The new government is pursuing a different approach to governing, what it calls “mission-driven government”. Key to achieving this is a strong partnership with business, because without the resources and expertise of the private sector, it will not be possible to deliver the missions.

However, this has been something that UK Governments have struggled to achieve for several decades. For example, for every pound of government investment spent, business invests around £3. In contrast, Germany and France both achieve levels of business investment at double the rates achieved by the UK. If the UK could match French levels of ratios of government/business investment, the UK would leap from the worst performing country to the second best performing
country in terms of investment.  

Getting the environment for partnership between government and business will require changes on both sides. Businesses need to become more collaborative and think about the wider interests of society. Government will need to be more deliberative in the way that it develops policy and commits to long term plans.

The authors identified six barriers that need to be tackled in order to encourage stronger partnership working: 

1. Lack of coherent long term plan for the economy 
2. Policy instability 
3. Ineffective incentives 
4. Cultural immaturity 
5. Excessive short-termism in business 
6. Lack of shared institutions.

In order to address these barriers, the authors identified six policy options: 

1. Publishing a Medium Term Economic Strategy 
2. ‘Policy Locks’ to tackle policy instability 
3. A comprehensive review of tax incentives
4. Conditionality to create new expectations of business 
5. An updated Companies Act 
6. A new shared institutional architecture.