Incisive commentary from the IfG’s expert team on issues facing government and key ministerial decisions.
From analysis of key political events such as budgets and party conferences to snap responses to unexpected developments such as government reshuffles, our writers set out their views and analyse what government gets right, what it gets wrong, and what it can do better.
Government reform should be a higher priority
Sluggish progress is damaging the government's ability to deliver its Declaration on Government Reform
The stakes of ‘partygate’ are higher than Boris Johnson’s future
Reasserting the principle that ministers tell the truth in parliament is more important than the prime minister’s immediate career prospects
Reforming No10 should be about more than Boris Johnson’s partygate response
Tinkering with the centre of government is too important to be a rapid response to the partygate scandal
The government’s Rwanda asylum seeker plan won't work
The Home Office has not made the case for relocating migrants to Rwanda or shown that it has learnt the lessons of Windrush
Boris Johnson's partygate fine has not ended questions about rule breaking in No.10
We now know for sure that the prime minister – and the chancellor – broke Covid lockdown rules. That does not mean there is not still more to find out
DVLA during the pandemic: hamstrung by competing priorities
The UK and devolved governments must make complex trade-offs more collaboratively or risk a repeat of DVLA’s pandemic troubles elsewhere.
The government must rethink its resettlement programme for Ukrainian refugees
The UK government’s response to Ukraine’s refugee crisis is cumbersome, confusing and in need of an urgent overhaul
The government would be wrong to wage another war on ‘quangos’
Government should be more specific about what it wants public bodies to deliver and where it can do without them.
Randstad episode shows government has still not learnt lessons from past procurement failures
It is right that schools will now take on the tutoring programme – but government must explain, and finally learn from, its latest contract stumble.
The Office for the Internal Market’s new analysis must help shape decisions
The Office for the Internal Market now needs to think about how it can influence the decisions on the system governing intra-UK trade