Public sector reform will be a major focus of the new Government, and so far commentary has focused on shifting around departments. This, former senior civil servants argue, would be a costly moving of the deckchairs – one that too many new administrations try. They are right that moving around departments won’t change much. But their analysis is also catastrophically wrong, because this is only a tiny fraction of the Government’s plan.

I cannot decide if Downing Street has deliberately sent people down the wrong path, or if officials are so used to meaningless “machinery of government” changes that they cannot believe the PM and his chief aide, Dominic Cummings, mean business. As a result, they seem woefully unprepared for what is coming.

Dominic has been reading and thinking about how to transform the public sector for two decades. He does not think it is a distraction, but a prerequisite to delivering even the simplest promises. Without changing how government operates, the Prime Minister cannot deliver 50 million new GP appointments, new train lines, or better bus services. All this and more was promised in the election manifesto (which I helped write) and is crucial to new Tory voters. If the party wants to win again, there can’t be the project overruns and delayed commitments that have symbolised government incompetence and waste for too long.

Beyond that, Downing Street wants to run the most dynamic state in the world – one that gathers the brightest minds to deliver in new agencies focused on innovation, solving the productivity puzzle, and transforming swathes of the country. So delivery and our capacity for transformation, in No 10’s view, need to change. How?

Not “politicisation” per se. The list of civil servants Cummings admires is much longer than the list of politicians. They will want to employ people they think competent and expert. In the right job, they could be socialists. As long as they literally deliver trains on time. Or figure out nuclear fusion.