This report, drawing on previous Institute for Government reports, highlights the four areas that offer the greatest opportunity for the new UK Government to ensure that its fiscal policy best helps deliver its priorities and ends by setting out how these could be enacted in legislation.

Fiscal policy-making in the United Kingdom has been far from perfect. Problems like short-termism, policy churn and gaming of the system are often blamed on fiscal rules. This report examines whether that is fair, or whether these issues are rooted more deeply in the underlying fiscal framework. It also makes recommendations for strengthening fiscal policy-making.

This report documents how different types of evidence feed into tax policy-making. It aims to help external stakeholders understand how the evidence they produce is used and how they could better feed into policy-making, and offers the government recommendations for how it can use such evidence more effectively.

This report examines the UK Treasury’s role in designing and delivering economic support schemes – as well as the problems that undermined government decision making. It draws on over a year of research and conversations with former Treasury officials and others who worked with the department during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After any change of prime minister or general election, a new administration is likely to bring both new policy priorities and new ministers. But making change in policy is not only about policy design and delivery, it is also about paying for those changes and using the resources of the department well. New ministers, particularly...