Institute for Government calls for better quality control on policy making

The Institute for Government has published the results of its year-long research into better policy-making in a recent report, Making Policy Better. The research - drawing on interviews with over 20 former ministers and 50 civil servants - suggests that despite attempts to improve policy making under the last government, reforms fell short, with a lack of coherence between different elements of the policy making process.

As part of their recommendations, the report calls for a number of reforms that would strengthen the evidence-based behind policy making. This includes a recommendation for a new Head of Policy Effectiveness in the Cabinet Office - a very senior official responsible for ensuring the quality of policy making evaluations and ensure they are both independent and used, and able to commission lesson-learned exercises when things go wrong.