Downing Street must quickly reform Whitehall if it wants to recover from Covid

Incoming Deputy Director of Onward, Adam Hawksbee, wrote for The Telegraph about the need for Whitehall to reform their approach to the levelling-up agenda and deliver short-term, visible changes, whilst having a long-term agenda. He writes:

“He will have to reconcile a tension at the heart of the agenda: that transforming the UK’s economy will take decades, but voters expect results within months. Indeed, the greatest risk with any political agenda is over-promising and under-delivering.  

The way to avoid this fate is to put a premium on speed. Levelling-up requires Whitehall to work much faster, and more flexibly, than it does traditionally. The last two years reveal what can be done. The Vaccines Taskforce, led by Kate Bingham, moved at an unprecedented pace to put the UK at the front of the queue for vaccines. Her message on applying lessons from ‘wartime to peacetime’ are simple: adopt an innovator’s mindset, empower experts with real world experience and promote public leaders who get things done.”

You can read the full article here.