Edited by Andrew Haldenby.
Price £9.95 (ISBN 1905370 07 5) Published 2006
Looking to 2010, the trends of policy in the key public services are already in place. Change programmes in health, education and policing are due to complete in 2008 or shortly after, and the Chancellor has already announced the period’s public spending envelope, including a falling public spending-to-GDP ratio from 2007-08. In these circumstances, reformed, more efficient, methods of delivery will become increasingly central to the Government’s strategy for improving Britain’s public services. In this collection of essays authors from the free-market think tank Reform argue that the current policy outlook will not be sufficient to solve the public sector’s problems of performance and productivity before the next general election. Starting from the premise that successful NHS reform is very far from certain; Department of Education and Skill’s reforms are too limited; and that the proposed changes to the police service raise new problems of their own, the authors make a strong case that a much more extensive rate and range of policy improvement is now needed, and they put forward constructive proposals for how this might be achieved, which they feel would command popular support across the political spectrum.