It’s sticks and carrots from the Health Secretary as he attempts to boost face-to-face surgery appoinments.
All I am trying to do is give impetus to a national conversation about how our education system should prepare our young people for the future.
The cuts will carry on through 2015 and beyond. If services such as the police are to flourish, they must deliver more for less.
It’s a good time to revisit our recent series on the Coalition’s successes and failures. Marks out of ten included.
Andrew Haldenby is Director of the independent think tank Reform. Its new research “Must do better” is available at www.reform.co.uk. Follow Reform on Twitter. A couple of days ago, Michael Gove took a teaching union to task for its opposition to reform. In one respect, however, he and the NAHT are on the same side, which may give him […]
Andrew Haldenby is Director of Reform. Follow Reform on Twitter. “Whitehall reform: the view from the inside” is available at www.reform.co.uk Whitehall reform was not on the agenda of the Conservative Party in Opposition. When Francis Maude became Minister for the Cabinet Office in 2010, he actually said that he wanted to defend Whitehall, for example by banning […]
Andrew Haldenby is the Director of the pro-market think tank Reform. Follow Reform on Twitter. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice published data on prison performance for the first time. It showed that private prisons were outperforming the public sector in regards to drug treatment of prisoners, numbers of suicides and staff sickness absence […]
Andrew Haldenby is the Director of the pro-market think tank Reform. Its report, "Reformers and wreckers" is available at www.reform.co.uk. Today's TUC Congress is important because of the barrier that the organisation represents to the Government's public sector reform agenda. This week it will set out its opposition to free schools, academies, reforms to public sector […]
Andrew Haldenby is the director of Reform. When David Cameron set out his five principles of reform this week, he forgot one: choice and competition. The Government thinks it is being clever about language – that they can still do choice and competition without talking about it. But it cannot do so while opposing them, […]
Andrew Haldenby is the Director of Reform Yesterday Reform brought together 170 people to discuss "Building the Big Society" (twitter feed #reformbigsoc). The event aimed to shed light on this powerful idea and to understand better how to achieve it in practice. Oliver Letwin (Minister for Government Policy), Bernard Jenkin (Chair of the Public Administration […]
Andrew Haldenby is Director of the independent think tank Reform. Today’s announcement by the new False Economy campaign should give heart to supporters of public service reform. The campaign has found evidence of 50,000 NHS job losses over the next five years. Reform’s previous research has shown that public sector job numbers must fall, by […]
Andrew Haldenby is Director of the independent think tank Reform and is co-author of its new report, The Front Line, which is published today. Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron have taken the position that public spending must be cut but that “front line services” must be protected. The title of the Government’s efficiency paper […]
Andrew Haldenby is Director of the independent think tank Reform. There must be a general election coming. Every time a politician mentions a good idea, their opponents leap onto exactly the same square of territory. Invitations for today’s speech by David Cameron for Reform were sent out last Thursday. On Friday, Liam Byrne, the reforming […]
Andrew Haldenby is director of the think-tank Reform and co-author of Fit for Recovery, a report it is publishing today which concludes that since a healthy society will be an essential component of a swift economic recovery, both Government and the private sector must tackle public health issues. You can download the report here. The […]
The performance of the service is a product of a series of poor choices over the years. Putting those choices right would see it improve quickly.