For government to break out of the loop of demand for public services and innovate out of the current situation, it needs to find a way, over time, to prioritise prevention over day-to-day expenditure. This paper looks at how to shift the culture of public organisations to think ‘prevention first’ and target spending at activities which promise value for money and improve outcomes. 

A ‘preventative shift’ is needed, but current institutional structures and behaviours are key barriers to delivering that shift. The shift to prevention is about funding mechanisms and government initiatives. But it is also about stimulating a cultural shift across the system to prioritise prevention. This paper develops the case for how Preventative Departmental Expenditure
Limits (PDEL) could help to achieve a ‘preventative shift’ that changes the culture within policymaking and better enables the government to achieve long term missions.

Preventative Departmental Expenditure Limits (PDEL), or any type of preventative expenditure classification, seek to provide strategic and operational impact on the way that the government carries out its work. The ‘theory of change’ is that by identifying the spending, it can be prioritised, written into the fiscal rules more clearly and the government can be held to account for delivering on its commitments.