A State that works for us

What if public sector services worked as seamlessly as your favourite app?

We all know the state could work better for us. Yet, as anyone who has tried to change it discovers, that’s easier said than done. This is why it is essential for an aspiring incoming Government to have a clear plan from Day 1 otherwise, as it is said, “if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.”

Public services are central to our lives. Around 18% of the UK workforce- some six million people – are employed in delivering them. That’s more than one in six working adults. Many are friends, neighbours, and family members doing vital work, often in difficult circumstances. Yet productivity in the public sector has fallen over the past five years, even as budgets have grown. Meanwhile, the UK’s public finances are under severe strain: debt now stands at £2.9 trillion, with rising interest payments crowding out investment. The reality is stark – the status quo is no longer viable. Something has to change.

Other countries are wrestling with similar challenges. In the United States, the Department of Government Efficiency- informally “DOGE” – was launched with Elon Musk’s involvement. Closer to home, the Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch has argued for “a state that does fewer things, but does them well.” That raises two questions: what exactly should the state stop doing, and how should it do the remaining tasks better? Trade-offs about scope will always be politically charged. But the deeper issue – how the state delivers more effectively – remains unresolved.

Whilst plans for the incoming Burnham government are unclear, this issue was recognised by the outgoing Starmer government with Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones announcing that every government department would establish a dedicated delivery unit. Many will wonder what the rest of government is doing if it is not delivering for us, the taxpayers. A glance at the Blavatnik Index, a global benchmarking tool published by the University of Oxford, shows that whilst the UK Civil Service ranked joint 6th this masks some significant deviations.  The UK was ranked 3rd for Public Policy globally, whilst it only ranked 14th for National Delivery.

I saw this first-hand when I moved from the private to the public sector. After two decades as a senior finance manager and later as the founder of an award-winning start-up, I joined my first public sector board. I entered a world of acronyms, Treasury rulebooks, and exchanges that felt like something out of Yes Minister. Over the past five years, I have served on boards across business, energy, and health, witnessing a variety of quangos in action.

What struck me was not a lack of commitment- on the contrary, I have met many dedicated civil servants who want to deliver for the public. The barriers lie elsewhere: in culture, in the ecosystem, and in accountability. These are areas where lessons from the private sector could make a real difference. 

So what does an incoming Government need to get right on Day 1 to ensure the State works better for us? There are three key areas: culture, ecosystem and accountability.

1. Culture

As Peter Drucker observed, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In the public sector, cultural inertia can be a powerful brake on reform. Without the right people in the right roles, motivated and empowered to deliver the right outcomes, new ways of working struggle to gain traction. Recent government legislation such as the changes in employee rights may act as a further break on change and enforce the “job for life” mentality. Unless cultural change is prioritised, structural reform risks failure. 

Day 1: Tangible Steps to a Culture that Empowers Leadership sets the tone at the top

To succeed in sport, a coach must develop a high-performance team. They must first have a clear goal to aim at before developing the right culture to achieve it.

Simon Sinek in “Find your Why” emphasises the importance of defining your “Why” and each public service needs to ask itself that question. Is it to keep us safe, provide a specific service or provide a safety net to the neediest in society?  This may sound obvious, but mission creep is endemic, with distracting competing priorities. Armed with this clarity, the next step is to understand the customer requirements. One CEO confessed at a Board meeting that he had never considered the users of his service as customers. This informs the mindset, the priorities and the culture of the organization.

All teams need to bring in the best talent, in this case from both the private and public sector. This can be through direct executive recruitment but other routes include private sector leaders acting as mentors for senior leaders or appointing Non-Executive Directors from the private sector. 

By focusing on building high performance with clear goals and a continuous improvement “can do” culture then leaders can address the twin dangers of the defeatism of paper pushers waiting to draw their final salary pension, and activists who are using the civil service to achieve their own ends. 

Cultural enablers of a continuous improvement mindset

Many industries are adept at using continuous improvement methodologies, from high hazard industries to competitive supply chains. Quick win examples include real time displays with performance data visible in situ. Departmental newsletters could be focused on stories of delivery, efficiency wins and success in outcomes for end users / customers. High performance role models from outside the civil service could be invited to regular training events and internal meetings.

Training Managers in Performance management 

Dame Antonia Romeo, the Cabinet Secretary, recently caused a stir when she published her official performance objectives which was a welcome step forward in performance management. However, this is far from the norm and has yet to be cascaded throughout the Public Sector. A leader recently confessed to me that most of their department didn’t have any targets set for the year.  Quick win examples include:

• Providing short training modules for first time managers and refresher courses for all managers outlining their responsibilities and providing easy to use tools and templates
• Annual tasks & targets setting for all, followed by periodic performance conversations and an annual appraisal rewarding delivery and a “can-do” attitude 
• All managers having development conversations with staff, preparing an annual training plan

Medium Term: potentially requiring legislation 

Medium term actions require working with other stakeholders such as Legislators, Regulators, Unions and the Treasury to find common ground to build the case for change.

In the private sector, contractual incentives such as performance related pay tied to the delivery of annual targets is common at managerial levels.  This should be considered as it is a key enabler of cultural change whilst balancing this with the complexity of amending existing contracts. Similarly, modernisation of working practices whilst enhancing workforce skills thus improving employability and future job security should be an integral part of collective bargaining negotiations.

Government should consider restructuring and headcount reductions both in Whitehall and arm’s-length bodies, ALBs and review the internal processes which enable this, including managing poor performance.  Currently if an ALB wants to launch a voluntary redundancy scheme, it must obtain formal approval from its parent department and the Treasury (above a threshold) which can be time consuming.  This is in addition to formal staff engagement and due process.

Lastly, in order to reduce multiple layers of regulation and governance, a review of legislation will be required, For example the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was established by primary legislation under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 but the Secretary of State is able to issue statutory instruments and secondary legislation to update or refine the scope of the Act.  Where multiple layers of governance exist, simplification is essential, which leads on to the second key area, ecosystem.

2. Ecosystem

The machinery of government – its processes, governance frameworks, digital systems, and infrastructure – too often feels like wading through treacle. Bureaucracy and duplication sap energy and slow delivery. The private sector has long embraced simplification and standardisation to drive efficiency. This is the essential foundation that determines whether an organisation can deliver services smoothly, affordably, and at scale.  This has the twin advantages of reducing embedded costs and making it easier to “get stuff done”.

Why is this relevant? We need only to look at failures in day-to-day service delivery such as waiting times on government helplines or spiralling costs of projects such as High Speed 2 and even Parliament’s own renovation project to see some of the issues first hand. 

Day 1: Tangible steps to an ecosystem that enables rather than frustrates.

Simplification & standardisation 

Standardisation and simplification is the essential first step, cutting unnecessary process steps, freeing up staff from box ticking and releasing them to customer/mission focused activities. There are many processes which lend themselves to simplification, from investment decisions to project assurance and day-to-day processes which needlessly slow the process of getting the main job done.  Benchmarking plays an important role here so we know what “good” looks like and can set targets accordingly.

Digital Structures

Day-to-day processes lend themselves to standardisation and digitisation, and potentially, as in the private sector, outsourcing. For example: accounting transactions, and payroll provision can be moved to a shared service centre with the benefit of economies of scale. The NHS Shared Business Services provides an example of this and a similar entity could be set up for other quangos. Shared services should be the presumption, rather than the exception. 

Other processes might remain inhouse but have the potential to be digitised. For example, following induction training I was given a proof of training printed onto paper, which then had to be cut, laminated as a card and carried at all times to be shown on demand.  

Shadow IT is a major issue in the public sector. The National Cyber Security Centre explains that Shadow IT is any software, hardware, cloud services or AI tools used by employees for business purposes without the knowledge, approval, or oversight of a company’s central IT department. Shadow IT may include legacy systems, or software procured as a “work around” as following the process is too difficult/time consuming. The organization may have a partial list of Shadow IT but lack the resources (financial and people) to replace it. Shadow IT can pose major risks which must be managed and investment should be prioritised by a future Government.

Risk Management

According to “The Orange Book” published by the Government, risk is defined as the effect of uncertainty on achieving objectives, encompassing both negative threats and positive opportunities. Many organisations focus only on risk management rather than looking at opportunities. For those focusing on risk management, it can be limited in scope and focused on regulatory requirements.

In my experience, it is important to revisit the risk management approach to consider a wider sphere of influence. For example, decisions made due to risk aversion can have unintended consequences of slowing down processes and increasing risks elsewhere. For example, approaches to reduce risk in medical procedures may have improved patient outcomes (a good thing) but may also have slowed the rate of treating patients, increasing the length of the waiting list (not so good). This has the net effect of increasing the risk for those patients waiting (e.g. suffering further deterioration/ requiring more acute care when they reach hospital). Given the millions of patients waiting for treatment, this is significant. Has this approach reduced risk overall or just moved it out of sight?   

Medium Term: Update the Green Book Revisit Treasury technical guidance

Readers may be familiar with the Treasury’s Green Book which determines how the Government appraises policies and projects. This was updated earlier this year to reduce the regional investment disparities. In my view, it requires further updating to enable cost saving decisions and accommodate necessary IT spend. Even if an investment pays back within the year, it cannot be made if the departmental capital expenditure limits (or CDEL as it is known) has been reached. We need an “invest to save” category.

As technical guidance, The Green Book does not require an Act of Parliament to update it, but given the nature of consultation required between departments and multi-year spending settlements, this requires diligent up-front work prior to a Spending Review.

A second area of concern is how decision makers are often incentivised to delay a decision rather than take a decision. The rules need to recognise that delaying decisions and expenditure is not cost neutral. For example, project cost increases over time due to inflation and there are unavoidable costs associated with mobilising a project team only to then stand it down before re-mobilising it again. This cycle can be repeated on infrastructure projects where the final investment decision is unpalatable, so a review is seen as a face-saving way forward.

3. Accountability

Finally, clarity over who is responsible for what remains elusive. Politicians often feel accountable without authority, while officials may hold authority without true accountability. As the debate over Mandelson’s security vetting showed, there is even a lack of clarity in responsibility between government departments and Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs). 

Without a sharper line of sight between accountability, responsibility and delivery, reform efforts will continue to falter.   

Day 1: Tangible steps to an accountability structure that rewards delivery 

Simplified Single Point Accountabilities

I’ve already discussed changes needed in the leadership culture and simplified ecosystem of processes that also contribute to improving accountability. 

For example, at times, decision-making disperses into endless committees and gatekeepers. As I have experienced, if an investment decision has to go through over ten levels of approval then each committee begins to question the value added at their level. Does the scrutiny really add value or does it simply delay the decision-making process, ultimately adding unnecessary cost and process inertia. If there is a simplified process with clear accountabilities that reward delivery, this will be a significant step forward with a sharper line of sight between accountability, responsibility and delivery.

Independent Non-Executive Directors from the Private Sector 

The role of the Non-Executive Director (NED) has evolved alongside the growing importance of corporate governance. Introduced in the 1980s to bring independence and external insight to company boards, NEDs were designed to complement the work of Executive Directors and strengthen decision-making. In the public sector, the introduction of NEDs gained real momentum in 2010, when Lord Francis Maude established Departmental Boards. The Cabinet Office expanded this and sets out clear expectations for NEDs to contribute independent judgment, impartiality, and broad professional experience to the governance of public bodies. This provides an opportunity to bring in external expertise and challenge from the private sector at the highest level.

Medium Term: potentially requiring legislation 

A review of ALBs or “quangos” is needed to reduce complexity and simplify remit including:

• Bringing policy focused work back into government departments 
• Adding sunset clauses for new quangos to make efficient use of Parliamentary time
• Empowering delivery based ALBs to deliver their core remit and remove all non-core activities such as those required under the Public Sector Equality Duty, restoring clarity of purpose.
• Reducing the number of ALBs to delivery focused ALBs and removing the “middle men”

The NHS provides a salutary example of the impact of this complexity with multiple governance structures, regulatory requirements and conflicting purposes which illustrates these suggestions. There are multiple layers from the Secretary of State, Department for Health and Social Care, NHS England (soon to be abolished), NHSE Regional Teams, Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), NHS Trusts, Trust Boards, Management etc and in addition there are multiple Regulators. There is also the complexity of core purpose with a plethora of reporting indicators required by these various bodies, pressures to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty, the requirement of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to reduce health inequality outcomes and statutory climate change duties. From an NHS Trust Board perspective all of this must be monitored with processes and IT systems which were not set up for this purpose. If an acute hospital must reduce health inequality outcomes how is it practically to deliver this?  For example, it is recognised that obesity is a driver of health outcomes.  Should reducing obesity be a primary role of the hospital or would the public prefer they focus on reducing waiting lists?

In Conclusion

Turning around the public sector is harder than turning around a business – but not impossible. With the right leadership, vision, and tools, even large organisations can transform. The state can too. Imagine a system that does fewer things but does them well. Imagine a culture that empowers rather than obstructs, an ecosystem that enables rather than frustrates, and an accountability structure that rewards delivery rather than delay. The outcome would be customer-focused services, a slimmed down State, and highly effective and motivated Public Sector.

The question is not whether change is possible, but whether we as a nation are ready to embark on this difficult journey. The prize is nothing less than a state that works better, costs less, and serves us all. A State that works for us.

Alison Rodwell

Alison Rodwell is the founder of Impact the Future which equips business leaders to play an active role in transforming the Public Sector.  

23^th September 2026