A devastating new report has exposed fundamental flaws in the Labour government's approach to fixing Britain's public services, blaming a severe lack of strategic planning during its time in opposition.
Chaotic First Year in Government
According to the Institute for Government (IfG), Prime Minister Keir Starmer entered government without a clear blueprint for achieving his targets, resulting in haphazard attempts to reform everything from the health service to the courts. The annual report presents a damaging overview of what it describes as an occasionally chaotic first year for Labour, during which the party has slumped in the polls.
Nick Davies, a programme director at the IfG and one of the report's authors, stated bluntly: "Starmer went into government with a set of missions, but no clear idea about how to achieve them or how those targets fit together in any meaningful way."
Critical Assessment Across Public Services
The comprehensive analysis examined a range of essential services and found that Labour has made good progress in only one area: improving children's social services. The researchers credited this success to a focus on early intervention and reducing reliance on residential care.
Elsewhere, the picture appears far bleaker. The government has made some, but insufficient, progress on prisons. In five other service areas - including GPs and hospitals - there has been little or no progress. Most alarmingly, in adult social care, government actions over the past year have actually made the situation worse.
Davies highlighted a central problem: "There has been a void at the heart of government when it comes to public services. Starmer must urgently get a grip if Labour is to enter the next election having delivered tangible improvements to the services upon which the public depends."
Contradictory Policies and Coordination Failures
The report identifies significant coordination failures between government departments. For instance, while Health Secretary Wes Streeting has emphasised moving people out of hospitals and into community care, the government has increased NHS funding more substantially than local government funding, which actually pays for adult social care.
Ministers have also made decisions that appear to contradict each other. The government decided to change NHS care board boundaries to align with those controlled by regional mayors, despite a separate review of local government boundaries still being underway.
"All of the anchor organisations which are going to deliver the government's reforms are going through huge change all at the same time," Davies noted, referring to the simultaneous reorganisation of NHS England, integrated care boards, and local government.
In response, a government spokesperson defended their record: "We are already delivering real change for people across the UK, including cutting NHS waiting lists, launching free breakfast clubs for schoolchildren and starting a £5bn Pride in Place fund." They emphasised that day-to-day spending will be over £50bn higher annually by 2028-29, with capital investment increased by over £100bn over the next five years.
