The state needs to become “more like a start-up”, a senior minister will say as the government tries to change the way it delivers public services.
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 continue to govern as usual, we will not 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 were “comfortable in a warm bath of systematic 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 bit more like a start-up.”
McFadden will launch a £100m “innovation fund” to drive its plans, which will be used to deploy “test and learn teams” across the country.
Public services will be set a challenge and allowed to experiment and try new things to tackle, in a manner more commonly used in the business world.
The government is also trying to encourage workers from tech companies to join the civil service for 6-12 month secondments to help achieve the prime minister’s goals.
Projects related to family support and temporary housing will be the first to try the test-and-learn approach.
These will begin in January 2025 with teams based in Manchester, Sheffield, Essex and Liverpool.
McFadden is also expected to contrast his plans with the “headline-grabbing tactics” of the previous Conservative government.
But Tory shadow Cabinet Office minister Richard Holden urged the government to cut “red tape” and described Labour’s approach as one of “bending and broken promises with the British taxpayer picking up the bill”.