IfG in the news

2nd February 2012

Government Needs To Make 'Fundamental Changes' To Meet Spending Challenge, Says NAO

Government departments need to make "fundamental changes" to successfully cut spending by 2015, spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned.

Source: The Huffington Post

23rd January 2012

Will LSE's growth commission make a difference?

Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers and current OBR (and ex-MPC) member Steve Nickell have given evidence

Source: The Guardian Economics Blog

9th January 2012

Carry on policy-making: the case for change in Whitehall

Successful policies will need greater change in Whitehall: David Walker urges the Institute for Government to keep stacking up the ammunition

Source: The Guardian

9th January 2012

Learning lessons from history proves to be the best policy

History is littered with the failures of cherished government policies...The failures make media headlines. Lessons are drawn from them by academics and by the National Audit Office...Far less attention is paid to the successes. But they do exist.

Source: FT.com (subscription required)

20th December 2011

Who is taking the biggest hit from grim public sector job stats?

The latest employment figures from the Office of National Statistics make grim reading for all those working in and with the public sector...But which sections of the public sector are facing the worst of the cuts?

Source: The Guardian

Transformation in the Ministry of Justice

We are evaluating the Ministry of Justice's attempt to transform the department and wider justice system, in order to share lessons on what works.

Background

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) began a major change initiative, known as Transforming Justice, in 2009. Its aim was to create long term improvements across the department and the wider justice system.

The Institute for Goverment was invited to gather information in 'real-time' on how the transformation was progressing. Our aim was to support MoJ by highlighting emerging issues, and also share lessons with those leading public sector transformation efforts.

Our report:

presents the evaluation team's interim findings
charts progress made up to the UK general election on 6 May 2010
highlights the key enablers of success to date.

With the arrival of a new administration and a promised fiscal consolidation, the UK public sector is entering a period of extraordinary upheaval.

In such times, the ability to adapt and learn from the experience of others may determine success. Our evaluation team hopes the report will trigger ideas and highlight risks to those leading major change in government in the UK and abroad.

Findings

Transforming Justice is still in its early stages but has already had a number of successes:

the case for change is widely recognised within the Department
a broad leadership coalition has been formed that spans MOJ's previously disparate business groups
possible savings in the regions of hundreds of millions of pounds have been identified.

Yet, challenges remain for the future, which are recognised by the department's leadership:

the leadership coalition must be expanded beyond the central department through to the judiciary, unions and other key groups
work to develop the Transforming Justice vision and strategy need to be built upon
individual programmes within the Transforming Justice portfolio need to be brought together into a coherent overarching strategy, and checked for compatibility with other MOJ change initiatives.

Plans for are in place to achieve these ends — which like Transforming Justice itself, are ambitious and challenging.

Methodology

We have developed a new methodology for evaluating major change in the public sector, which draws on:

John Kotter's well established '8-steps' model - outlines key steps that organisations need to move through to achieve transformational change
McKinsey's '7-s' model - a diagnostic tool for analysing an organisation's capability and performance
Institute for Government analysis - highlights key issues for transformation in the public sector context.

We evaluated the impact of Transforming Justice using a wide range of methods, including semi-structured interviews, bespoke surveys, documentation analysis and ongoing observation.

Timescales

MoJ leaders see Transforming Justice as a five year change initiative. We will produce further updates on progress at regular intervals.

We are also examining the potential to apply our 'real-time' evaluation approach with other UK government departments. This will help build an evidence base of successful departmental transformations from recent history.

Download our full report

Transformation in the Ministry of Justice: 2010 Interim Report (PDF, 1.64MB)

Related information

We are conducting a range of wider activities to support departments attempting transform at a time of fiscal consolidation. This includes a series of events with those who have led such transformation internationally and a programme of development for government ministers.

Our work