Comment
Miscarriage of justice
Why government needs to take care in implementing social justice policies.
Today’s Public Accounts Committee report on the “fiasco” of personal independence payments, the new non-means tested benefit designed to replace Disability Living Allowance, shows why implementation matters when dealing with reforms which affect the most vulnerable members of society.
Next month the Institute for Government will be publishing the results of a year-long look at the implementation of four social justice policies which we have carried out with the support of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The report will spell out the lessons both from these case studies – and draw out lessons with much wider applicability.
All implementation matters – done poorly it wastes time, money and other resources and damages the credibility of the government of the day, the reputation of the politicians promising change and the public servants carrying it out on their behalf. But the consequences of poor implementation are even more acute when they affect the most vulnerable members of society – in the case of the introduction of the personal independence payment, the disabled and the terminally ill.
The PAC report highlights some crucial problems that could have been foreseen – with a more rigorous process of stress testing the implementation of the policy in advance of full roll-out. The particular issue it identifies are two mistaken assumptions on which its implementation was based:
- That only 75% of assessments would be face-to-face
- And that assessments would take an average of 75 minutes.
- Topic
- Policy making Public services
- Keywords
- Welfare Public spending Public sector
- Administration
- Cameron-Clegg coalition government
- Department
- Department for Work and Pensions
- Publisher
- Institute for Government