Continuing my approach of being fashionably late to trends, I've started a new Substack to delve into things a bit more. First post is on young people, ahead of the Milburn Review. To do better we need a more youth-friendly jobs market; more active support; and joined up systems 🧵

ONE MILLION REASONS TO ACT: THREE FAULTLINES THAT UNDERPIN OUR NEET RATE

To reduce the number of young people not in education, employment or training we need a youth-friendly labour market, active engagement and support of young people, and a more joined up system

stephenevansuk.substack.com

🎉NEW HEALTH PUBLICATION🎉 Today, Re:State has a new publication exploring the importance of infection prevention in healthcare settings, drawing together insights from our Labour Party Conference roundtable with @kevinmckenna.co.uk MP and @lewisatkinson.bsky.social MP.

Tomorrow the Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo gives her first annual lecture, on the topic of "Rewiring the State and the Future Civil Service". My latest post on the @re-state.bsky.social blog covers what she should use it to announce. restate.substack.com/p/eight-ways...

Eight ways the Cabinet Secretary could fix Whitehall

What Antonia Romeo should say in her annual lecture

restate.substack.com

Review of the Civil Service:- Here's what Antonia Romeo should say to the Prime Minister:- ukcivilservant.substack.com/p/review-of-...

REVIEW OF THE CIVIL SERVICE – DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS

In July 2026 Cabinet Secretary Dame Antonia Romeo announced a review into the organisation, performance and transformation of the permanent civil service, which she would lead lead, and which would li...

ukcivilservant.substack.com

As covered by the Telegraph this morning, today we have published a new report on how to fix the procurement market, with our own draft of the National Procurement Policy Statement - guidance which the government could issue to change how the public sector buys. re-state.co.uk/publications...

As we publish our new draft of the National Procurement Policy Statement, our Director of Strategy @jo3hill.bsky.social has written about the case for our procurement reforms on the Re:State Substack.

Joe Hill@jo3hill.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I just can't be stopped from writing about how to reform procurement! But today we've gone one better - we've actually rewritten the statutory guidance (the NPPS) which would make 90% of the important changes the government needs to make. Read about it here. restate.substack.com/p/how-to-fix...

I just can't be stopped from writing about how to reform procurement! But today we've gone one better - we've actually rewritten the statutory guidance (the NPPS) which would make 90% of the important changes the government needs to make. Read about it here. restate.substack.com/p/how-to-fix...

How to fix public procurement

One simple way to get better value for money.

restate.substack.com

Unbelievably excited to be publishing this report today, following a lot of thinking on fixing the structural problems in public procurement over the last few months. The £395 billion a year public procurement market makes up c.12% of GDP - it's essential the Government gets this right.

Re:State@re-state.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🚨New report: we have published a new draft of the National Procurement Policy Statement - the guidance issued by government to public sector organisations on how they should do procurement. Our draft fixes problems caused by bad policy in the current NPPS. Linked here re-state.co.uk/publications...

All the chat about scrapping the triple lock in order to pay for social care is totally missing the fiscal point Ofc we need to scrap the triple lock (among other things)... to address the terrifyingly unsustainable fiscal trajectory Not to spend it elsewhere restate.substack.com/p/getting-se...

- Honestly my dear grandchildren, you’ll never believe how low rates were in the 2010s. - at least you built a load of infrastructure when borrowing costs were so low grandad? Right? Right?

Really pleased that today we've published "No Job for the Centre: the case for devolving employment support"! We argue that to be coherent, the devolution of employment support should include the services currently provided by DWP through Jobcentre Plus - and that JCP should be scrapped.

Britain is facing a participation crisis & we're relying on an outdated, distrusted institution to tackle it Times to abolish Jobcentre Plus... 🧵

It has been an epic week at @re-state.bsky.social towers! 📈On Tuesday, we launched a new welfare workstream with an incredibly compelling substack from Chief Exec @charliepickles.bsky.social on how "we broke the welfare state". It is well worth a read: restate.substack.com/p/how-we-bro...

How we broke the welfare state

Why a “revolutionary moment” is a “time for revolutions”

restate.substack.com

I've been wanting us to write this one for a while... One more sleep! 👀

Our Chief Executive, Charlotte Pickles @charliepickles.bsky.social, joined @watchinvert.bsky.social to discuss social care and our proposal for a Later Life Care Fund, set out in our report 'Beyond caring'. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D_Y...

Welfare Expert: 1 In 4 Pensioners Is A Millionaire. You Can’t Afford A Flat.

YouTube video by Invert

youtube.com

How should we reform welfare? Well, Britain is an outlier when it comes to disability-related benefits - eligibility & assessment is less strict - evidence requirements lower - incentives & conditionality weaker - support services poorer - extra costs payments higher 🧵

My absolute favourite event we hosted at last year's Labour Party Conference was with Kanishka Narayan on the future of UK AI policy. Couldn't be a better time to be getting him back again for round two in Liverpool, as part of @re-state.bsky.social 2026 Party Conference Programme!

Machinery of government changes rarely make headlines, but they shape how policy actually gets made. Our Director of Policy & Research @stkaye.bsky.social appeared in front of MPs today to talk about what the recent restructure actually means for technology policy and digital government.

DWP has just published a flurry of new data on how PIP and UC-Health assessments are carried out (face-to-face or via phone, video or paper) and whether this impacts who gets awarded health-related benefits. Five takeaways 🧵

🎉Our new 'Re:Imagining Welfare' workstream has launched🎉 We like to focus on the most thorny, important and consequential policy problems, so welfare certainly meets our criteria. The workstream launches with a call-to-arms essay from Chief Exec @charliepickles.bsky.social. Read it below👇

Nobody wins in the welfare system. Today we're launching @re-state.bsky.social new 'Re:Imagining Welfare' programme with an essay from @charliepickles.bsky.social arguing that we broke it ourselves, through a series of bad choices. Essay linked below, more to come in the next few days. Standby.

How we broke the welfare state

Why a “revolutionary moment” is a “time for revolutions”

restate.substack.com

'How we broke the welfare state' Today @re-state.bsky.social is launching it's latest workstream - 'Re:imagining Welfare' and I've written an essay to set out our stall I think the system is failing almost everyone. I think Beveridge would be appalled. restate.substack.com/p/how-we-bro...

How we broke the welfare state

Why a “revolutionary moment” is a “time for revolutions”

restate.substack.com

Great that the overnight visitor levy is moving forward - and that the govt is going for a max flexibility approach, as we recommended in our report on fiscal devolution. Mayors & local leaders can decide whether to use the power & what rate. An important first step! www.gov.uk/government/n...

Local leaders handed powers to drive investment in communities

Mayors and local leaders will be given new powers with a levy on overnight stays as part of a devolution drive to shift power out of Westminster.

gov.uk

In June we found that Connect to Work (Govt's flagship programme to help disabled people into work) had only achieved 50% of what it's business case expected so far. In July the business case was reprofiled. But new stats today show delivery is short again! What's going on?!

Stephen Evans@stephenevans.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The Govt's now updated its Connect to Work business case to reflect the slower than expected start, revise down lifetime starts by 20k, calculate benefits differently (increasing impact assessment). Overall, scheme only gets 20k additional people in work but generates £1.2bn fiscal savings.

Today we're publishing 'Prescribing place', A new Re:State Scholars paper. The NHS wants to become more preventative, more rooted in neighbourhoods and better connected to the communities it serves. It also wants to retain and develop its Resident Doctors. How? Short 🧵👇

🟡 We're looking forward to talking about 'Powering UK prosperity: a plan for growth' with Daisy Cooper MP at the Liberal Democrats Party Conference.

It’s that time of the year when the Re:State team go on the road to the party conferences with a huge programme. With Reform down last week, we’re at: 🟡Liberal Democrats Conference 20th-21st 🔴 Labour Conference 27th-29th 🔵Conservative Conference 4th-6th l

Re:State@re-state.bsky.social · 2mo ago

With one Party Conference already under our belt, we’re looking ahead to the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative Party Conferences in the coming weeks. Our full programme is here, with more events and speakers to be announced soon: re-state.co.uk/events/party...

Great to see our latest report, which sets out a draft performance management policy for the Civil Service, covered by @civilserviceworld.bsky.social today. www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/...

Whitehall's worst-kept secret: How can Andy Burnham address the civil service's performance management crisis?

Civil service performance reform is long overdue. Here's how Burnham can make it stick

civilserviceworld.com

Failing to address poor performers in Whitehall is failing to serve the public When we published 'Making the grade' 2 years ago, arguing Whitehall largely ignores poor performance, we had an outpouring from civil servants of 'thank god someone is saying this' 🧵

Whitehall’s worst-kept secret is its institutional aversion to doing anything to performance manage its staff. Great to see our @re-state.bsky.social policy paper on this today in the Telegraph! You can read the full policy here re-state.co.uk/publications...