Labour have stormed out of the gates with new policy announcements, but in their first 100 days, they must deliver quickly too, says Joe Hill
The investor Paul Graham wrote that, “the startups that do things slowly don’t do them any better. Just slower”. The same is true of governments.
Four days after the General Election, and Labour have stormed out of the gate with new policy announcements – economic co-operation with Europe, reoffending and the prison population plus canning the Rwanda scheme to name a few. Speculation continues about the other announcements that will feature in their first 100 days in office – from new legislation to support workers’ rights to issuing new guidance to councils to review their green belt land.
They are copying the playbook of many successful governments, who realised that speed really matters at the start. It was just five days after New Labour’s 1997 landslide win that they announced the independence of the Bank of England. In 2019 the new Conservative Government delivered their promise to leave the EU within three weeks of being elected.
Labour should channel this attitude to the speed of announcements in their first few days, into the speed of delivery everyday. Because while the big announcements get headlines, it’s the little things that add up over time. Turning around the ship of the state may be slow but it’s the thousands of barnacles on the hull that make it slower.
The government has a chronic public service productivity problem, which is still lower today than it was in 1997. When we measure productivity in the state, we tend to look at the ratio between technical ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’ but forget that speed is usually the crucial factor in improving that ratio.
The growth in NHS waiting lists means the average person waits longer for treatment – driving up the risk of conditions deteriorating and needing even more intensive care. Members of the public who are waiting for justice have to wait longer – before the pandemic 40-50 per cent of crown court cases were concluded within three months, which had dropped to a historic low of 27.8 per cent by 2022.
The Grenfell Inquiry’s final report has yet to be published, eight years on from the tragedy. The Lower Thames Crossing, a 2.4m stretch of tunnel which started planning in 2009, won’t see spades in the ground until at least 2026. People born the year it began will be able to vote before it has been completed.
If the next government wants public services to be better, it needs to focus on making them faster. Ministers should be laser-focused on making it quicker to get planning permission, procure from businesses, undergo security vetting, hire and fire officials, and complete every bit of paperwork filled out in a frontline service. Or better yet, dispense with some altogether.
To do this, they will need to curtail the impact of judicial review on public policy, which creates opportunities for pressure groups to take them to court and delay changes. Much of the bureaucracy and admin in public services exists so public servants can ‘show their working’ if a judge ever asks – a potential risk which comes with the certain cost of worse services to the public.
Critics will cry that any attempt to speed up the business of the state amounts to a rush job. But it’s false to assume that working quickly means doing the work worse. Have any public services improved in quality as they have become slower? Most have deteriorated instead. For better public services, the government should focus on making them faster.
Joe Hill is policy director at Reform