Alex Fox OBE, Delivery Director for IMPOWER has contributed to this briefing which collects widely evidenced arguments showing that genuine improvement requires transformation based on rebuilding the relationships between citizens, frontline workers and institutions.

This briefing highlights three key steps central government can make to help this reform:

• Change how Government funds public services.
• Bringing together inspectorates and regulators.
• Workforce reform.

The Government’s mission to improve public service productivity will fail if reform remains rooted in old, transactional models. AI and efficiency drives can only go so far. The real potential for change lies in rebuilding trust and putting relationships at the centre of service design, delivery, and policy. The Government has a once-in-a-generation chance to reset public services on a sustainable footing. Ministers should seize this moment: make relational public services the organising principle of reform, or risk repeating decades of costly failure.