Ben Paxton

An interesting piece which (rightly in my view) puts policy uncertainty front and centre. But I'm less convinced by the proposed policy prescription: if we kept a 2nd forecast, but don't formally assess rule compliance, what stops everyone else just reading off the OBR spreadsheet?

Performance Tracker 2025: Schools | Institute for Government It will be extremely difficult for the government to meet its education priorities within the budget it has set for the coming parliament.

NEW REPORT Labour is struggling to meet its education priorities. It has big ambitions to improve schools, but a budget that falls short of matching them. And with no clear plans to reform the SEND system or tackle workforce shortages, children are being left without the support they need.

Public sector pensions reforms should focus on workforce recruitment and retention | Institute for Government There is a strong case for looking at reforms to public sector pensions.

NEW from me on why changes to public sector pensions should be on the table. But politicians must say how they'll cover big upfront costs, and focus on how remuneration can best support the workforce needed to improve public services - not on cuts
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/publ...

Starmer needs to get serious about governing — and quick The prime minister has to change or his party will seek a change of its own

"Yet unpopularity — even unpopularity as deep and bitter as that which Starmer is currently experiencing — need not be terminal, provided his MPs have faith in his plan and his vision"
@stephenkb.bsky.social smashes out brilliant points I am hoping to publish at greater length 1/

on.ft.com/478WcW7

Good comment from @timdurrant.bsky.social - DSIT has struggled to become the "digital centre of government" and faced a huge culture shift (it was mainly policy & science and engineering staff before GDS moved there from Cabinet Office). (1/2)

Performance Tracker 2025: Criminal justice system | Institute for Government The government must act to avoid the justice system returning to the crisis point seen when Labour entered office, or worse.

NEW REPORT Criminal justice is coming apart at the seams. Police, criminal courts & prisons can’t cope with the level of demand and performance keeps spiralling downwards. Early positive steps from the government won't be enough to turn things around
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/...

Shifting to a more preventative approach rather than just meeting acute demand in these services is vital. But this shows we have long way to go to get to where we were 10-15 years ago. Great analysis from Stuart and the team

The 2025 budget and beyond: How Rachel Reeves can approach tax reform to help drive growth | Institute for Government A big autumn approaches for the chancellor.

Guardian article here: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

And top tips on how to do tax reform from @gemmatetlow.bsky.social @tompope.bsky.social and @jillongovt.bsky.social here:
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/...

Good to see Reeves defending the importance of SR settlements (where changes should be avoided). But disappointing if this means using highly optimistic assumptions re. future tech efficiencies (eg £45bn) to pencil in spending cuts beyond the SR period rather than confronting the need for tax reform

Chancellor admits tax rises and spending cuts considered for budget Speaking exclusively to Sky's deputy political editor Sam Coates, Rachel Reeves says Brexit, austerity, and the Liz Truss mini-budget have all played a role in damaging Britain's economy - as she prep...

The point of a multi-year spending review and regular SR cycle is to provide stability. That stability allows frontline public services to make long-term decisions that will deliver better outcomes and VfM. It's a big failure of policymaking if spending decisions are being reopened 4 months later

Really looking forward to chatting with this brilliant panel about how to make sure pay and pensions help attract and keep the high-quality public sector workerforce the government needs

The role of procurement in delivering mission-led government | Institute for Government How can the government remove the barriers to its missions?

The role of procurement in delivering mission-led government

New report by @njdavies.bsky.social and @drbenpaxton.bsky.social on how public procurement could support delivery of mission-led government, and the key barriers to this.

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/...

'Coherence is needed': Government urged to leverage its £400bn procurement bill to aid missions drive Think tank says better approaches to spending – including backing the civil service to be less risk-averse – can deliver results

IfG report says a “bias for the status quo” often prompts government to stick with existing approaches that “guarantee poor performance”, rather than taking a chance on change
www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/...

This interview is so much worse than the headline lets on

The role of procurement in delivering mission-led government | Institute for Government How can the government remove the barriers to its missions?

With huge thanks to @njdavies.bsky.social and other colleagues at @instituteforgovernment.org.uk for collaborating on this work

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/...

14. Finally, any new procurement legislation should be focused on providing clarification and standardisation, without adding unnecessary complexity or instability to the relatively new (and widely recognised as very good) Procurement Act, which people are very much still getting to grips with.

13. The commercial profession has a strong, cross-gov identity and network – this should be leveraged to foster wider collaboration. The GCF should continue to support the communities of practice that have grown in recent years.

(It’s easy to say commercial capability should be maintained, but it will be difficult to do when facing targets for 10% admin budget cuts by 28/29)

12. So GCF and departments should use missions to guide prioritisation on capability

11. The Government Commercial Function should develop a long-term strategy for boosting the number of senior commercial specialists within government departments and their ALBs, and establish the expectation that all those managing contracts are commercial specialists

The final group of recs are on strengthening procurement capability and data

10. Managing Public Money guidance should be updated to make accounting officers responsible for procurement data, and the new central digital platform should focus on public sector orgs + suppliers being able to use it

Innovate UK invests £3.2 million in concrete decarbonisation Innovate UK will invest £3.2 million in seven projects to accelerate decarbonisation of the UK concrete industry.

9. Government should make the most of ‘pull’ mechanisms to promote innovation. This should include Innovate UK's Contracts for Innovation and also Advance Market Commitments that could be used to incentivise development of scalable innovation (low carbon concrete e.g. ⬇️)
www.ukri.org/news/innovat...

8. DSIT should be coordinating procurement of innovation, with support from the Cabinet Office. They should be using procurement data to identify opportunities for collaboration, and the new Commercial Innovation Hub should share best practice in buying innovation

7. Public sector organisations should have multi-disciplinary teams horizon scanning for contracts due to expire/be renewed, proactively reviewing how technological and/or social innovation could improve outcomes in these areas (this should be easier to do with a better Find a Tender service)

6. Cabinet Office/DSIT should publish further guidance setting out best practice in procuring innovation (with legislation changing, and risk aversion widespread, contracting authorities are often uncertain about what should/shouldn’t be done)

The 2nd group of recommendations are on better using procurement to bring innovation to the public sector

4. Ministers must back civil servants to procure innovation, even following failure

5. Preliminary market engagement should be a core part of procurement (which it very much isn’t right now)

2. A mission-led approach means procurement being more outcomes-focused. This includes earlier market engagement on outcomes rather than highly specified solutions, and KPIs being aligned with those outcomes

3. Publish longer-term 3y pipelines, giving industry sight of upcoming opportunities

1. Commercial leads for each mission should work with commercial leaders across gov to proactively and publicly identify new opportunities for the market to support delivery of missions (which would be easier if gov publicly defined a more coherent set out outcomes in relation to the missions…)

So how could this change? Lots of recommendations below, split into 3 sections: market shaping, innovation, and capability/data

First up, government is a huge buyer (>£400bn!) and therefore implicitly shapes markets it operates in. The public sector should be much more proactive in how it does this

c) A lack of forward planning for innovation
d) Limited commercial input into policy design (partly from a lack of senior commercial capability)
e) The poor (but improving) quality of procurement data, which limits internal strategic oversight and industry insight into contracting opportunities

But barriers to making this a reality are:
a) A lack of coherence in the gov's missions - suppliers don’t know how they could support them
b) Pervasive aversion to risk/uncertainty - which often means rolling over contracts + sticking to familiar specs/suppliers, rather than trying new approaches