Progress on public services has been slower than hoped

Most services were performing worse on the eve of the 2024 general election than at the start of the 2019 parliament, and substantially worse than in 2010. Rachel Reeves increased capital budgets at both the budget and spending review, which will ease pressures arising from poor-quality buildings and equipment (though the benefit of some of that spending may take years to materialise), while above-inflation pay awards have helped to reset the government’s relationship with public sector workforces. 

But most services are still struggling to return performance levels to those seen before the pandemic and with current plans for day-to-day spending beyond 2026 looking tight at best it is hard to see the public sector performing substantially better by 2028/29.

The government has made progress on some key NHS targets

Perhaps the biggest immediate impact the government can point to is its progress on reducing the elective waiting list – one of the most visible metrics to voters and something Labour in opposition attacked successive Conservative governments over. A year ago this stood at around 7.6 million, and on the eve of Labour’s one-year anniversary it is 7.4 million, achieved through a combination of higher activity and below-trend additions to the waiting list. Much of those improvements were, however, in train before the government won the election. 

But while the elective waiting list is shrinking, the government has set elective waiting times (the time it takes for a patient to progress from referral to final treatment) as its main NHS milestone. This has proven harder to shift, and against an ambitious target. Streeting has promised to return the proportion of patients waiting less than 18 weeks for treatment to 92% by the end of this parliament. In the month of the 2024 election, the figure stood at 58.8% ; in April 2025 this had improved only slightly, to 59.7%. 

In general practice, the government might point to the increase in the number of appointments to show it is on track. Whether simply increasing the total number of appointments means the performance of general practices is meaningfully improving, however, is another matter.

Our report published in April 2025 showed that levels of patient satisfaction – a useful if imperfect metric for service performance in the absence of longer-running datasets – are tied to factors like whether they are seen by a GP partner, a trainee or another type of practitioner, and whether these appointments are delivered face-to-face or over the phone, as much if not more than simply being given an appointment. Given much of the recent drive to increase the headline numbers has centred on greater use of phone appointments and direct-patient (i.e. non-GP) staff, this should give the government pause.

The criminal justice system continues to struggle while being hit by serial crises 

Labour could hardly have had a more challenging inheritance when it comes to the criminal justice system. It inherited a prisons system in full-blown crisis, weeks away from completely running out of prison spaces. The backlog of cases waiting to be heard in the crown court had skyrocketed to an all-time high. And when race riots spread across England and Northern Ireland in August, just weeks into the government’s first term, this placed serious pressure on police forces and courts already bursting at the seams. 

Early release schemes were a pragmatic choice to alleviate at least some of the pressure on prisons (if unsurprisingly unpopular with the public) but that breathing room has already been used up and the population is back up around 99% capacity. In the courts, meanwhile, the backlog of cases has continued to rise despite the increasing days courts are sitting. Police forces have had some welcome success in increasing the proportion of offences which result in a charge or other positive outcome, but this also results in more pressure on the rest of the system. 

The government is relying on major reforms to turn this situation around, including to sentencing following the Gauke review published in May and the Leveson review into the criminal courts expected later in July. But these changes are not expected to be implemented until January 2026 at the earliest, leaving only a few years ahead of the next election for performance to improve.

Capital increases are welcome – but most services’ day-to-day budgets are tight

In contrast to tight austerity-era capital budgets, the government has been generous in its first two fiscal events, increasing most departments capital envelopes in both the autumn budget and last month’s spending review. That will go some way to help improve the state of many crumbling hospitals and other sites. These are of course welcome, though there are a great many demands on those capital budgets. 

On day-to-day funding, Labour chose to be generous in 2025/26, boosting spending well above levels set out by the previous government. But frontloading spending means that there will only be relatively modest average annual increase of 1.2% in real terms over the rest of the spending review period.

There is also considerable variation in spending allocations between services. As ever, the NHS ended up with the largest settlement, averaging 3% per year between 2025/26 and 2028/29. That was slightly lower than expected, partly explaining how the government managed to avoid cutting any departments’ budget over the next three years.

Given pressures on spending, services – including the NHS –  may still struggle to improve performance before the next election. Pay deals for this year (2025/26) were higher than budgeted for, demand is high in some services, and there are gathering storm clouds of industrial action. The government’s spending plans also rely heavily on currently ill-defined efficiency improvements to meet its aims. If they do not materialise, it will be very hard for the government to stretch budgets as far as they want.

Local government has been given a spending boost but demographic pressures may soon eat into this

Local government spending power will rise throughout the parliament, but will still be lower in real terms at the end of the parliament than in 2010 – and more than 15% lower in real terms when accounting for population growth. Demand for the most expensive services – homelessness, social care and special educational needs – will likely continue to rise, further squeezing budgets. 

Adult social care will be particularly affected, given that the age groups projected to grow fastest are over-65s and over-90s. The government’s decision to ban overseas care workers will also have caused headaches across the sector, given the currently large overseas workforce, and has the potential to place still more strain on local government finance across the rest of the parliament.

Indeed, for many local authorities, the only thing standing between them and effective bankruptcy is an accounting technicality – the ‘statutory override’ – which keeps special educational needs deficits off councils’ books. This is due to end in March 2028, before the end of the parliament; the government is set to announce its plans for handling these deficits later this year. 

For a government elected on a slogan of change Labour appeared underprepared on public service reform 

The new principles for public service reform articulated by the government since taking office – a greater focus on prevention, service integration and devolution, as announced in the spending review – are promising, and mirror many of our own. It also launched several programmes to test the implementation and potential for scaling these up. This includes the new community health partnerships and the previously announced ‘test, learn and grown’ programme. 

There are other bright spots. The government has gamely started reforming local government finance, a task the previous government ducked at every opportunity. This includes welcome steps such as longer-term funding settlements for local authorities, consolidating fragmented funding pots, and updating the funding formula to direct more funding towards councils with the greatest need.

But announcing things is the easy bit and there are questions over whether the new reforms will be able to make a meaningful difference to public service performance by the end of the parliament, given the scale of the challenges facing many services.

The timing of these, most coming far closer to day 365 than day one, arguably also hints at a lack of preparation when in opposition. This has left individual departments to take their own approaches that are often inconsistent with each other and the new principles – hardly the cross-service ‘missions-led’ approach promised. 

There are other areas that the government has more or less ignored. Adult social care reform has plagued every government since the late 1990s, and Labour has chosen to kick the can further down the road by announcing the Casey commission, which is not due to publish its final report until 2028, all but guaranteeing further inaction.

There is still time to make meaningful reforms to public services. But a government elected on a slogan of change has made far less progress in a year than it could and should have done.