Publications
All Policy Exchange publications are free to download in .pdf format. You can also purchase hard copies of the majority of our reports – check each individual report page for details.
Recent Publications
Work 2.0: Helping the hardest to help: targeted assistance, incentives and the Work Programme
Work 2.0 provides a blueprint for how the Work Programme – the government’s flagship welfare-to-work policy – should be improved, including ideas on how to better assess jobseeker needs, how to integrate the Programme into the structures of Universal Credit, and how to better recognise local labour market conditions.
Primary Focus: The next stage of improvement for primary schools in England
A “perfect storm” of challenges could see over 3,000 primary schools (20%) falling below the government’s tough new minimum standards in 2016. Primary Focus says the most effective way to ensure teachers and schools have the capability and capacity to cope with these challenges is to convert all primary schools into Academies, and then ask each school to join an Academy ‘chain’ by 2020.
Silicon Cities: Supporting the development of tech clusters outside London and the South East of England
The technology revolution is failing to reach all parts of Britain. Silicon Cities argues that ‘clusters’ – geographic concentrations of interconnected companies and institutions in a particular field – are the most effective way of boosting the technology sector across the country, and makes a number of recommendations as to how this can be achieved.
The Estate We’re In: Lessons from the Front Line
Written by inner-city crime writer Gavin Knight, The Estate We’re In calls for politicians from all parties to pledge to turn around the most deprived council estates within the next decade. The report highlights how decades of neglect and ghettoization have led to acute social problems and, using case studies to extract best practice, draws out the key lessons for policymakers in how to turn around the worst housing estates.
Green Society: Policies to improve the UK’s green spaces
Parks and other urban green spaces are highly important to the social and economic wellbeing of the country. However, as local authority budgets have been squeezed, public funding of parks and open spaces has declined. In light of this, Green Society suggests a number of innovative ways to protect and improve the UK’s urban green spaces including the idea of a council tax rebate for local residents who volunteer to maintain nearby green spaces.
Only A Matter of Time? A framework for the most effective way to lengthen the school day in England
Both Labour and the Conservatives have recently called for more schools to run longer days – either to provide more opportunities for extra curricular activities, to help learning, or to provide a safe and secure place for childcare for working parents. Our report, and accompanying polling from YouGov, looks at what a longer day might look like in practice.
Joined Up Welfare: The next steps for personalisation
Read Publication Jobcentres are failing to help people find long-term work and should be restructured under new plans that will enable private companies and charities to compete with government providers to offer more personalised and specialist support to jobseekers....
The Global Economy: Prospects for growth and assessing the UK’s position
By 2050, global output is projected to treble, with two-thirds of growth coming from emerging economies. The developed world will have to change radically if it is to adapt to this new environment successfully. To realise the opportunities of the next four decades successfully – for the developing world to adapt to dramatic social and economic changes, and for the developed world to face its structural, fiscal and demographic challenges and ‘pay its way’ in the years ahead, it is vital that these long-term issues are addressed.
Getting Interconnected: How can interconnectors compete to help lower bills and cut carbon?
Connecting the UK to power stations in other countries could help bring down energy bills and meet our decarbonisation targets. Getting Interconnected shows that interconnectors could save British consumers as much as £1bn a year, as well as allowing access to zero-carbon electricity. The report calls for overseas generators to be allowed to compete for government subsidy in the new capacity market and endorses ways to ensure that revenue supports development of new interconnector links.
Technology Manifesto 2014
Politicians and policymakers must put technology front and centre of their thinking for the 2015 general election. This manifesto sets out three principal goals: to build the world’s most connected and digitally skilled society; to make Britain the most attractive place outside of Silicon Valley for technology entrepreneurs to start and grow a business; and to make our government the smartest in the world.
