Monday, October 30, 2023
Public services in doom spiral
The Guardian reports on the findings of the Institute for Government's annual report on the state of public services.
They say that Britain's public services are performing worse than before the pandemic, much worse than when the Conservatives came to power in 2010 and are stuck in a “doom loop” of recurring crises as a result of ministers’ short-term policymaking:
Warning that the “consequences of successive governments’ short-term policymaking” were coming home to roost, the IfG said that “public services that have for years been creaking are now crumbling”.
The thinktank said decades of capital underinvestment, combined with funding cuts and strike disruption, were having a serious impact on the productivity of public services, as exemplified by the school closures due to the risk of collapse from crumbling Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) shortly before the start of term.
Nick Davies, an IfG programme director and the report’s author, said: “Public services are in a dire state and will likely deteriorate further if whoever forms the next government sticks to current spending plans.
“Improvements are possible but difficult decisions will be necessary to break out of the negative cycle of short-termism that has characterised government decision-making, particularly in recent years.”
The IfG warned that although the current spending settlement, which runs until April 2025, initially appeared generous, its value had been eroded by high inflation. Spending plans from April 2025, which Labour has said it would stick to, would mean that all services other than children’s social care could be performing worse in 2027-28 than in 2019, a year when all services except schools underperformed in comparison to 2010.
The “incredibly tight” spending plans mean the settlements for unprotected areas of public spending average -1.2% a year in real terms, the report stated.
Noting that the UK “has long invested less in its public services than other wealthy nations”, the IfG said the government risked “getting stuck in a ‘doom loop’, with the perpetual state of crisis burning out staff and preventing services from taking the best long-term decisions”, and warned that “escaping this will not be easy”
They add that the report sets out four ways to remedy the situation: a new, more generous yet politically sustainable multi-year budget for each public service; a long-term capital programme covering buildings, equipment and IT; a stable long-term policy agenda, with far less churn among both ministers and officials; and improvements to pay negotiations, workforce planning, and working conditions to enable staff retention.
So far, there is no sign from either the Tories or Labour that such an agenda is on the table.
They say that Britain's public services are performing worse than before the pandemic, much worse than when the Conservatives came to power in 2010 and are stuck in a “doom loop” of recurring crises as a result of ministers’ short-term policymaking:
Warning that the “consequences of successive governments’ short-term policymaking” were coming home to roost, the IfG said that “public services that have for years been creaking are now crumbling”.
The thinktank said decades of capital underinvestment, combined with funding cuts and strike disruption, were having a serious impact on the productivity of public services, as exemplified by the school closures due to the risk of collapse from crumbling Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) shortly before the start of term.
Nick Davies, an IfG programme director and the report’s author, said: “Public services are in a dire state and will likely deteriorate further if whoever forms the next government sticks to current spending plans.
“Improvements are possible but difficult decisions will be necessary to break out of the negative cycle of short-termism that has characterised government decision-making, particularly in recent years.”
The IfG warned that although the current spending settlement, which runs until April 2025, initially appeared generous, its value had been eroded by high inflation. Spending plans from April 2025, which Labour has said it would stick to, would mean that all services other than children’s social care could be performing worse in 2027-28 than in 2019, a year when all services except schools underperformed in comparison to 2010.
The “incredibly tight” spending plans mean the settlements for unprotected areas of public spending average -1.2% a year in real terms, the report stated.
Noting that the UK “has long invested less in its public services than other wealthy nations”, the IfG said the government risked “getting stuck in a ‘doom loop’, with the perpetual state of crisis burning out staff and preventing services from taking the best long-term decisions”, and warned that “escaping this will not be easy”
They add that the report sets out four ways to remedy the situation: a new, more generous yet politically sustainable multi-year budget for each public service; a long-term capital programme covering buildings, equipment and IT; a stable long-term policy agenda, with far less churn among both ministers and officials; and improvements to pay negotiations, workforce planning, and working conditions to enable staff retention.
So far, there is no sign from either the Tories or Labour that such an agenda is on the table.
