Mr Cummings wants to get Brexit done so that he can put a bomb under Whitehall. Labour is in chaos, the Remainers are defeated and the British system gives huge power to governments with a large parliamentary majority. Mr Cummings has lambasted cabinet government as an outdated, oversized decision-making mechanism. If Mr Cummings gets his way these changes will be just the start. Civil service reform is not usually a priority for a new administration.
Most turn their attention to it only after finding their initial vim frustrated. At the start of her second term, Margaret Thatcher tried to make officials more accountable and to focus them on outcomes. In his view, this incompetence reflects a system that incentivises the wrong things. Mr Cummings has called for greater use of redundancy to get rid of people not up to it.
He wants training to emphasise quantitative skills and for those who are effective to stay in place for longer some departments lose more than a fifth of their workers each year, through rotations or exits. Job specifications may also change. Britain is unusual in that ministers have little sway over who runs their department and limited ability to make appointments, compared with similar political systems like Australia and Canada.
Mr Cummings thinks politicians are cowed by government legal advice, often by lawyers citing European directives. A recent report by Policy Exchange, a sympathetic think-tank, suggests making it easier for ministers to take advice from external lawyers. Writing about how to transform the state is one thing; doing so is quite another.
So old hands suspect gradual evolution is more likely than a big bang. Now he has another chance to prove the establishment wrong.
