Current Work Areas
The Strategy Unit works closely alongside departments and others. Many projects influence the direction of government policy rather than leading directly to published reports. While some work is one off, other work on issues such as education, health and home affairs tends to be more ongoing.
The current work and activities of the Strategy Unit include:
- Education: ongoing work with the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.
- Health: ongoing work with the Department of Health
- Home Affairs: ongoing work with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice on correctional services, drugs strategy and other issues
- Public service reform: the Unit has a small team taking forward work on cross-cutting public service reform issues including citizen engagement
- A cross-cutting project on food and food policy
- An ongoing seminar programme
Examples of recent outputs from Strategy Unit work include:
- Achieving Culture Change – a policy framework [PDF 445KB, 124 pages] – draft discussion paper on which we would welcome comments.
- Supporting work on The Government's Response to The Power of Information: An independent review by Ed Mayo and Tom Steinberg [PDF 610KB, 20pages] published on 25 June 2007
- Supporting work on The Power of Information: an Independent Review by Ed Mayo and Tom Steinberg [PDF 279KB, 57 pages] published on 7 June 2007.
- Supporting work on the final report of the energy and environment strand of the policy review Building on progress: Energy and environment [PDF 1.82MB, 72 pages] published on 5 June 2007.
- Supporting work on the Asset Recovery Action Plan – A Consultation Document [PDF 298KB, 52 pages] published by the Home Office on 24 May 2007.
- Supporting work on the final reports of the role of the state and families strands of the policy review Building on progress: The role of the state [PDF 1.32MB, 32 pages] and Building on progress: Families [PDF 1.76MB, 64 pages] published on 16 May 2007.
- Commissioning a review of what is known about the effectiveness of interventions for children and young people whose conduct disorders place them at risk of developing persistent and intractable patterns of problem behaviour in adult life. Interventions for children at risk of developing antisocial personality disorder [PDF 1.04MB, 106 pages] published by the Policy Research Bureau in March 2007.
- Supporting work on the final report of the security, crime and justice strand of the policy review Building on progress: Security, Crime and Justice [PDF, 3MB, 110 pages] published on 27 March 2007.
- Supporting work on Raising Expectations: Staying in education and training post–16 [DfES Website] published by the Department for Education and Skills on 22 March 2007
- Supporting work on the final report of the public services strand of the policy review Building on progress: Public services [PDF, 1.8MB, 87 pages] published on 19 March 2007.
- Preparation of a summary of Policy Review seminars for Ministers below Cabinet level as presented to the Prime Minister [No.10 Website] and published on 19th February 2007.
- Preparation of an analytical paper Higher Education: Progress, challenges and a new scheme to promote voluntary giving published on 15 February 2007 in support of the Prime Minister's launch of a scheme to encourage voluntary giving to universities [No 10 website]
- Preparation of a paper summarising the key issues underpinning the work of the Policy Review: Policy Review: Summary of Background Papers [No 10 website] published on 6 February 2007 as background to the Prime Minister's appearance before the Liaison Committee.
- Contributing to the presentation by the Prime Minister to the Liaison Committee: HM Government: Policy Review [No 10 website] on 6 February 2007.
- Preparation of four papers providing background to the individual strands of the Policy Review: Environment and Energy; Public Services; Security, Crime and Justice and The Role of the State published on 16th January 2007.
- Preparation of an analytical paper A report on schools: progress in the last ten years and challenges ahead as background to the Prime Minister's speech on personalised learning at a Specialist Schools and Academies Trust Conference [No 10 website] on 30 November 2006.
- Preparation of a background paper to inform Cabinet discussion on the policy review Strategic Priorities for the UK: The Policy Review [PDF 141KB, 29 pages] published on 23 November 2006.
- Joint work with the Home Office on summary powers: Strengthening powers to tackle anti-social behaviour - consultation paper [Home Office website] published on 14 November 2006.
- Science and innovation [No.10 website]: monitoring trends and progress - papers published in November 2006.
- Joint work with DCLG and other departments on: Strong and prosperous communities - the local government white paper [DCLG website] published on 26 October 2006.
- Leading on the Government's Social Exclusion Action Plan published on 11 September, 2006.
- Joint work with DWP on new arrangements for delivering child support: Recovering child support: routes to responsibility [DWP website]published on 24 July 2006.
- Joint work with DTI and other departments on the Energy Review Report [DTI website], published on 11th July 2006.
- Preparation of a paper on The UK Government's Approach to Public Service Reform as background to the conference '21st Century Public Services - Putting People First' hosted by the National School of Government on 6 June 2006.
- A joint paper with DfES reviewing the international evidence on the impact of Schools Reform - published in June 2006.
- Joint work with DfES on the Further Education Reform White Paper Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances [DfES website], published on 27 March 2006.
- As part of the Energy Review team, contributing to DTI's public consultation document Our Energy challenge: securing clean, affordable energy for the long term [DTI website] launched on 23 January 2006.
- Analytical support to the Department of Health on improving non-hospital social care services which fed into DH's White Paper Our health, our care, our say: a new direction for community services [Department of Health website] published in January 2006.
- Joint work with the Home Office, DfES and ODPM on tackling anti-social behaviour and promoting respect and social justice. This culminated in the launch of the Government's Respect Action Plan [Home Office website] in January 2006.
- Joint work with the Department for Education and Skills in the run up to the White Paper Higher Standards, Better Schools for All [DfES website] published in October 2005.
