Five things we learned from Keir Starmer’s speech on reforming the state

Starmer is owning the reform agenda

The prime minister has launched the next and biggest step so far in his plan to rewire the state, announcing the abolition of NHS England as part of a broader package of quango and regulatory reform; increasing the use of digital in government; and taking on performance in the civil service.

His tone was striking and largely welcome. There was a desire to move faster – and a touch of frustration that it is proving hard. But – and in contrast to tin-eared  briefings earlier this week about taking ‘chainsaws’ to Whitehall – he gave a strong sense of his commitment to reform, with the aim of making government a positive force in people’s lives. Again and again he defined his plan against the contemptuous rhetoric of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, instead declaring "I believe in the power of government… in an active state."

The speech also focused on the responsibilities of ministers in government – railing against the use of reviews, consultations and arm’s length bodies to delay decisions and action with the clear: "the buck stops with us". This too is welcome, but will require rare political discipline in practice. Social care is just one example of where the attraction of delaying a decision has already proved too tempting, and it is one of a number of reviews this government has launched since the election.

Starmer himself admitted that many will feel that his criticisms – and challenges – have been made before. But his speech today made the positive case for reform of the state and gave a sense of personal purpose and commitment to this agenda that is rare from a prime minister.

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The government needs to turn Starmer’s civil service reform rhetoric into an actual plan

There was lots to welcome about Starmer’s ideas for civil service reform. A state that is allowed to “operate at maximum power” and where dedicated civil servants get a system that works with, rather than against them, would be a very good thing. Starmer has moved away from the “tepid bath” comments that raised hackles back in December – today’s speech actively positioned ministers as one part of a reforming partnershi p alongside a respected civil service. Briefed out before the speech – but not featuring today – were some specific changes: a target for one in 10 civil servants to be working in a digital or data role by 2030, and 2,000 new digital specialist apprentices by the same date.

But the prime minister’s rhetoric advocating an unleashed, rewired state has not yet been accompanied by a plan to actually make it happen. There is a gap between the soaring ambition and some of the specifics that Starmer set out. The civil service needs to step up and fill that gap with a strategic plan for system-wide reform, not simply a series of narrow commitments, as welcome as some of those are.

A plan needs to cover what ministers actually mean by mission-led government – and how to "tear down the walls in Westminster". There must be a more open conversation between ministers and civil servants about risk appetite, and how to govern in a new way. It should also set a path to giving civil servants the tools to create high performing teams and dismiss poor performers – as trailed by Pat McFadden over the weekend. There is also more work to do to change the structures of government at the centre to support the work.

Previous occupants of No.10 have set out similar ambitions. The prime minister said that this time would be different, and he told us in our podcast that he was personally and ideologically committed to making change happen. He now needs a plan to back it up.

A more nuanced narrative on public bodies is emerging

There is clearly a sense of urgency to ensuring that the whole of government – and the public bodies it controls – delivers energetically against ministerial priorities. Starmer illustrated what bad looks like with several examples, including a spider colony preventing a town being built. Modifying the language of previous speeches, he placed blame on the system, not on individuals’ actions – which is right. An agency tasked with identifying risks to wildlife, and given powers to prevent development to avoid them, would not be fulfilling its statutory obligations if it failed to do so. 

It follows that reforming a public body – Natural England in this case – is not the ready solution to all problems that it is sometimes assumed to be. Even if Natural England was abolished, the relative weighting of housebuilding against conservation would still need to be established somehow, and a mechanism designed for conflicts to be resolved. In this case, the inflexibility of the underlying legislation – and not the decision making of Natural England’s staff – appears to be the source of the issue. 

Institute research has found that abolishing a public body tends to be expensive and disruptive, and so should not be taken on unless the benefits are clear and simpler solutions – such as, in this case, a change in legislation – have been exhausted. The government’s planning bill, published this week, is an attempt to rebalance to allow more building to go ahead where before concerns about habitats would have stood in the way.

Starmer needs to take care that sensible streamlining of administrative burdens does not lead to another Grenfell disaster

Another Starmer promise was a 25% reduction in administrative burdens – with echoes of a very similar exercise in the mid-2000s. The starting problem, as No.10 itself admits, is that that baseline does not exist and the risk is that departmental effort gets diverted into measuring existing burdens rather than looking at where unnecessary regulation can be ditched, and compliance with necessary regulation can be streamlined. Nonetheless, even if the numerical target itself is pretty meaningless, departments should look at minimising compliance costs, while ensuring that essential regulation is complied with.

To achieve its aim, government might pursue some combination of fewer rules and streamlined compliance. Part of its AI revolution could be to make compliance easier. And fewer rules do not have to mean lower standards of protection – it could mean a more principles-based approach to regulation, setting expectations around outcomes rather than detailed compliance metrics.

But most regulation was put there for a purpose. The prime minister needs to be alert to the potential long-term, catastrophic consequences of ill-thought out deregulation and make sure that in his desire to sweep away red tape he does not create another BSE or another Grenfell.

The government needs to make sure that the abolition of NHSE improves performance

If anyone was designing the English health system from scratch it is highly unlikely that they would replicate the current structure. 
There is a good case, therefore, for changing the national structure of the NHS. But that has been known for years. If health secretary Wes Streeting always planned to abolish NHSE, he should have started much sooner.

Top-down institutional reform on this scale is not cost free. It will consume both attention and time, distracting from and likely delaying the more substantive reforms that Streeting wants to achieve. As our report on how to abolish a public body found, these transitions take time and require careful resource planning, clear accountability, extensive internal and external engagement, and a motivating strategic vision throughout. The functions NHS England performs will also need to be maintained throughout the transition. 

The government, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England will need to work out their detailed plans as soon as possible to reduce the uncertainty that now prevails. Streeting himself knows how difficult this is. That’s why he committed to not undertaking top-down structural reform at our event at Labour Party Conference in September. Waiting nine months to start on this institutional reform could make it much harder for Streeting to hit his incredibly stretching targets before the next election.

Any NHS reform should be about delivery. Whatever the national structure, Streeting won’t deliver improvements in performance without a clear vision of what he wants to achieve. A clarity of vision is thus far conspicuous by its absence. Streeting’s ambitions for the NHS have been, at best, vague and, at worst, contradictory – Streeting wants to move care out of hospitals, but has chosen a hospital performance metric (18-week elective performance) as the primary measure of success. The upcoming 10-year health plan is an opportunity to provide detail and subsequently ensure that the structure of the NHS supports those ambitions.

Ultimately, the true test of this decision is how the government uses this reform. If the result is some minor cost savings from a headcount reduction and a more coherent org chart, it will be a failure. The only thing that should matter to the government is whether quality and accessibility of NHS services improves.