentralisation pledges, incoming PMs can be reluctant to cede power, especially after a long hiatus. And as we know from Starmer’s 10 pledges to win the leadership of his party, the former DPP’s word is not exactly his bond.

Gordon Brown’s recent report advocating pushing power away from Westminster does give the counsel general some cause for optimism.

First get elected, the self-styled pragmatists would caution, and take it from there. And who is to say they are wrong.