According to Mariana Mazzucato, every £1 of public money spent on net zero delivers between £2.20 and £4.10 in return. This statistic underscores the potential of mission-oriented government, a concept Labour embraced in its 2024 landslide victory but has since failed to implement effectively.
Labour's Lost Mission Agenda
Labour won the July 2024 election on a promise of five national missions, inspired by Mazzucato's book Mission Economy. However, the mission agenda was treated as a communications exercise rather than a governing architecture. The Mission Delivery Unit, established in the Cabinet Office, was dissolved in autumn 2025 and replaced with a No 10 team focused on three short-term priorities: reducing NHS waiting lists, securing the border, and tackling the cost of living.
Additionally, the Treasury failed to align its fiscal framework with mission goals, and the industrial strategy reverted to identifying eight 'high growth' sectors, contradicting the logic of missions. Defining economic growth as a mission itself was a mistake, as growth is an outcome, not a goal.
Positive Steps and Unfinished Tasks
Despite these setbacks, important changes were made. Rachel Reeves updated fiscal rules to consider what the UK owns, not just what it owes, and established the National Wealth Fund and Great British Energy. These steps yielded results: low-carbon sources produced 73.3% of energy generation in 2025, up from 60.3% in 2023.
However, achieving the full mission agenda requires deeper state transformation. As Andy Burnham prepares to take over, Mazzucato's UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose outlines five key changes in a new report, From Mission Talk to Mission Delivery.
Five Changes for Mission Delivery
1. Whole-of-Government Approach
Missions require a central coordinating unit with real authority, backed by No 10, the Cabinet Office, and the Treasury. The UK can learn from Brazil, where tackling the ecological crisis is a priority of the president's office. Industrial strategy should be redesigned around challenges like health or clean water, not sectors.
2. Fiscal Reform for Long-Term Investment
The Office for Budget Responsibility's analysis shows a 1% increase in public investment generates an 8.7% return over 10 years. The UK's fiscal framework should adopt public sector net worth and extend the horizon from three to 10 years to capture this upside.
3. Mission-Aligned Policy Tools
Public procurement, worth £341bn a year, is underused. A mission-oriented approach would buy outcomes, not cheapest products. The National Wealth Fund should act as an investor of first resort, funding innovative projects aligned with missions.
4. State Capacity
Decades of outsourcing have hollowed out the civil service. The government's new public interest test is promising, but ministers must conduct a comprehensive review of skills and cultural shifts needed for transformative policy.
5. Co-Creation with Citizens
Missions gain legitimacy through genuine ownership by citizens, workers, and communities. This requires deliberative forums, citizens' assemblies, participatory budgeting, and meaningful trade union involvement. Investing in arts and culture as social infrastructure for the green transition is also crucial.
Burnham has called for an end to '40 years of neoliberalism.' But confronting Britain's challenges requires building concrete partnerships between the state and private sector, where business produces value rather than extracting it. Labour must work symbiotically with business, sharing risks and rewards under a robust governance architecture that delivers for people in the near-term.
