Learning from crisis: How to embed mission-led government

Too often, government does its best work when it is in a crisis. The most prominent example in recent years is how the Government vaccinated tens of millions of people within a year of Covid-19 being declared a pandemic. It required collaboration across many Whitehall departments, private sector partners, academia and, most critically, engagement with the public to deliver a shared outcome. This form of working is, of course, not unique to times of crisis. It has been tried many times, from the Grand Challenges in the last government’s Industrial Strategy, through joint units on cross-cutting issues such as air quality or moving whole functions to the Cabinet Office. But the external crisis did create a culture where old ways of working were more quickly moved aside.

The new government’s focus on ‘missions’¹ is an attempt to sustain the silo-busting, testing-and-learning, rigorously outcome-focused ways of working that are often found only in those times. But without a crisis to clearly justify a large commitment of government resources, more structure will be required to ensure value for money and avoid the excesses associated with emergency responses.

How can government learn from crisis response to permanently embed the mission-led approach? We have identified three levers:

1. Use the new Digital Centre of Government to confront barriers to data sharing

A lack of data-sharing agreements and infrastructure often hinders collaboration, both within and between departments, and even more so with local government or other partners in the third or private sectors. The Institute for Government recently recognised that better data sharing ‘saved countless lives’ during the pandemic but has sadly represented the ‘high watermark’ of data use.²

The government clearly recognises this and has already introduced a digital centre of government, with DSIT adopting a clear remit for setting cross-departmental standards.³ Bringing together previously disparate parts of government, there is already evidence of clearer political leadership and a stronger vehicle for the delivery of technology-driven transformations.

The government should go further by using the missions as an opportunity to increase cross-departmental data sharing. The new centre must use its influence to consider reform of foundational institutions like the National Data Library whilst also constructively engaging with public mistrust of how data is used and protected.

However, each mission will require collaboration from a different set of actors. On the reduction in violent crime mission, sharing court data between the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice would help, but other missions will require different data to be shared or to join sub-national datasets on health, crime and education. The common approach that the centre should take is to get to the root cause of what is blocking data sharing currently (often a combination of culture, ownership, legislation and standards), clearly articulate the value of data sharing and champion steps taken to remove these.

2.  Engage with the market as a single, intelligent customer

Commercial practice in government too often assumes that requirements can be defined upfront with suppliers and then assessed on the lowest cost. Current processes and practices don’t leave suppliers with enough ‘freedom within the frame’ to truly innovate, meaning departments can easily get trapped getting the same things, delivering the same outcomes. This is not suitable for the testing-and-learning approach that is required for missions, nor does it allow sufficient focus on wider public value. The Industrial Strategy Council recognised that the willingness to commit public money to de-risk private vaccine development was critical to success and shaped the market in a socially desirable direction.

The upcoming Procurement Act gives departments an opportunity to strengthen relationships between suppliers and stakeholders. But it’s not yet clear how much of a step-change from existing processes the Procurement Act will be.

Whether this is a Mission Board or on another forum, commercial must be part of the initial shaping of target outcomes for the mission, so the opportunity to consider how the market could evolve and strategic consideration of public value are reflected in the overall mission objectives. To take advantage of this new structure and the upcoming Procurement Act, target commercial outcomes in this body should not be pre-specified requirements but should focus on specifying target outcomes in line with the mission and let the market innovate.

3. Design incentives for cross-departmental collaboration to the way funds are allocated

The Spending Review process and the accountabilities of permanent secretaries for managing public money to Parliament do not incentivise cross-government collaboration, even when most people working in the ‘system’ agree that more cross-government work generates better outcomes.

In Covid-19, the Vaccine Taskforce was funded outside the Spending Review process to deliver whole system outcomes. An NAO report praised the cross-system coordination role played by the Taskforce as funded by the Treasury.

The government has already indicated that the Spending Review process will embed a mission-led approach and that departmental expenditure limits will be set for multiple years.

But the first Spending Review still required departments to bid and negotiate individually. The successful Shared Outcomes Fund, where departments could only access funding by collaborating, provides a model to consider. The Mission Boards already established should play a role in coordinating bids for future reviews. They should also recognise the declining record of government major programmes (45% were red and amber last year, a significant increase from the last decade).

This is an opportunity to change how programme spending is issued and tracked, moving to a real-time output-based analysis to produce dashboard information as close to real-time as possible. This should allow progress against missions to be better measured against the agreed outcomes, allowing more unsuccessful projects to be turned around or stopped and successful ones to be scaled.

In summary

Missions provide a valuable opportunity to embed the most effective ways of that Government operates, as demonstrated by the relative success in responding to the Covid-19 crisis.

However, without an external crisis to focus and galvanise the system, there could be significant resistance in trying to embed these methods. By examining the characteristics of how data, commercial practices and funding were utilised during the Covid-19 response—and how these differed from their use in more stable times—we can identify key areas of opportunity to enable their effective use.

Integrating these successful practices into the fabric of ‘how’ Government works are fundamental in transforming Government to be truly mission-led. To find out more, get in touch with Matt Jones and Tom Schneider.

Footnotes

¹ Mission-driven government
² Data sharing during coronavirus: lessons for government
³ DSIT bolstered to better serve the British public through science and technology