Government to set out £100m plan to make state ‘like a start-up’

The state needs to become “more like a start-up”, a senior minister will say as the government seeks to change how public services are delivered.

Pat McFadden, who oversees the Cabinet Office, wants the civil service to adopt the “test and learn” culture used by many tech companies.

“If we keep governing as usual, we are not going to achieve what we want to achieve,” he is expected to say in a speech later on Monday.

McFadden’s comments follow Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s criticism of the civil service last week, when he said too many people “are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline.”

In a speech at University College London’s Stratford campus in east London, McFadden is expected to say the civil service needs to adopt a new mindset and “make the state a little bit more like a start-up.”

McFadden will launch a £100m “innovation fund” to underpin his plans, which will be used to deploy “test and learn teams” around the country.

Public services will be set a challenge and be allowed to experiment and try new things to meet it, in an approach more commonly used in the business world.

The government is also attempting to encourage workers from tech companies to join the civil service for six to 12 month secondments to help achieve the prime minister’s goals.

Projects on family support and temporary accommodation will be the first to try the test and learn approach.

These will begin in January 2025, with teams deployed in Manchester, Sheffield, Essex and Liverpool.

McFadden is also expected to contrast his plans with the “headline-grabbing gimmicks” of the previous Conservative government.

But Tory shadow Cabinet Office minister Richard Holden urged the government to cut back on “bureaucracy” and described Labour’s approach as one of “glib platitudes and broken promises with British taxpayers picking up the bill”.