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NHS Nurses stage walkout in front of University College London Hospital, London.
Report

Fixing public services: Priorities for the new Labour government

The government's public services inheritance make its spending plans untenable.

This report from the Institute for Government, and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, reveals that the government’s inheritance on public services is extremely precarious. Most services are performing worse now than they were in 2010 or before the pandemic. The government’s status quo spending plans from April 2025 onwards will likely mean that all services other than general practice, hospitals and schools could be performing worse in 2027/28 than in 2019.

This report outlines the state of four key public services – the NHS, local government, schools and the criminal justice system – and the problems they face, and makes clear the consequences of spending choices the government may take. The incredibly tight spending plans and commitments that Labour made in their manifesto mean that the settlements for unprotected areas of public spending – including for local government and the criminal justice system – will decline by an average of 2.4% per year in real terms.

Despite those issues, there are steps the government can take to reform services and improve performance. It can shift its approach, focusing on outcomes, rather than inputs; on prevention, rather than acute provision; on capital, rather than day-to-day spending; on front-line innovation, rather than top-down command and control; and on the contribution of staff to performance, rather than their cost to the exchequer. 

The inheritance is daunting, but the size of the government’s election victory presents an opportunity to approach the management of public services in a new way that could lead to genuine and sustained improvement in performance.

Fixing public services

Priorities for the new Labour government

Download
The front cover of the IfG's report on fixing public services.

What should the Labour government’s public service priorities be?

A daunting public services to-do list awaits Keir Starmer and his newly-elected Labour government. Watch as Sam Freedman and Patricia Hewitt discuss the choices facing Keir Starmer's government.

Watch the event
From left to right: Nick Davies, Gemma Tetlow, Sam Freedman and Patricia Hewitt on stage at the IfG.

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