For better and smarter public services
Improving home affairs and criminal justice policies is a major public policy challenge. Police forces need continued reform and more effective collaboration, prisons face high incarceration and reoffending rates, and the borders are increasingly under pressure and must prepare for the outcomes of Brexit.
Reform undertakes work on how the right workforce, performance measures, devolved structures and technology can support services through these challenges.
Commenting on the 2019 Spending Round, Charlotte Pickles, Director of the Reform think tank, said:
“Today’s spending review is an electioneering fudge. The Chancellor committed to ‘keep control’ of public finances while splurging cash and pledging to rewrite the fiscal rules.
“While additional investment in public services is needed, without any analysis by the government’s fiscal watchdog, the Chancellor has no idea whether the £13.8 billion spending increase is sustainable. And the uncertainty around Brexit only heightens this risk.
“Sajid Javid was right to talk about public services as lifelines of opportunity. Increased investment in left-behind communities, FE, bus services and tackling homelessness is overdue. But the huge and unevidenced injections of cash for criminal justice, education and NHS services appear to be more about winning votes rather than transforming lives.”
