
Fixing public services: priorities for the new Labour government
Think tank: Institute for Government
Author(s): Nick Davies; Stuart Hoddinott; Cassia Rowland; Darwin Kim
July 22, 2024
This report from UK think tank the Institute for Government examines the public services priorities for the new Labour government.
This report from the Institute for Government and Nuffield Foundation reveals that the government’s inheritance on public services is extremely precarious. Most services are performing worse now than they were in 2010 or before the pandemic. The government’s status quo spending plans from April 2025 onwards will likely mean that all services other than general practice, hospitals and schools could be performing worse in 2027/28 than in 2019.
This report outlines the state of nine public services – general practice, hospitals, adult social care, children’s social care, neighbourhood services, schools, police, criminal courts and prisons – and the problems they face, and makes clear the consequences of spending choices this and the next government may take. The incredibly tight spending plans and commitments that Labour made in their manifesto mean that the settlements for unprotected areas of public spending – including for local government and the criminal justice system – will decline by an average of 2.4% per year in real terms.
Despite those issues, there are steps the government can take to reform services and improve performance. It can shift its approach, focusing on outcomes, rather than inputs; on prevention, rather than acute provision; on capital, rather than day-to-day spending; on front-line innovation, rather than top-down command and control; and on the contribution of staff to performance, rather than their cost to the exchequer.
The inheritance is daunting, but the size of the government’s election victory presents an opportunity to approach the management of public services in a new way that could lead to genuine and sustained improvement in performance.