Ex-ministers of education find new jobs running universities, and Treasury staff are in high demand throughout banking and industry.
There is a growing body of opinion that a gentlemanly system of review and advice conceived 35 years ago may not fit modern needs.
“There has been a lot of change in the last 20 years and the regulation hasn’t really kept up,” says Dr Liz David-Barrett, an Oxford University research fellow and author of a recent Transparency International (UK) report on the revolving door.
Although the coalition government increased the maximum lobbying ban from 12 to 24 months, Dr David-Barrett believes tougher safeguards are needed to ensure that private sector companies cannot benefit unfairly from insider knowledge when they take on a former top civil servant or minister.
- Call to limit businesses profiting from political ties, BBC.co.uk, July 26, 2011.
3. IN 1994 many Italians voted for Silvio Berlusconi in the hope that he could use his skills as a businessman to revive a sclerotic economy. He had built a property-and-media empire out of thin air. He had reinvigorated one of the country’s great football clubs, AC Milan. Surely he would do a better job of running the country than the old guard of corrupt politicians and introverted bureaucrats? Well, si monumentum requiris, circumspice. Mr Berlusconi was prime minister of Italy for eight of the ten years between 2001 and 2011. During that time Italy’s GDP per head fell by 4%, its debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 109% to 120%, taxes rose from 41.2% of GDP to 43.4%, and its productivity stagnated. Rather than using his business skills to revive the Italian economy, Mr Berlusconi used his political skills to protect his business interests.
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