Policy report
Coronavirus hotel quarantine: key questions for the government
The UK government is finalising arrangements for a partial hotel quarantine system to begin on 15 February 2021. This paper outlines those gaps and challenges, posing a series of questions the government must answer if it wants its quarantine system to be a success.
Report
Moving out: making a success of civil service relocation
This report argues that relocations, particularly for public policy and other specialist roles, should focus on improving the capacity of the civil service by widening the pool of highly skilled workers available to it.
Report
Decision making in a crisis
The coronavirus pandemic required the UK government to take high-stakes decisions under conditions that make good policy making hard. This report examines three key groups of decisions made by the government in its early response to the pandemic: the economic support package, the commitment to...
Report
Government outsourcing: when and how to bring public services back into government hands
This report identifies four circumstances in which governments should consider returning a service to the public sector: an unhealthy or uncompetitive market; the need for flexibility to make changes to the service; a lack of government commercial skills to manage an outsourced contract successfully; or...
Policy report
Government outsourcing: what has worked and what needs reform?
The role of external suppliers in delivering services to the public and to government has been expanded significantly over the past forty years. This report assesses where outsourcing has worked and where it has not, and why, and makes recommendations on how to improve the...