He is excellent at following rules, and he has a talented hand with maintaining systems, as Neil Irwin has noted.
No one knows better how destructive secrecy is for maintaining systems of justice, ethics and democracy than these self-proclaimed "open government" watchdogs.
The twenty-first century, while maintaining systems of governance inherited from the past, is witnessing a weakening of the power of nation states, chiefly because the economic and financial sectors, being transnational, tends to prevail over the political.
Despite the wishes of Americans, and the troubles that Europeans have maintaining systems that punish hard work with exorbitant taxes, Democrats still seem determined to chase a bankrupt vision of utopia.
Hilary Benn, the secretary of state for international development, last Thursday called for rich countries to assist poorer ones in setting up and maintaining systems of universal healthcare, to back 10-year plans for education and to help create lifelong social security systems.
A draft of the McKinsey report recommends that DoITT be left in charge of areas where it does well, like supporting users and maintaining systems, but questions the agency's ability to guide major technological changes, according to people who have been told about the report.
