Publications Archive

Reversing the ‘Widget Effect’ welcomes the government’s introduction of performance pay in schools. The report shows that performance-related pay has been implemented in other countries without adverse effects for teachers or students, and finds that overwhelmingly teachers want to be paid based on the quality of their teaching. The report stresses that the system implemented must be fair and transparent in order to succeed, and sets out what a well-designed system would look like.

On 21st November 2013, Policy Exchange held a roundtable discussion on ways to improve the emissions performance of London’s road transport, and how local and national government policy can develop to reduce pollution and improve public health. This publication is a summary of the remarks made at that event.

This report argues that a rigid ringfence around UK banking activities risks creating a swathe of unintended consequences including further closures of high street branches and even the end of ‘free’ banking. However, due to the amount of political capital already expended on legislation, ringfencing legislation is unlikely to be abandoned, so the report sets out a number of recommendations to ensure that UK banks remain competitive and are in a position to be able to lend to businesses and consumers.

Reforming Public Appointments shows that equality policies set up under the last government are failing to promote people from working class communities to public office. It calls for an extension of the entire equalities policy to increase representation of people from routine and manual occupational backgrounds, and for greater transparency about the membership of interviewing panels for public appointments.

Britain’s urban green spaces are coming under pressure, with financial and development constraints, coupled with a surprising lack of data, raising the possibility of a decline in the quantity and quality of our urban green spaces. Park Landcalls for a new freely-available national urban green space map for the UK to help make sure people living in cities have adequate access to good green spaces, test whether public money is being well spent and allow clever innovations in improving green spaces to be easily shared.

Taxing Issues? examines the barriers to home ownership, including the pros and cons of introducing new land and property taxes. The report argues that the best way to bring down the cost of home ownership and tackle market volatility is to scrap increases in property taxes, urging policymakers instead to focus on building 1.5 million new homes by 2020.

A new Policy Exchange report, The Fog of Law, co-authored by Tom Tugendhat and Laura Croft, shows how the application of civilian norms to military conduct has led to a surge in legal claims against the Ministry of Defence (MOD). The costs of litigation have now risen out of proportion with forecasts, with the number of claims brought against the MOD totalling 5,827 in 2012-2013.

A new Policy Exchange report, The Fog of Law, co-authored by Tom Tugendhat and Laura Croft, shows how the application of civilian norms to military conduct has led to a surge in legal claims against the Ministry of Defence (MOD). The costs of litigation have now risen out of proportion with forecasts, with the number of claims brought against the MOD totalling 5,827 in 2012-2013.

Public sector workers in the North East, Merseyside and South West of England earn as much as £3,200 more than their equivalents in the private sector. The variation in pay has arisen because of the system of national pay bargaining, which means that workers are paid the same amount regardless of where they live. The paper recommends abolishing national pay deals and moving to a system which can reflect local labour markets and reward performance.

New polling conducted for Policy Exchange has found strong public support by a margin of nearly 5 to 1 for the introduction of workfare schemes. While the report warns against rolling out workfare for large numbers of benefit claimants as too costly and potentially detrimental to some, it does argue that the government should pilot workfare schemes for specific groups of jobseekers.

Centres of Excellence? acknowledges that families from all backgrounds face rising childcare costs. However, it argues that in a time of stretched budgets, supporting high quality care for children from deprived backgrounds offers greater value for money than subsidies to the richest parents. It also argues that the government is right to allow childcare to be delivered in a range of settings, rather than just Children’s Centres.

This report finds that Town Centre First, a policy intended to support the high street by limiting out-of-town shopping centres, has decreased competition between retailers, damaged the social fabric of communities and caused price rises of at least £1,000 a year for the average household. Town Centre First should be replaced with an ‘Access First’ policy, focussed on giving low income households access to social and retail hubs, but not restricting where these retail centres should be built.

Cultures of Dependency says that in the future employment support must better understand the pressures that families, social networks and communities put on unemployed people. Devolving power and money would allow individual Jobcentres to pilot new innovative ways of delivering local personalised support to help people find a job. Support could also be targeted at whole families, peer groups or estates in order to tackle serious barriers to work like a poor work ethic or family problems.

Smaller, Better, Faster, Stronger shows how government could save as much as £70 billion by 2020 if it adopted plans to eliminate paper and digitise its activities, work smarter with fewer staff in Whitehall, shop around for the best procurement deals, and accelerate the use of data and analytics.

On 25th June 2013, Policy Exchange held a roundtable discussion to consider whether the increased volume of UK waste exports creates risks for the waste industry and whether policy makers should intervene in the current market. This publication is a summary of the remarks made at that event.

Capping Welfare argues that post 2015, cutting Winter Fuel Payments or TV licences for pensioners is ‘simply tinkering around the edges’. Cuts to these pensioner perks would save at most £3 billion even if there were completely removed. In contrast, the State pension costs are set to rise by some £40 billion in today’s terms the next 50 years. This would mean younger generations saddled with enormous financial burdens.

The Work Programme is not doing enough to help those furthest away from the labour market. Route2Work says that paying private and voluntary providers to help people back into work is a sensible approach to reducing unemployment. However, there needs to be a new complementary scheme that encourages and rewards charities, social enterprises and small-scale providers to help the most vulnerable people.

If the Cap Fits says that the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is currently too weak, which could lead to a surge in new coal generation. It will also fail to meet the European Union’s own carbon reduction objectives. The paper argues that a more ambitious cap on Europe’s emissions is essential and makes recommendations for reform.

Future Prisons calls for the government to shut more than 30 run-down and poorly-located prisons and replace them with 12 state of the art ‘Hub Prisons’, containing up to 3,000 inmates. The new prisons would lead to huge costs savings, a reduction in reoffending rates and a better quality of life for prisoners and prison staff.

Privatising the Banks examines four scenarios for the state to sell off RBS and Lloyds, arguing that the best approach will be a mass share distribution coupled with sales to retail and institutional investors. Under the mass share distribution, applying taxpayers will receive shares worth £1,100-£1,650 on a no upfront cost, no risk basis.

Rebooting the PC urges police chiefs not to put ‘buildings before bobbies’. The police could save money and offer a better service to the public by closing out of date police stations and opening more local police offices in shopping centres and other popular public locations.

Better Public Services: A Roadmap for Revolution, calls for a number of changes in the way services are delivered which puts power firmly in the hands of the public.

On 14th February 2013, Policy Exchange held a roundtable discussion to help stimulate debate on what success for proposed new regulation of the energy retail market would look like and how it could be measured. This publication is a summary of the remarks made at that event.

Policy Exchange’s response to the DWP’s labour market interventions consultation, Slow Progress says that there must be greater conditions for in-work claimants to ensure that they are doing all they can to increase their hours and earnings. The introduction of Universal Credit this year provides the government with an opportunity to ensure that workers reliant on state benefits are explicitly asked to do more to find more work where possible.

Bank lending to private companies in the UK has fallen in every single year since the financial crisis, dropping a staggering £57 billion since 2008. Capital Requirements: Gold plate or lead weight? says that the primary reason for this lack of credit is due to the financial regulator’s desire to raise the capital requirements of UK banks.

Councils that fail to hit their own housing targets should have to release land to local people who want to design their own homes. The government could use this self-build model to ensure that councils hit their housebuilding targets, doubling the amount of new homes to over 200,000 by 2014 and giving the construction sector a much needed shot in the arm.

Outcomes, Not Just Incomes says that nearly one in five children (2.3 million) across the UK are living materially deprived lives and are not included in the government’s headline measure of relative income poverty. This is despite £170 billion of expenditure between 2003 and 2010. The report identifies a number of problems with the existing measure of child poverty and recommends a new Child Poverty Bill that would measure social poverty as well as household income.

Expanding Payment-by-Results argues that plans to privatise the probation service, underpinned by a ‘payment-by-results’ mechanism, will only work if the prisons system is wrapped into the reforms and prison governors are directly incentivised to cooperate with the new private and voluntary providers who are due to take over probation services.