2016: high stakes for the Government and the UK

It is almost impossible to talk about any subject – the implementation of the public spending review, decisions on big infrastructure projects such as expansion of London’s airport capacity, the review of human rights legislation and the future of the union itself – without taking account of the promised referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union. Calculations about the impact on the referendum now overshadow everything else in British politics. Many decisions are being held up until after the vote, increasingly expected in the summer or early autumn, though the final date by which a referendum must occur is the end of 2017. Not only will the current phase of negotiations and the campaign, let alone the outcome, have profound implications for the unity and future of the Government and the future Conservative leadership, they will also affect intergovernmental relations within the UK. The outcome of the EU vote could, in time, trigger a further ballot on independence in Scotland. Behind this shadow, a lot else is going on. Whitehall departments, local authorities and other public sector bodies are working out the implications of the November spending announcements for their programmes over the rest of the parliament, as discussed in the Julian McCrae’s recent blog. In particular, we are awaiting the publication of the Civil Service Single Departmental Plans, promised for January, which are supposed to translate the Spending Review numbers into policy actions. Taking forward the work in our Managing With Less report, the Institute for Government will be scrutinising the Single Departmental Plans closely to assess their substance and to see how far they are meaningful guides to departmental activities and the extent to which they can be measured. We will be continuing our examination of transformation programmes in Whitehall departments, focusing particularly on the much-talked-about drive to spread digitisation across government. Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, whose department is facing major changes, is due to speak at the Institute at the beginning of February. He will also be consulting in the new year on the future of human rights legislation. Our expanded local delivery programme will examine how the spending pressures are being tackled throughout the country, notably via attempts to join up provision to address the problems of caring for children, the elderly and the disadvantaged. Ahead of the EU referendum, elections are being held in May for the main devolved legislative bodies, as well as for the London Mayor and for councillors in many of the big cities and towns in England. These contests are not just about political balance, but are occurring at a time of far-reaching constitutional change. The Scotland Bill, taking forward the post-September 2014 Smith Commission proposals for more devolution, is now in the House of Lords but, as the Institute has stressed, a way forward now depends on agreement between the London and Edinburgh governments on a fiscal framework, with a tight timetable before the Scottish Parliament is dissolved in late March. Consultation is also now under way on a draft Wales bill that would changing the structure of devolution. In England the Government, and particularly the Treasury, are pushing a complicated series of decentralisation deals with groups of local councils, notably under the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ umbrella. But the criteria are confusing and the pattern of powers being shifted uneven. The Institute will be monitoring these developments both via commentaries and events, starting on 14 January  with a speech by Oliver Letwin, who has overall responsibility for the Government’s constitutional reform programme. The Institute has also recently started a new project on service failure, looking at how public sector bodies deal with serious failures in service provision, and how they recover and win back public confidence. We will be continuing our work on public sector markets – arguing both for more transparency in contracts and for the need for improved commissioning and monitoring of contracts, with competition among providers essential if outscouring is to work for service users and the taxpayer. We have also highlighted the need to improve policymaking and the use of evidence in decision-making, producing our own regular analyses of the latest government data via our Whitehall Monitor, and we have worked with select committees to strengthen parliamentary scrutiny of the executive. This analysis and scrutiny work is even more important in view of the new political landscape which emerged from 2015 – an unexpected majority Conservative Government freed from the restraints (perceived and real) of coalition; with a small overall margin in the Commons but facing fragmented and partly self-absorbed opposition parties, both Labour and the Liberal Democrat. Yet the apparent dominance of the Conservative Government could be challenged by the impact of the EU referendum. The stakes are high, and the outcomes – for both politics and policy – unpredictable.