Publications
Mar
2010
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.
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
Thursday 14th January, 2010
Changing the Channel: A case for radical reform of the Public Service Broadcasting in the UK
The current UK Broadcasting system which was set up in the 1950s is struggling to keep up with the extraordinary changes of the digital age. It is clear that the 20th century analogue institutions that were created are now worryingly out of date.
This report warns that public service broadcasting needs to be radically overhauled if it is to survive in the new digital age. It calls for the BBC to place quality before ratings, and stop spending huge resources on sports rights, programmes for 16 to 35 year olds and popular entertainment, which other channels would deliver anyway. Instead of crowding out commercial schemes, the BBC management should spend up to 5% of total licence fee income on co-funding PSB programmes on other channels.
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £10 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Tuesday 12th January, 2010
An Agenda for Better Regulation
Regulation is never off the political or media agenda. Every time something goes wrong there are calls for new regulation, better regulation, more regulation and tougher regulation. At the same time, in a sort of parallel universe, there are regular reports that regulation has gone too far.
Individual decisions on regulation are frequently taken in isolation of either of these trends , and many regulatory or deregulatory initiatives fail, either because they are knee jerk reactions or because they are not properly thought through or implemented.
In this report, author Mark Boleat sets out some guiding principles for regulation covering in particular effective policy making, enforcement, combating "backdoor regulation", funding and evaluation.
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £10 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
