Five things we learned at the IfG's Government 2026 conference

The ministerial–civil service relationship is on rocky ground – but people want to fix it

One of the big themes from the day was the relationship between ministers and civil servants – and the potential breakdown of that relationship. Wes Streeting kicked off by saying ministers needed to stop complaining about the “wonky wheel” on the shopping trolley of government. If things weren’t going well, he argued, that was because ministers needed to steer the trolley more forcefully. Louise Casey argued that the civil service had drifted into “learned helplessness” where officials felt unable to push difficult things forward. And Darren Jones talked about the importance of empowering civil servants so that fewer decisions are sent to ministers, freeing them up to focus on the most important issues. 

Underpinning many of the discussions was a sense that the relationship is broken and that the government machine is not firing on all cylinders as a result. But there was also hope that things can get better. As well as Streeting’s call for more positivity from his political colleagues, Michael Gove had some advice for his successors in government: work out what change you want to deliver for the country and set the organisation up to deliver that. And Louise Casey said that there is “talent, skill, care and judgement at all levels” of the civil service, and the challenge is to work out how to make the most of that. Acknowledging the problem is the first step to solving it – while there are some in the civil service who are perhaps still in denial about the potential breakdown, there are plenty of politicians and officials who want to work hard to avoid that. 

Tim Durrant

The public wants government to focus on long term priorities

Exclusive Ipsos polling commissioned for the conference showed just how low the public expectations are for the government in 2026, with just 17% of people expecting the government to do a good job this year. Comfortably above half, 63%, were also disappointed by what Labour has done in government so far. But more optimistically, the public does show an appetite for politicians to prioritise solving long term problems – even at the expense of making people’s lives harder today. Younger people in particular are more likely to prioritise focusing on long-term decisions and getting them right.

Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham picked up on the theme, making the point that as well as focusing on the wiring of Westminster and Whitehall, the government needed to approach reform as a single thread running from the frontline services that citizens use and care about, up to the incentives created by No.10 and the Treasury.

Burnham was right to remind the conference of the importance of his core theme – but focusing on the frontline cannot be a reason to neglect the importance of central leadership from ministers and civil servants. One of the main obstacles to the devolution Burnham wants to see is a weak centre, that hoards power, and a system where accountabilities are confused and badly thought-through. 

Alex Thomas

How to reform the centre is still not resolved

Darren Jones set out how he wants to reshape the centre of government around him. He plans to bring coherence to what can often be a disparate set of views in No.10, putting an end to other parts of government having to ask ‘who’ in Downing Street has asked for something to happen (Jones claims that splitting the policy and delivery units will help with this, but it will take more than governance changes). In doing so, and in acting as a personal bridge between No.10 and the Cabinet Office, he hopes to restore the latter to what some will say was its former glory in breaking through Whitehall deadlocks. Jones described the Cabinet Office as able to “move heaven and earth” when it knew it had the backing of the centre, but that it had too often it had been cut out or confused by mixed messaging from Downing Street. And finally, he wants to supplement this all with a collaborative, helpful delivery unit – one which supports departments as much as it holds them to account. 

This is a positive vision for a stronger centre. But it is unclear whether Jones will be able to achieve it – and the radical changes to the state he advocated for in his session – without structural changes to the centre of government. Previous governments have failed on this front. One convert to the need for structural change at the centre was Louise Casey: “Two years ago I stood up with Gus [O’Donnell] and said no, the IfG is wrong and we don’t need structural changes. I was wrong. You [the IfG] were right”. If Jones does come to realise that bigger changes are needed, hopefully that realisation will be rapid enough for the Prime Minister to start making those changes before it is too late. The final report in our 2024 Commission on the Centre of Government contain our recommendations on how to reform the centre to be fit for the 21st century; we'd urge the government to read it.  

Hannah Keenan

Political consensus on civil service reform has not led to progress

The conference closed with Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, discussing how to “radically transform the way government works”. Focusing on the importance of having the best people in government, Stride was right to highlight how rarely poor performance is properly addressed and the tendency to simply move underperforming officials sideways. Alongside this he also rightly raised the need to better reward high performers and the ludicrous situation whereby officials moving jobs do so with no account taken of their prior performance. 

As a statement of principle there was much to support. And it is encouraging that the opposition is thinking about civil service reform. But the diagnosis is not new – indeed it would be difficult to identify a recent government which did not talk about improving civil service performance management, including the previous Conservative government and the current Labour government. The problem is that no-one has tackled it. 

The same was true for Stride’s re-commitment to the policy on the size of the civil service – cutting numbers back to 2016 levels – that he announced last year. Despite supporting our view that a ‘crude focus on headline staff numbers is the wrong approach’, his policy is exactly that, and lacks a diagnosis of why successive governments have failed to control civil service numbers or a plan to do so. 

Jack Worlidge

Mel Stride mounted a strong defence of the OBR

In his speech, Sir Mel Stride also said a future conservative government would uphold the role of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)  in ensuring the sustainability of the UK’s public finances. It was a notable defence of an independent, expert institution which has recently faced much criticism, and clearly drew on Stride’s experience as chair of the Treasury select committee in 2022 when Liz Truss attempted to sideline the OBR. 

Stride made two key points. The first is that the UK’s fiscal framework, including the current set of fiscal rules, is the creation of ministers. Critiques of the OBR which see it as inappropriately forcing the government’s hand on policy decisions misunderstand the true situation. The OBR’s role is to independently assess whether the government’s plans comply with the chancellor’s own fiscal rules (and are sustainable more broadly). The fiscal challenges which governments have faced in recent years have far more to do with weak economic growth and political choices than with the OBR’s judgements. 

Secondly, Stride correctly identified that reverting to the Treasury “marking its own homework” would come with costs. Without independent scrutiny, it is highly likely that an official forecast produced by the Treasury would be more susceptible to political pressure and less credible with the public, and with investors in UK government debt, which could increase the government’s borrowing costs.

Stride contrasted his position to that of Reform, who have flirted with the idea of abolishing the OBR. A credible approach to fiscal sustainability may yet prove an important dividing line between the two parties.

Dan Haile and Ben Paxton