‘Complexity is itself a major cause of rising costs, and tinkering with policies and regulations is unlikely to reduce costs. Indeed, each successive intervention layers on new costs and unintended consequences. It should be a central aim of government to radically simplify the interventions, and to get government back out of many of its current detailed roles.’
Any financial adviser would assume this refers to pensions which, since the Gordon Brown’s Great Step Forward in 2006 (you’ve guessed it, ‘Pensions Simplification’) are so complex that the Pensions Law Handbook (on my Christmas list and tax-deductible) now runs to 915 pages. However, this is from Mr Gove’s newly-commissioned review of energy policy; which shows, I guess, what a mess pretty much everything is in and, if you’re in government, how much tinkering is still required.
