State should adopt ‘test and learn’ approach from start-ups – Pat McFadden
Senior Cabinet minister Pat McFadden will announce plans to ‘test and learn’ new ideas within Government borrowed from the world of big tech.
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Your support makes all the difference.The state needs to become “more like a start-up”, a senior minister will say as he launches efforts to reform public services backed by £100 million.
Pat McFadden, who oversees the Cabinet Office, will call for the civil service to adopt the “test and learn” culture used by digital companies.
The minister, whose title is Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, will warn: “If we keep governing as usual, we are not going to achieve what we want to achieve.”
In a speech at University College London’s East Campus in Stratford on Monday, Mr McFadden will add: “Test it. Fix the problems. Change the design. Test it again. Tweak it again. And so on, and so on, for as long as you provide the service.
“Suddenly, the most important question isn’t ‘How do we get this right the first time?’, it’s ‘How do we make this better by next Friday?’
“That’s the test and learn mindset, and I’m keen to see where we can deploy it in Government. Where we can make the state a little bit more like a start-up.”
The minister will launch a £100 million “innovation fund” to underpin his plans, which will be used to deploy “test and learn teams” in public services around the country.
That’s the test and learn mindset, and I’m keen to see where we can deploy it in Government. Where we can make the state a little bit more like a start-up
The test-and-learn approach is used across the business world, and allows new ideas to be tried out on a small scale to see their impact before being rolled out more widely if they are successful.
Under the plans, the test and learn teams will be set a challenge and allowed to experiment and try new things to meet it.
Mr McFadden will compare these reforms with what he will describe as the “pointless distractions” and “headline-grabbing gimmicks” of the previous government.
Two projects on family support and temporary accommodation will be the first outing for the test-and-learn approach.
These will begin in January 2025, with teams deployed in Manchester, Sheffield, Essex and Liverpool.
While Mr McFadden will acknowledge “each of these projects is small”, he will say “they could rewire the state one test at a time”.
The Cabinet Office minister will also encourage people from start-ups and tech companies to enter Government for six- to 12-month “tours of duty”.
This will be aimed at putting their skills to use tackling big challenges such as criminal justice or healthcare reform.
The Tories urged Labour to do more to cut back on bureaucracy.
Richard Holden, a shadow Cabinet Office minister, said: “The bureaucracy of the British state urgently needs cutting back, which is why at the general election we had a plan to reduce it to pre-Covid levels, plans Labour opposed.
“Everything Labour has done so far has been to swell the size and cost of the state, on the backs of workers, pensioners, farmers and family businesses across the country.
“Labour ministers talk tough, but from bitter experience, we know that’s all it is – glib platitudes and broken promises with British taxpayers picking up the bill.”