The setting was theatrical enough. The room was rich Victorian Gothic with tall windows overlooking the Thames and panelled walls surmounted by costly, hand-blocked wallpaper. Beneath the high ceiling a group of MPs were questioning a middle-aged official called Peter Kemp about the future of Britain's civil service. Most outsiders would have been pushed to find much drama in the cross-examination. Yet a government revolution was launched in the House of Commons that day.

Kemp announced that he aimed to hive off three-quarters of the civil service - 450,000 people - into agencies that would be largely independent of Whitehall's monolithic departments and policymaking mandarins. The new, arm's-length units would run a whole range of public services, from providing passports and driving licences to running the tax and benefit systems. What few had grasped until that day in 1988 in the Commons was the sheer scale of what Kemp, who has died at the age of 73, was planning to do.