Francis Maude

Francis Anthony Aylmer Maude, Baron Maude of Horsham,

Maude is the son of

Maude was one of the first "men in grey suits" to hold discussions with Margaret Thatcher in November 1990 after she failed to win the first round of a leadership election. He told Thatcher that he would support her as long as she went on, but he did not believe she could win the leadership contest.^[4]

After John Major became prime minister, Maude was made the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. However, in the 1992 general election he lost his seat to the Labour Party candidate, Mike O'Brien, and was thus forced to vacate his ministerial roles. According to Daniel Finkelstein of The Times the loss came as a 'terrible blow' to Maude; all his peers had managed to cling on and were together forming a government. In the Dissolution Honours that year, he was made a member of the Privy Council.^[5]

In a 2006 interview, Maude stated that the introduction of

In July 2007, Maude was made Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with responsibility for preparing the Conservatives for government, with some dubbing him the Party's "enforcer". At the Conservative Party Conference in October 2007 he said: "David (Cameron) has asked me to lead an implementation team that will ensure that we are as well-prepared as any incoming government has ever been. Our priorities rigorously sorted. Our teams armed with the knowledge and capabilities that will enable new ministers to start making a difference from day one." Ahead of the 2010 general election, Maude led attempts by the then-Conservative Opposition to work with the UK Civil Service to prepare for government.^[8]

Maude supported

Maude was appointed

In 2010 Maude set up the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG), in the Cabinet Office to work with HM Treasury with the aim of making government departments more efficient. This work includes stopping wasteful spending; improving the way government buys goods and services; reducing losses from fraud, error and debt; raising money by selling empty buildings and underused properties; and reviewing and reshaping large scale projects.

Savings are difficult to measure, but the work of ERG claims to have contributed to £3.75 billion of savings in 2010–11, £5.5 billion in 2011–12 and an "unprecedented" £10 billion in 2012–13. ERG claims to achieve savings of at least £20 billion in the financial year 2014 to 2015. Cumulatively, by 2015 Maude had delivered more than £50 billion of audited savings during the Cameron–Clegg coalition government.^[10]

These savings included include £3.4 billion by reducing the size of the Civil Service and reforming Civil Service pensions; £3.8 billion by linking together departments to buy goods and services and enforcing controls on recruitment and use of consultants; and £0.6 billion by exiting 500,000 square metres of property. In December 2014 Francis Maude set out plans to make a further £10 billion of efficiency savings between 2017 and 2018 and an additional £15 to £20 billion for 2019 to 2020.^[11]

In June 2012 Maude laid out his plans for reforming the Civil Service. The Reform programme was endorsed by leadership of the Civil Service, the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service. The document laid out a series of practical actions including steps to improve the skills, abilities and performance of civil servants; introduce a sharper performance management system; create a modern employment offer for staff; improve IT and flexible working across departments; and tighten the delivery of major projects. A year after the publication of the initial plan, Maude updated Parliament with a One Year On document, setting out successes and failures. This document included various further steps: establishing the principle of Extended Ministerial Offices, and introducing Functional Leadership across Whitehall. However, in November 2013, former

Maude oversaw the Government's groundbreaking transparency policy. This work includes making sure that departments include specific open data commitments in their business plans, regularly publishing open data sets on all central and local government spending over £25,000, senior staff salary details and how the government is performing against objectives. Data.gov.uk contains over 9,000 datasets including local crime statistics, sentencing rates, hospital infection rates and GP performance.

Maude also led the UK Government's work with the Open Government Partnership. This work helped make the British government the most open in the world at the time, and led directly to the creation of services such as the Citymapper app and challenger banks like Monzo.^[13]

Following Maude's reforms the United Nations rated the UK government as the most open in world.^[14]

Maude was responsible for the creation of the Government Digital Service, with the aim to consolidate internal IT and replace government 1,700 various websites with a single web hub, gov.uk. The new consolidated website won Design of the Year 2013 at the Design Museum awards, beating The Shard and the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics cauldron.^[15] Its revolutionary single source model inspired government websites around the world, including in the United States, New Zealand and Australia.^[16][10]

The Government Digital Strategy also committed Departments to redesigning all existing government services that serve more than 100,000 users each year. Maude's office estimated that moving services from offline to digital channels could save approximately £1.8 billion a year; at the time digital transactions cost 20 pence each compared to £3 for a phone call and £7 for a physical letter.^[17][13] In June 2014 Maude warned that elderly people would have to apply for key benefits including Carer's Allowance online. His remarks were criticized by organizations who work with the elderly partly on the grounds that poorer people may not be able to afford computer facilities and, partly because even computer literate people may lose their skills in old age. Whilst critics estimated that over 5 million pensioners have never used the internet, Maude said that 'refuseniks' could be offered a one-off lesson.^[18]

In February 2015, Maude announced he would be standing down at the

Following the resignation of Dominic Raab, Lord Maude suggested the UK Civil Service should alter its rules on impartiality and continuity under different governments.^[31]

Lord Maude endorsed the campaign of Kemi Badenoch in the 2024 Conservative Party leadership election.^[32]

This article's "criticism" or "controversy" section may compromise the article's neutrality. Please help rewrite or integrate negative information to other sections through discussion on the talk page. (September 2021)

While in the Shadow Cabinet, Maude was accused of hypocrisy by Oliver Marre in

Maude faced criticism during the expenses scandal. However the Legg Report made no complaint against him and found that he had "no issues".^[35] The Daily Telegraph had argued that two years after the Fees Office rejected a claim for mortgage interest on Maude's Sussex home, Maude purchased a flat in London, close to another house he already owned. He rented out the London house and claimed £35,000 mortgage interest on this flat.^[36]

During a discussion on Newsnight on 22 October 2010 Maude stated that ministerial salaries had been reduced by 5% under the new Government. He was accused^{[by whom?]} of comparing this cut to the 'pain' suffered by Britain's poor.^{[37][failed verification]}

On 28 March 2012, during the

Maude married Christina Jane Hadfield in 1984, and they have five children. He was on the governing body of Abingdon School from 1988 to 2006 and was Chairman of the Governors from 1995 to 2003.^[45]

• List of Old Abingdonians