The Week 8 September 2023

Parliament is back and so is ‘The Week’.

Aside from the mini Government and midi Opposition reshuffles, this week has been all about concrete. First it was schools, then it was hospitals, now it's theatres and housing. This is, of course, the RAAC problem. Which is in turn a short-termism problem.

At?Reform?we’re often banging on about this pathology, which leads to poor decision-making and a less effective State. RAAC is the perfect example: ignore the problem to avoid short-term expenditure, only to, entirely predictably, have to pick up the bill in emergency spending while simultaneously disrupting children’s schooling. See also social care, prevention, infrastructure…

In fact, RAAC is just a small part of the mind-bogglingly large maintenance backlogs across the public sector estate. When former PM Boris Johnson announced his 40 ‘new’ hospitals, we at?Reform?suggested the Government might want instead to focus on tackling the more than ￡10 billion NHS maintenance backlog.

The failure to invest in this physical infrastructure has a direct impact on public service productivity, with large swathes of the estate not fit for purpose, or even unusable.

It’s no different to public sector digital infrastructure – resistance to (short-term) upfront investment in new tech has left services reliant on clunky and expensive legacy systems. These systems are also often hard to draw data from, not interoperable with other systems, and require manual interventions. Bonkers.

At?Reform?we’re excited for the new term, with a big programme of research to publish in the run up to Winter (it’s too early to mention Chr*stmas, right?). We have four events in just the next two weeks and then a fantastic party conference programme. And, we’re recruiting, so look out for some new faces.

It’s good to be back!

Have a great weekend, and come on England!

Charlie

Director