The Conservatives have been scouring the globe for ideas that can be brought back to the UK Photo: Getty  Let us for a moment assume that we are indeed just nine months from the revolution. On current betting, David Cameron will stand outside Number 10 on May 7 next year, ready to begin his “national endeavour”. Who knows, he might appear with his sleeves rolled up to convey his seriousness of purpose. I can even imagine him saying, “Let’s get to work”, before he turns his back on us and enters his new domain. And then what?  Downing Street officials will line up to applaud him when he crosses the threshold, as the last of Gordon Brown’s political creatures scuttle out the back door. While his own advisers rush in to grab the best desks, Mr Cameron will be introduced to his private office staff, some of whom he will have met in advance. Then, as is tradition, he will be initiated into the dark responsibilities of office by the Cabinet Secretary, who will ask him to sign letters to the commanders of Britain’s four Trident submarines authorising them to unleash nuclear Armageddon if things go really wrong.  After that, it will be up to the new prime minister to give direction and implement the sweeping changes he promises to the way government works and Britain is run. But what remains unclear is quite how he will do what he proposes, and whether the government machine will be a useful ally in delivering his programme. Will his plans be ready by then? Will they be credible? And can the Civil Service deliver?  We know, because he keeps telling us, that the scale of what Mr Cameron proposes is audacious. We know also that he has set out both specifics and principles in more detail than he is given credit for. So, for example, he promises to put all openings for government jobs online, saving a tidy sum in newspaper advertisements. More importantly, he claims to be prepared to go to war with the education establishment, in pursuit of his school reforms.  The policy activity behind the scenes has been intense,  co-ordinated by Oliver Letwin and Steve Hilton. For years, true to their free trade instincts, the Conservatives have been scouring the globe for ideas that can be brought back and implemented in the United Kingdom. They are the intellectual corsairs of the 21st century, plundering distant shores for policy treasures, their galleons laden with glittering welfare schemes and education initiatives.  Wisconsin has been ransacked for its tough-love methods for getting single mothers back into work. Meanwhile, California, the world’s eighth largest economy, is being studied for its ambitious approach to curbing carbon emissions.  On education, Michael Gove is notoriously fixated on a Swedish model, specifically the country’s belief in giving schools independence to drive up attainment. But he’s also eyeing up Finland, where they apply strict standards to the selection of teachers, and the United States, where independent “Knowledge is Power” schools in 19 states are being given more money by Barack Obama, who admires their uncompromising belief in demanding academic excellence from deprived children.  The same is happening on home affairs. Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling is about to visit Holland to learn more about a successful scheme run by police in Amsterdam to keep troublesome teenagers at home. The Conservatives were early visitors to the New York police department and early students of its no-nonsense approach to tackling the petty crimes that lead to worse. Then there’s Canada, the new favourite destination for Tory policy tourism. The “program review” model was credited with getting the country’s public finances out of the red by delivering departmental savings averaging 20 per cent in the 1990s, and is being pored over by the Tory Treasury team. Jocelyne Bourgon, the formidable Canadian official who delivered this remarkable turnaround, is rapidly becoming a Conservative pin-up girl: the video of her presentation in May to politicians and Whitehall officials at the Institute for Government has become a discreet internet hit.  But there is no point importing all these ideas if they end up sitting like abandoned containers at Tilbury docks, with no one to deliver the content across the country. A report issued by the institute this week raised some sobering questions that should give pause to the Tory front bench as it draws up its action plans for next May.  It highlighted doubts among officials about the quality of their leadership, as well as glaring variations in performance. And it pointed out that for all the complaints about centralised government, the opposite is the case: Whitehall departments operate like rival baronies, while the centre in Downing Street is surprisingly powerless. This matters more and more, given that the issues government must tackle – obesity, say, or reducing the size of the state – are not specific to one department.  Internationally, Britain is in the premier league of effective governments, but is still outclassed by a collection of Scandinavian and Commonwealth countries, some of which deliver better outcomes for less money.  The institute described as a “fundamental concern” the lack of information about quite what the apparatus of the state is achieving with the £662 billion it is spending on our behalf this year. It questioned whether the Civil Service has the skills necessary to come up with different ways of running the country. It also raised the lack of obvious sanctions for senior officials who fail to deliver: in Korea they lose pay, or even their jobs.  Civil servants will point to the bit of the report that underscores the importance of communication as a prerequisite to engaging the 200,000 Whitehall officials who must deliver the Cameron project. Permanent Secretaries are curious about the Conservatives, but despite initial meetings are still not clear what it is they will be asked to do. Worse, they are not sure whether Mr Cameron sees them as allies or merely impediments.  Those who know Whitehall murmur that it is all well and good to admire the closing of hospitals in Australia, but that does not make it any easier to close them in Oxford.  Lifting ideas from those clever foreigners is a testament to political open-mindedness, as long as it does not become an excuse for avoiding the realities of the British model we all have to live with every day.  For the moment, the plans for delivering that revolution are being kept under wraps, even from those who will have to implement them. The Conservatives are both disciplined and cautious. But as we get closer to polling day, the debate will focus on translating policies into action, and fast. The scale of the challenge is enormous.  Mr Cameron is often castigated for not telling us what he will do – but what should preoccupy us is how he will do it.
The Cameron team have scoured the world for bright ideas &ndash; but will they, and    their civil servants, be able to push them through  asks Benedict Brogan .