Huge credit to the IfG events team and everyone who made it happen! If you missed it and want to catch up, all the recordings are available on our website.
14.01.2026 11:59
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Huge credit to the IfG events team and everyone who made it happen! If you missed it and want to catch up, all the recordings are available on our website.
I liked how the discussions kept coming back to delivery, not just direction: how the centre of government really operates, what ‘rewiring the state’ looks like in practice, and why public confidence now sits at the heart of it - all against the backdrop of the May elections.
If you wanted a one-day snapshot of what’s driving UK politics in 2026, yesterday’s IfG Government 2026 conference really delivered. The line-up was seriously strong, with Wes Streeting kicking things off early with a keynote speech.
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/event/govern...
Have you ever read the Public Services Performance Tracker published by @instituteforgovernment.org.uk? If so, we’d love to hear from you. We’re surveying readers to find out what is most useful and what we should prioritise next year. It will only take around 5 mins to complete
If you want the full breakdown, this week’s WiPS post is linked above. All previous editions are also on Medium if you want to catch up!
4. Jury trial reforms are also back in the spotlight. New FT reporting using @cassiarowland.bsky.social’s analysis finds the proposals would only save around 7-8% of time currently spent on crown court hearings. Improving court productivity is likely to make a bigger difference.
Against that backdrop, the government has added £19m so councils can support more people in safe accommodation, on top of £480m already in local budgets, and has rolled funding for homelessness, rough sleeping and domestic abuse into a single ringfenced grant to plan more joined-up support.
3. Domestic abuse and homelessness are closely linked. More than 1 in 10 people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness are fleeing domestic abuse, and recent data shows nearly 70% of women who were homeless last year had experienced domestic abuse since age 16.
2. Child poverty remains high: 30% of children in the UK are in relative poverty after housing costs. The new Our Children, Our Future strategy aims to cut this by lifting 550,000 children out of relative low income and scrapping the two-child limit for universal credit and tax credits
The government’s latest offer leans heavily on extra training places, but resident doctors point to years of pay erosion. Performance Tracker 2025 shows their earnings are still 15.3% lower in real terms than in 2010.
1. Resident doctors in England are now part-way through a five-day strike, after 83% voted to reject the government’s latest offer. It’s the 14th round of action since 2023, with hospitals already under pressure from an early and severe flu season.
In this week’s Week in Public Services, I look at resident doctor strikes, the new child poverty strategy, extra funding for domestic abuse support and what jury trial reforms would really do to court backlogs.
Some key takeaways below
medium.com/week-in-publ...
NEW: judge-alone trials would save just 2% of time in the Crown Court. In total, we estimate reforms to jury trials would save <10% of court time. Great write-up from @reporterrwright.ft.com here www.ft.com/content/8a9f...
A line chart from the Institute for Government showing the size of the civil service in full-time equivalent terms, from 2009 to 2025. The size decreases from 2009 to 2016, before increasing more or less continuously from then to now.
1/ The latest ONS data on public sector employment shows that the civil service has grown (again).
After 2 consecutive quarters of plateauing growth, the CS grew in Q3 by 3490 (0.6%) to 520440 FTE. This is the highest quarterly increase since Labour came to power.
@instituteforgovernment.org.uk
1/ Earlier this month, the government indicated that it would postpone the inaugural May 2026 mayoral elections in four areas on the Devolution Priority Programme (DPP).
But what is the DPP? Why are these places getting mayors? And why are they undergoing local government reorganisation? 🧵
Last week at @instituteforgovernment.org.uk, we published a new set of Ministers Reflect interviews with Sajid Javid, Simon Hart and Theresa Villiers.
My comment piece below explores the key lessons Starmer's govt can take from these reflections.
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/less...
Given the govt's comittment to a) shift care from treatment to prevention and b) shift spending away from hospitals, its hard to justify the decision to keep spending on public health flat for the next three years when the NHS will see real terms spending growth
For the full picture and the key figures, read the blog using the link attached!
It also links to the ongoing use of unregistered settings when suitable placements are not available.
Finally, Ofsted’s annual report on children’s social care raises concerns about where homes are located and who runs them. In 2025, 47% of children in children’s homes were placed more than 20 miles from home, which can disrupt school, support networks and access to local services.
The core question is whether this speeds cases up without undermining fairness and public confidence in the system.
On criminal justice, David Lammy confirmed plans to restrict jury trials in England and Wales. Last week’s leak looked bigger. The final plan is narrower: indictable-only cases keep juries, and around a quarter of would-be jury trials will be judge-led instead.
In simple terms, it’s a test of whether pooling local public service budgets can support prevention and reduce duplication. It also mirrors what we recommended in Total Place 2.0: start small, map spending across services, and evaluate properly ahead of the 2027 spending review.
From the Budget, one quieter announcement could have real implications for how public services work on the ground. The government plans to trial place-based budgets in five Mayoral Strategic Authorities.
The @instituteforgovernment.org.uk’s Week in Public Services blog is back! This week I looked at the Budget’s place-based budget pilots, jury trial restrictions, and Ofsted’s concerns on children’s social care. Some thoughts below.
medium.com/week-in-publ...
NEW REPORT: abolishing NHS England could help simplify accountability, improve prioritisation and create savings. But the change could also lead to increases in policy incoherence and blame culture, as well as the loss of skills, capacity and focus on areas outside the day-to-day NHS.
My latest on the gov's proposal to all-but abolish jury trials: a radical move that would leave us out-of-step with most democracies and increase the risk of miscarriages of justice. 🧵
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/david-lammy-...
As the covid inquiry gears up for Module 9 on economic policy, @gemmatetlow.bsky.social and I have a new @ukri.org-funded @instituteforgovernment.org.uk report out on Epi-econ modelling for pandemics. We set out why govt needs to invest now 1/🧵
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/...
RAG table showing ratings for 9 public services. It includes the following summaries for progress since the 2024 election: General practice - Progress on salaried GPs, but no steps taken to make partnership more attractive Hospitals - Government has set out high-level ambitions and reduced competing priorities, but no detail of implementation Adult social care - Largely ignored. Ending the care visa route without a workable solution for Fair Pay Agreements could cause workforce shortages Children's social care - Government has set out a clear and ambitious vision for reform and has backed it with relatively generous funding Homelessness - Early signs are encouraging, but government has yet to set out its homelessness strategy Schools - Government's plan to reduce inequalities in schools and tackle teacher shortages are unclear, and the crisis in SEND services casts a long shadow Police - Government has made limited progress in increasing neighbourhood officer numbers and has yet to announce details of planned reforms Criminal Courts - Increasing court sitting days was welcome, if done too late, but the government has yet to announce a longer-term plan Prisons - Rapid action addressed the immediate population crisis, but there has been limited progress towards a longer-term solution
NEW: Labour inherited public services in crisis. Performance had fallen, investment had been cut + spending plans were undeliverable.
It's made some progress, providing stability and positive long-term plans. But it has been undermined by poor prep in opposition and lack of co-ordination in govt 🧵
These are key issues for the government to address so that general practice can realise its potential to deliver accessible, preventive care across England.