Non-Fiction
Non-Fiction
Tara’s non-fiction interests are in the areas of society, government leadership, efficiency, policy and delivery. Tara draws on her experience delivering government programmes in the UK and worldwide including in health and development, and on her academic interests in complexity, implementation and philosophy.
The Beast in the Machine
Why the Machinery of Government Fails to Deliver, and What We Can Do About It
Preparing for the next pandemic, transforming the NHS, building HS2, reforming the civil service; what do all of these initiatives have in common? None of them will succeed. One need only look to recent history, where a string of failed initiatives stretches as far as the eye can see. The fault lies not incompetent politicians, nor a resistant civil service, nor the outdated rule book. At fault is the ‘system’ and how we choose to work with it. A fundamental error made by our leaders underpins all of this failure – they are treating the machinery of government as just that – a ‘machine.’ This book argues that machinery of government is a beast, not a machine, and therefore demands a completely different approach.
