Keir Starmer’s 'Plan for Change' is necessary – and overdue

Back in February 2023, Keir Starmer unveiled Labour’s “missions” as “the pillars of the next Labour government”.  Then, in June this year, he set out “six first steps” for change. The following month’s King’s Speech was described by the new prime minister as a “plan for change”. Since then both immigration and the cost of living have been briefed as the government’s top priorities. 

Now the government is set to clarify its ambitions with another new plan. If this is the one that definitively sets out the government’s objectives it is both welcome and overdue. But for it to work the government needs it to have consistency and staying power. 

The new 'Plan for Change' is an opportunity for the government 

The Institute for Government has long argued that manifesto promises are not sufficient to direct government action – all administrations need to set out a programme for government that sets priorities, directs the civil service and government departments, and resolves difficult trade-offs. 

The 'Plan for Change', which Starmer will set out on Thursday, will turn pillars and plans in into a series of ‘milestones’ – which the government says it will aim to reach by the end of the parliament. 

Ministers insist that this is not a relaunch or reset, but however it is described this new plan is an opportunity to gear the government around a set of stated priorities and to make change happen on the government’s five missions and to improve public services. The proof of its success will not, however, be on Thursday when the document is published – it will come next June when spending allocations for the coming years are announced.

The plan must be embedded in spending review decisions

Missions and plans cannot stand on their own – to be meaningful they must determine how decisions are made. The test for the prime minister, chancellor Rachel Reeves, and Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, as well as incoming cabinet secretary Sir Chris Wormald, will be the extent to which the plan influences decision making in the spending review and how far it galvanises the civil service to organise around the priorities it sets.

We argued in our Commission on the Centre of Government earlier this year that the government’s priorities should be fully reflected in a shared strategy, budget and performance management process owned collectively by the Treasury and Cabinet Office. If the 'Plan for Change' can do this, and harness the power of the Treasury to support collective government outcomes, then it will have succeeded.

Targets are powerful tools but often misused

The move away from words and ambitions to numbers and deadlines is designed to ramp up urgency across government – and demonstrate progress to the electorate. It is a necessary move, and a risky one.  

Targets can be powerful tools for improving services by focusing activity on specific objectives, increasing accountability, and incentivising deeper analysis of the causes of performance problems. But poorly designed targets can damage performance by reducing the ability of front-line staff to use their professional judgment and incentivising them to prioritise easy wins or ignore important issues. Overall, the evidence suggests that targets are best at raising minimum standards but, by creating a culture of compliance, can discourage innovation and prevent adequate performers from excelling. 

Given the parlous state of most public services, Labour would be happy to enter the next election having meaningfully raised minimum standards. And it may be possible to deliver improvements to the chosen metrics – it has been briefed that there will be one per mission – even with the tight spendings plans pencilled in from April 2026 onwards. 

However, in a world of constrained resources that focus on the milestones will inevitably mean other areas are deprioritised. That may be a reasonable trade-off if the government is able to select targets that are closely aligned with its overall objectives, but that will be extremely difficult given the broad outcomes in the government’s missions. For example, the government wants to shift NHS care out of hospitals and make it more preventative, but the 18-week elective target, which reportedly will be chosen for the NHS mission, will likely have the opposite effect.

The centre must send clear and consistent signals to the rest of government

As well as being clear about the priorities, targets and trade-offs, the government now needs consistency. It is no crime for ministers to take some time to settle on how to run the government, but this plan needs to be the one that sticks. If that is not made explicitly clear, then departments will feel that they can ignore these priorities and wait for the next set to come along. 

By setting out exactly success will look like, Keir Starmer is trying to put an end to the mixed signals about what should be prioritised in government. To give him the best chance of success, the centre of government must now be fully aligned: changing the plan is no longer an option.