Publications
Mar
2010
Thursday 11th March, 2010
Fighting Fraud and Financial Crime
The present arrangements for fighting serious fraud, corruption and financial market crimes are lamentably deficient. The haphazard development of the Government agencies tasked with tackling these crimes has created a system of overlapping responsibilities for investigation and prosecution, a dispersion of powers and caused unnecessary duplication of manpower and specialist resources. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, our criminal justice system struggles to cope with complex fraud trials and if the perpetrators of these crimes are to be brought to account, important changes to the criminal law need to be made.
Downloads • full publication
Wednesday 10th March, 2010
The Renewal of Government: A Manifesto for whoever wins the next election
Renewal of Government is a short analysis of the many issues facing Britain today. It recommends a root-and-branch reform of public policy, and shows in detail how to implement it.
This book proposes many different ways to make public sector organisations more dynamic and less bureaucratic. It looks at whether there are alternative, non-statist ways to achieve the objectives of public policy. And a consistent theme throughout the book is the need to swap central targets and controls for the right structures and incentives.
Across many different fields we find that the answer is to devolve control and accountability to the local level. We find that government policy fails whenever it does not enable people and communities to take responsibility for their own lives.
So in the end, the central message of the book is that central government cannot solve all of our problems, and must instead set us free to improve our own lives and communities.
Coverage • Guardian • Daily Mail • Telegraph • ConservativeHome
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £15 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Wednesday 3rd March, 2010
Escaping the Poverty Trap: How to help people on benefits into work
There are 5.8 million people on benefits in Britain. This year, the welfare bill will be £81 billion. If the people who have recently started claiming social security and are struggling to find work do not get jobs soon, the personal and social costs of the rise in unemployment will be catastrophic.
The report recommends reducing the expected rises in benefits over the next few years, tapering away the Family element of the Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit at 39% once the Child Element has been exhausted and raising the earnings disregard for all means-tested benefits to £92.80.
Coverage • The Telegraph • The Express • politics.co.uk • publicfinance.co.uk • ConservativeHome • leftfootforward.org
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £10 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Feb
2010
Wednesday 17th February, 2010
The Cost of Cancer
The UK currently has a cancer death rate 6% higher than the European average. However if the survival rates were improved in England to a level commensurate with the best in Europe, on a cumulative basis by 2020, 71,500 lives could be saved and total costs could be reduced by £10 billion.
The report highlights late diagnosis, poor survival rates for older people and those in deprived communities, and relatively poor take up of new treatments and technologies as being the most likely causes behind the UK’s comparatively high mortality rate. Key recommendations include the Department of Health identifying and adopting the best practice in cancer services from high-performing European countries, focusing resources where largest reductions in mortality can be achieved and focusing on cancer prevention strategies.
Coverage • Sky News • The Mail • The Express • The Star • Reuters • The Times • freshbusinessthinking.com • Health Insurance & Protection
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £4 + £1p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Thursday 11th February, 2010
More Fees Please?
By Anna Fazackerley and Julian Chant
The Government must raise the cap on top-up fees to avoid a serious deterioration of quality in our universities. More Fees Please? warns that with the Government’s student loan debt expected to rocket to £55 billion by 2018, the Treasury will not be able to afford a rise in fees without a radical change to the system of student support. The report recommends that students from the wealthiest households are removed from the public student loans scheme, and offered a loan from a regulated private loan scheme at a lower than commercial rate of interest instead.
Coverage • Times Higher Education • BBC News • Guardian BBC Radio 5 Live • BBC Today Programme • The Telegraph • The Sunday Express • Belfast Telegraph • Metro • Politics.co.uk • ConservativeHome
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £10 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Wednesday 10th February, 2010
Saving Grace: reforming the presentation and composition of current savings policies
Saving money in the good times gives security against the bad times. It also helps to generate a pool of capital that can be drawn on when expensive things, like the university education of a child, need to be paid for. A high savings rate should also keep financial demands on the state down, as the more financially independent the population is the smaller the number of people likely to need emergency help. Since Labour entered government in 1997 it has developed several schemes for encouraging an increase in the rate of saving. But because much of it has been insufficiently co-ordinated it is now time to develop a holistic approach that makes saving consistently attractive.
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £4 + £1p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Sunday 7th February, 2010
A State of Disorder: Moving beyond the ASBO in tackling anti-social behaviour
Anti-social behaviour is inherently difficult to tackle. It covers a whole range of behaviour (some, but not all of it criminal), is hard to define, even harder to measure, is not the responsibility of any one agency and has a variety of social and economic causes. Making a real impact is possible, but it will require a new approach – one which:
• emphasises the importance of local leadership and self-governance;
• reinvigorates local policing through enhanced accountability and freedom from central direction;
• encourages personal and community responsibility through building social capital; and
•is based on the best available evidence about what works to reduce anti-social behaviour.
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £10 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Monday 1st February, 2010
No Place Like Home
Written by James Groves
The need to ensure a secure, safe and stable home environment for every child cannot be overstated. For many of those children for whom the state has to provide long term ‘looked after’ care, the chance of an adoptive home offers the best opportunity to benefit from the stability and security of which they have been deprived. Yet, despite significant financial investment and considerable political will, the number of children in care who have been successfully adopted across England has fallen in recent years.
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £4 + £1p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Monday 1st February, 2010
Running on Empty
Written by Andrew Brinkley and Robert McIlveen
We face an uncertain energy future, but one thing is for sure: we will be more dependent on gas in the next decade, and more of that gas will be imported. A low-carbon economy, once created, promises to reduce our dependence upon fossil fuel exporting countries as well as cutting our carbon emissions. However, between here and that promised land lies a decade of difficult choices. This is a reality which is still not being properly addressed by policymakers. We must come to terms with the implications of gas dependence, and the price we might have to pay to deal with it.
With old coal-fired and nuclear plants closing down in the latter half of the next decade before sufficient new nuclear, renewable or coal plants with carbon capture and storage can be built, we will be relying on gas to keep the lights on. This “energy crunch” in generation capacity will stretch our resilience – and our faith in liberalised markets – to the limit. It also raises serious questions about the price we will have to pay for our security – and whether we will have to sacrifice climate goals for energy security.
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £4 + £1p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Jan
2010
Wednesday 27th January, 2010
Negotiating the Next Climate Change Treaty
Written by Scott Barrett
Edited by Robert McIlveen
Copenhagen is the new Kyoto, and it may turn out to be little better than its predecessor.While there are demands for a deal all around, the design and content of that deal has received less attention than it deserves. The approach taken at Kyoto and Copenhagen, of legally binding aggregate targets, is not working. It lacks credible enforcement mechanisms.
There is a better way. The Montreal Protocol, which dealt with ozone-depleting substances, is a model of success. Not only has it phased out substances such as CFCs which damage the ozone layer, it has done more to mitigate climate change than Kyoto even aspired to achieve. Treaty negotiation is complex and difficult. Yet if we are not to end up with a lowest-common-denominator treaty which achieves nothing, several key things need to be in place.
This report not only sets out an alternative approach; it also develops the reasoning behind it.While the result will be imperfect and is not, by design, as cost-effective as a Kyoto-style approach would have been if it had worked, the approach outlined has a much greater chance of actually delivering significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, as the case of HFCs demonstrates, it already has.
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £10 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
