Cabinet minister pledges to make government more ‘start up’

A cabinet minister is set to pledge that the government will become “more like a start up” ahead of the launch of a £100m fund targeting public service reform.

Pat McFadden will call for Whitehall to adopt a ‘test and learn culture’, stating: “If we keep governing as usual, we are not going to achieve what we want to achieve”

Speaking at University College London in Stratford on Monday, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is expected to launch a new fund focusing on efficiency in bureaucracy.

“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,” McFadden will say.

“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 new fund will create test-and-learn teams which will be deployed around the country, and will begin with two projects: Family support and temporary accommodation.

“On temporary accommodation, we want them to begin by looking at how we can reduce costs,” McFadden will say. “And on family support, they’ll be looking at how family hubs can increase the number of disadvantaged families that they reach.”

While McFadden will acknowledge “each of these projects is small”, he will say “they could rewire the state one test at a time.”

Instead of writing complicated policy papers and strategy documents, the government will ask the teams to experiment, innovate and try new things.

McFadden will also be encouraging those working for start ups and tech companies to enter government for six to twelve month “tours of duty”, pushing them to use their skills to tackle ‘big challenges’ for the government.

Furthermore, to attract the best people to come and work in government, the minister will say there’s a need to “fundamentally overhaul how recruitment is carried out across the civil service.”

“Right now, if you’re an outsider, the process can be mind bogglingly bureaucratic and off-putting,” he will say.

“Applications can take days to fill in, and if you don’t understand the civil service process, good external candidates can find it near impossible to jump through the hoops.”