Press Releases

Tuesday 31st August, 2010

Making Housing Affordable: A new vision for housing policy

A new report from think tank Policy Exchange published today calls for a radical overhaul of housing policy, saving taxpayers around £20 billion a year.

The report finds that Britain is suffering from a housing crisis affecting both social tenants and those struggling to afford to buy their own home.

It calls for a big increase in the number of new homes being built for sale or rent in areas of high demand, with social housing tenants given new ways to get onto the first rung of the housing ladder.

Local people will get a veto on how much, if any, development is allowed near them through ballots of those directly impacted. Cash incentives will be available to those affected to help persuade them to vote yes.

Wednesday 18th August, 2010

Three quarters of public have 'no confidence' in how youth offending is being tackled

Think tank Policy Exchange today highlighted the problem of youth offending, and called for the scrapping of the ineffective and expensive Youth Justice Board, a move which would save the Ministry of Justice – under enormous pressure to cut departmental spending  - almost £100 million over 4 years.

Policy Exchange found that:
•    A survey conducted by the Ministry of Justice reported that - whilst 80 per cent of people believe that the criminal justice system respects the right of people accused of committing a crime – just 24 per cent have confidence in how young people accused of committing an offence are dealt with.

•    There has been a halving in the number of convictions for young men.   This decline cannot be explained by changes to court procedure nor offending behaviour of the youths.  Instead, it is due to changes in police practices and in particular, greater use of cautions.

•    At the same time, according to Home Office Statistics, 49% of young people (aged 10 – 25) report committing at least one criminal offence over a four year period.   22% admit to having committed one in the last 12 months.

Wednesday 18th August, 2010

Two and a half thousand police on sick leave or restricted duties

Think tank Policy Exchange today highlighted new figures that reveal there are at present around two and a half thousand police officers in London are on some kind of sick leave or restricted duties.

Of the 33, 105 police officers in the capital, seven and a half percent of them, 2, 485, were found to be on restricted duties, sick leave or recuperative duties.   In the worst performing borough, Havering, one in every seven police officers is not employed to their full capacity.

Max Chambers, Research Fellow in Policy Exchange’s Crime and Justice Unit said:

“We knew that thousands of police officers are chained to their desks because of bureaucracy, but the revelation that thousands more are at home on restricted duties or long term sick leave is deeply concerning."

Tuesday 17th August, 2010

Green levies on power bills are set to triple over next decade

New research from think tank Policy Exchange reveal how the total levy in energy – effectively tax to pay for climate and renewable energy policies - is set to soar by 2020. The figures reveal that by 2020, the cost of policies like the Renewables Obligation and Feed-in Tariffs – which pay householders to produce power uneconomically through technologies like solar – will hit over £16 billion a year.

That is a tripling in less than a decade, and equivalent to 4p on the current basic rate of income tax, or 2 per cent of total forecast tax revenues in 2020.

Friday 30th July, 2010

Teacher Expertise for Special Educational Needs

This research note shows that special schools are suffering from a desperate shortage of teachers trained to deal with pupils with special needs, i.e. those with conditions ranging from dyslexia through deafness to behaviour problems.

A Policy Exchange survey revealed that just 5 per cent of special schools found it easy to recruit teachers with the right training. Almost three-quarters – 73.2 per cent – said they found it hard or very hard to recruit properly trained staff.

Twenty-six per cent of the schools surveyed reported that less than a quarter of their staff had any sort of training. On average, just 39 per cent of teachers and support staff had any qualification in Special Educational Needs (SEN). An even smaller number – 30 per cent – had a qualification directly relevant to the particular needs of the children they were teaching.

Tuesday 27th July, 2010

Greener, Cheaper

The report, Greener, Cheaper, says that for too long, criticism of the costs of reducing carbon has been left to those who do not believe that climate change is a genuine threat.

It argues that it is time that those who take the threat seriously also took the costs seriously. Taking carbon out of the economy will be difficult and expensive, and policies which increase costs for British consumers and British businesses without improving the outcome are extremely unhelpful. Public support and economic viability are going to be crucial for decades if long-term success in the battle against climate change is to be achieved – and cost-effectiveness is critical to both.

Tuesday 27th July, 2010

Paying for an ageing population - options for funding long term care in an era of spending cuts

The Commission on the funding of care and support long-term announced by the Coalition Government  should not consider paying for care solely through general taxation, says think tank Policy Exchange today in its latest report Careless: Funding long term care for the elderly.

The report says that free personal care funded out of general taxation, as was introduced in Scotland in 2002, could cost the Government up to £106 billion each year – the equivalent to funding a second NHS.  It recommends instead that the Commission considers three specific funding models: the King’s Fund partnership model; a social insurance model as used in Europe, and a hybrid model whereby the State guarantees some level of care, but people are required to top-up for their long term care through insurance or annuity backed products.

The report also found that the NHS already spends about 4% (£4.23 bn) of its budget on social care.  The largest tranche of public funding for social care is however routed through local authorities (£7.21 bn).  Careless strongly recommends that the Commission considers merging this social care budget with the NHS - as the services are largely interdependent.

Wednesday 14th July, 2010

The Devolution Distraction: How Scotland's constitutional obsession leads to bad government

Scottish politicians should end their obsession with constitutional tinkering and instead focus on reforming the economy and public services, according to a new report from think tank Policy Exchange.

The report says that since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999, the Scottish Government has ignored many of the deep-seated social and economic problems faced by the country.  Author Tom Miers blames a “deeply conservative” Scottish political establishment that opposes reform. Instead it is obsessed with its relationship to the rest of UK – even though Holyrood already has all the powers it needs to improve life north of the border.

Without reform, Scotland’s public services have stagnated.  The problem is not a lack of money, as Scottish public spending is 12% higher as a share of GDP than the UK average. Scotland’s taxpayers are getting poor value for money.

Friday 18th June, 2010

Controlling Public Spending: Pay, Staffing and Conditions in the Public Sector

A major new report from Policy Exchange today finds that public sector workers now enjoy better pay than private sector workers, as well as better pensions, shorter hours, and earlier retirement.

On an hourly basis, the typical public sector worker is now 30% better paid than the typical worker in the private sector. On top of this, public sector employees have better pensions. The difference is worth an extra 15% of their salary. Over their lifetimes, people in the private sector work 23% more hours (equivalent to 9.2 years of a public sector employee’s working life) – where their public sector counterpart will either be on sick leave, holiday, strike or in retirement.

The report also puts the true size of the public sector at over 7 million people, with the number of employees growing five times more quickly than in the private sector between 2002 and 2009. Since 2002 the public sector wage bill has increased three times faster than the private sector wage bill, growing by 33% in real terms, or £67 billion.

Wednesday 16th June, 2010

Nearly a third of benefits paid to people who are 'wealthier than average'

New analysis of official figures by think tank Policy Exchange today reveals that 32% of all benefits paid last year went to households that are wealthier than average - a total of £53 billion - as a result of these people paying tax and then being “given” their own money back, minus huge administration costs.

Of the major benefits:

•    43% of Child Benefit (£4.8 billion) goes to those on above average incomes.  Likewise:
•    25% of Incapacity Benefit (£1.5 billion)
•    40% of Disability Living Allowance (£4.2 billion)
•    13% of Tax Credits (£3 billion)