Last week, chancellor Rachel Reeves said that her government was “renewing Britain” but acknowledged that “too many people in too many parts of the country are yet to feel it.” It’s a stark admission that raises a fundamental question: how does the government know whether people’s lives are truly improving?
Despite the sea of data available to UK ministers, there remains a yawning gap between what is measured and what matters.
If we are serious about improving lives, government must embrace a strategic, outcomes-based approach to public spending. In simple terms, this means less of a focus on the money going in and a greater focus on the difference being made.
Helpfully, the Spending Review commits to a new “planning and performance framework” to track performance against outcomes and value for money. That’s an intriguing and promising step but it must be more than a technical fix. It needs to be part of a broader cultural shift in how government defines and achieves progress.
I know that civil servants play a crucial role in paving the way for institutional change. Luckily, they don’t need to look far for inspiration. Across the UK, devolved governments have already embraced wellbeing frameworks and ways of working. Scotland’s National Performance Framework, Wales’ Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, and Northern Ireland’s Outcomes Delivery Plan all provide population-level indicators that are designed to align the efforts of central and local government, arms-length bodies, and the third sector to realise specified outcomes.
Internationally, countries like New Zealand, Iceland, and Finland have pioneered wellbeing budgeting, where public spending decisions have been explicitly tied to long-term outcomes. These models show that it’s possible to embed strategic decision-making into the heart of policymaking and public spending – if there is the political will and institutional support to do so.
The UK government already has a foundation to build on: the Office for National Statistics’ Measures of National Wellbeing. This dashboard offers a holistic view of progress across economic, environmental, and social dimensions. It paints a detailed picture of how people in the UK are living, in a way that labour market and GDP figures alone never could. Yet, it remains underutilised in Whitehall, and following recent announcements it isn’t clear whether the ONS is committed to resourcing it properly in future.
Meanwhile at Carnegie UK, we produce our Life in the UK Index – a tool that helps policymakers understand whether we are living better or worse over time. It was borne out of a powerful idea that if we want to improve lives, we need to measure the right things.
But measurement alone is just a starting point. Civil servants must also help embed strategic approaches that are based on a clear, shared vision for the future of the country. One such approach is the development of an outcomes framework to connect what government measures to how it allocates resources, and importantly how it is held accountable for progress.
This requires a cultural shift in how government works. It means moving away from short-termism and siloed thinking, and towards long-term, cross-cutting approaches that focus on prevention and shared outcomes. The Spending Review documents suggest that the UK government is serious about reform (in more ways than one); ministers’ hands have been forced by both demographics and the state of the public finances. But the Treasury seems to have bet the house on digitisation, while the spectacle of departmental ministers pleading with the chancellor to protect their siloed budgets suggests wider change is required, not least to resource the cross-cutting missions.
The Spending Review’s commitment to a new planning and performance framework is an opportunity for change, bolstered by language suggesting that central government will devolve power to local areas to design services with people, in partnership with civil society. But this will only succeed if it is grounded in a whole-of-government approach that values collective wellbeing or improved lives as the core outcome. That means evolving the ONS wellbeing measures dashboard into a comprehensive strategic outcomes framework, drawing on best practice from across the UK and around the world, and embracing new ways of working.
Civil servants can lead this transformation. They can champion the use of wellbeing data, support the development of strategic frameworks, and help embed these approaches into budgeting and performance management. They can also foster a culture of collaboration and learning across national and local government, and with the third and private sectors.
Renewing the UK means renewing how we define and deliver progress. It means moving beyond narrow metrics and embracing a broader vision of what it means to live well together.
Sarah Davidson is chief executive of Carnegie UK and former director general of the Scottish Government