Good piece Joe, best I’ve read on the failure of the missions. However I do take issue with this: “Why did a Government with such a specific theory of change, and so much time in Opposition to prepare, abandon their plan within a year of taking power?”
Sadly it’s increasingly obvious that there actually was no such theory of change, nor proper preparation in opposition, nor an actual plan - not for missions or any part of its governing agenda.
Brilliant analysis of why the mission aproach collapsed under its own weight. The part about 'mission washing' to protect budgets really gets at how quickly ambitious frameworks get coopted by existing incentives. I saw something similar at a previous company where OKRs becamejust another layer of bureaucracy rather than forcing actual prioritization. The distinction between technological vs performance missions feels especially sharp when governmnent already struggles with basic service delivery.
In terms of what should replace it, a move towards genuine decentralisation and fiscal devolution. Get local issues off the national government's plate, and THEN focus on what issues remain.
Until we recognise England's system of governance is outdated and in need of fundamental replacement, we will not see any transformative change. Tinkering yields minimal results. I also think people do not appreciate that if Reform were to win the next general election, it would not simply take the centre and national issues--it would take control of almost everything.
That is the real, under-discussed vulnerability of the British state. In the UK, a change of government does not just mean a change of ministers; it means a change of direction for housing, transport, planning, skills, public health, and the finances of local government, all at once, across the entire country. Our system is not built to absorb political shock. It amplifies it.
Compare that with the United States. Whatever one thinks of President Trump’s presidency, the day-to-day lives of most Americans are shaped far more by their city halls, state legislatures, and governors than by the White House. Schools, policing, zoning, transport, and large parts of taxation are controlled locally or at state level. When the centre lurches, the periphery largely carries on. Cities and regions are not just administrative outposts of Washington, DC; they are autonomous political and fiscal entities with their own mandates and resources.
I predict both Labour and Conservative parties will have wished they devolved true power (including power of the purse) to the local level if and when Reform takes over.
Good analysis. They were clearly doing different things for different people. I wonder if it goes wrong on metrics. Maybe hold it looser on people focused outcomes - work & income, relationships, health (physical & mental & environment) - monitored by select committee groupings.
I’m not sure this has to be more complicated than “the people in charge of the missions don’t actually have much incentive to deliver them”— of course they fail if that’s true, and it’s not surprising if missions led by people with something on the line turned out better.
It might literally just be this: find an outside expert, say “succeed at this and get an enormous reward,” and leave them alone. Then they’re not in the same position as someone who thinks about a mission while thinking about other things. That’s not really a mission, then? It’s a thing which has been labelled “a mission.” The task of the person who has it is broader and pulls in loads of different directions.
To me this is not a minor point: this is a core reason why you would actively expect a project to fail. It’s simple, but in this case it also really matters; it’s “give the person with the mission an incentive to complete the mission, and do not incentivise them to do something else”
good read, thanks. Another issue is that trump is delivering at speed. You may not agree with the policies, but he is taking the sort of clear and rapid action voters want. If he can deliver his manifesto, unacceptable though it may be, why does starmer find it so difficult to deliver his policies. This is a fundamental challenge to centrist/moderate governments that want to preserve existing bureaucracies that voters do not see as responsive to their needs and interests.
The basic issue is that the underlying mission axiom that Government can deliver to grow the economy is wrong. You can’t “public sector” your way out of where we are and this logic is completely flawed. Beyond a certain point taking money from the private sector and giving it to the public sector is value destructive. To put it another way, taxing business to pay for unconstrained welfare which has an accelerating growth rate will inevitably impair and reduce / eliminate economic growth. That’s before we get to all the Regulation, planning reforms etc etc
The economic basics of value for money, capital allocation Theory, taxation policy (ha ha), non reform of welfare etc etc are all violated by a bunch of socialist politicians & civil servants who are clueless re how businesses works and are ideologically arrogant to assume they know how to grow the economy.
The debate we should be having is how we pare the state back to the minimum, ensure we look after the truly vulnerable, reward the front line workers in the Public sector, fix those parts of public services that need fixing but CULL all the other parts to use funds to promote economic growth. Reducing the VAT threshold, NI on employers reversed etc etc.
If you start with the wrong premise this is where you get to.
Yet again we have the wrong Government/PM for the wrong time:
- Teresa May for Brexit
- Boris for Covid
- Liz Truss going too fast
- Rishi trying to clear the mess up
- Starmer trying to grow the economy using socialist ideology re Tax / public sector spending
And we have an oversized civil service with its own aims that delivers unbelievably poor value for Taxpayers.
So how do we change. Evidence to date is that external events (fiscal crisis) when we are “done unto” looks like the only way.
Good piece Joe, best I’ve read on the failure of the missions. However I do take issue with this: “Why did a Government with such a specific theory of change, and so much time in Opposition to prepare, abandon their plan within a year of taking power?”
Sadly it’s increasingly obvious that there actually was no such theory of change, nor proper preparation in opposition, nor an actual plan - not for missions or any part of its governing agenda.
Brilliant analysis of why the mission aproach collapsed under its own weight. The part about 'mission washing' to protect budgets really gets at how quickly ambitious frameworks get coopted by existing incentives. I saw something similar at a previous company where OKRs becamejust another layer of bureaucracy rather than forcing actual prioritization. The distinction between technological vs performance missions feels especially sharp when governmnent already struggles with basic service delivery.
In terms of what should replace it, a move towards genuine decentralisation and fiscal devolution. Get local issues off the national government's plate, and THEN focus on what issues remain.
Until we recognise England's system of governance is outdated and in need of fundamental replacement, we will not see any transformative change. Tinkering yields minimal results. I also think people do not appreciate that if Reform were to win the next general election, it would not simply take the centre and national issues--it would take control of almost everything.
That is the real, under-discussed vulnerability of the British state. In the UK, a change of government does not just mean a change of ministers; it means a change of direction for housing, transport, planning, skills, public health, and the finances of local government, all at once, across the entire country. Our system is not built to absorb political shock. It amplifies it.
Compare that with the United States. Whatever one thinks of President Trump’s presidency, the day-to-day lives of most Americans are shaped far more by their city halls, state legislatures, and governors than by the White House. Schools, policing, zoning, transport, and large parts of taxation are controlled locally or at state level. When the centre lurches, the periphery largely carries on. Cities and regions are not just administrative outposts of Washington, DC; they are autonomous political and fiscal entities with their own mandates and resources.
I predict both Labour and Conservative parties will have wished they devolved true power (including power of the purse) to the local level if and when Reform takes over.
Good analysis. They were clearly doing different things for different people. I wonder if it goes wrong on metrics. Maybe hold it looser on people focused outcomes - work & income, relationships, health (physical & mental & environment) - monitored by select committee groupings.
I’m not sure this has to be more complicated than “the people in charge of the missions don’t actually have much incentive to deliver them”— of course they fail if that’s true, and it’s not surprising if missions led by people with something on the line turned out better.
It might literally just be this: find an outside expert, say “succeed at this and get an enormous reward,” and leave them alone. Then they’re not in the same position as someone who thinks about a mission while thinking about other things. That’s not really a mission, then? It’s a thing which has been labelled “a mission.” The task of the person who has it is broader and pulls in loads of different directions.
To me this is not a minor point: this is a core reason why you would actively expect a project to fail. It’s simple, but in this case it also really matters; it’s “give the person with the mission an incentive to complete the mission, and do not incentivise them to do something else”
good read, thanks. Another issue is that trump is delivering at speed. You may not agree with the policies, but he is taking the sort of clear and rapid action voters want. If he can deliver his manifesto, unacceptable though it may be, why does starmer find it so difficult to deliver his policies. This is a fundamental challenge to centrist/moderate governments that want to preserve existing bureaucracies that voters do not see as responsive to their needs and interests.
The basic issue is that the underlying mission axiom that Government can deliver to grow the economy is wrong. You can’t “public sector” your way out of where we are and this logic is completely flawed. Beyond a certain point taking money from the private sector and giving it to the public sector is value destructive. To put it another way, taxing business to pay for unconstrained welfare which has an accelerating growth rate will inevitably impair and reduce / eliminate economic growth. That’s before we get to all the Regulation, planning reforms etc etc
The economic basics of value for money, capital allocation Theory, taxation policy (ha ha), non reform of welfare etc etc are all violated by a bunch of socialist politicians & civil servants who are clueless re how businesses works and are ideologically arrogant to assume they know how to grow the economy.
The debate we should be having is how we pare the state back to the minimum, ensure we look after the truly vulnerable, reward the front line workers in the Public sector, fix those parts of public services that need fixing but CULL all the other parts to use funds to promote economic growth. Reducing the VAT threshold, NI on employers reversed etc etc.
If you start with the wrong premise this is where you get to.
Yet again we have the wrong Government/PM for the wrong time:
- Teresa May for Brexit
- Boris for Covid
- Liz Truss going too fast
- Rishi trying to clear the mess up
- Starmer trying to grow the economy using socialist ideology re Tax / public sector spending
And we have an oversized civil service with its own aims that delivers unbelievably poor value for Taxpayers.
So how do we change. Evidence to date is that external events (fiscal crisis) when we are “done unto” looks like the only way.