From healthcare to education to local government, the public sector delivers essential services—but how can it stay effective and efficient with tightening budgets and rising demand?

In this episode, we examine the UK government’s push to improve public sector productivity. Rachel Reeves is enlisting private sector leaders to tackle inefficiencies in Whitehall, while Wes Streeting has proposed NHS reforms to boost output. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, President-elect Trump has stirred debate by appointing Elon Musk to a new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ to slash costs.

Are public services keeping pace with private sector innovations? What’s driving productivity trends in the UK? And how can policies create better outcomes for everyone?

We’re joined by Ben Zaranko, Associate Director at IFS, and Sam Freedman, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and former senior policy adviser to Michael Gove, to unpack these questions and more.

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In the recent budget, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced a £40 billion tax increase, pushing tax as a share of national income to an all time UK high.

Just 6% of that came from an increase in inheritance tax, and just a small fraction of that will come from farmers. And yet it is the tax increase on farmers that has dominated the news headlines. But beyond the change to agricultural reliefs, there were some other big reforms as well - to pensions and business reliefs.

So to discuss how inheritance tax actually changed in the budget, who will be affected and whether it was a good idea, Paul is joined by Helen Miller and David Sturrock, colleagues at the IFS.

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At the end of October, the ONS announced that the fertility rate in England and Wales had fallen to 1.44 births per woman in 2023 - the lowest figure since records began in 1938. 

What will this mean for the population make-up of the country? What other big demographic shifts are occurring? Why is this trend occurring across the developed world? And what will its implications be for the public finances?

To discuss those questions, Paul is joined by Melinda Mills, Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and Nuffield Professor of Demography at Oxford. And by Carl Emmerson, Deputy Director at IFS and one of the leading experts on the UK's public finances.

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117 days after Labour took office, Rachel Reeves has finally delivered her Budget.

From tax rises and fiscal rules, to public services and investment, we'll take a tour around all of the big announcements. 

Paul is joined by Helen Miller and Ben Zaranko, colleagues at the IFS.

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In our first ever live episode, we're going to look at how Rachel Reeves can make her first Budget a success.

It will have been 117 days since Labour took power before we finally hear what is in the Budget - in that time we’ve heard about £22bn 'black holes' and the difficult economic situation the UK faces. We’re going to think a bit about some of the challenges facing the Chancellor, what she can learn from previous Budgets and how she can navigate these complexities.

Paul is joined by colleague Helen Miller, Deputy Director at IFS, Lord Stewart Wood, a Labour peer and former member under Tony Blair’s government of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Council of Economic Advisers, and Stephen Bush, associate editor and columnist at the Financial Times.

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The budget coming up in a few weeks will be one of the big moments for Labour to set out their policy agenda.

Over the summer, the government set out what it considers a difficult public finance picture - including a supposed £22bn ‘black hole’. The Labour manifesto promised big improvements to public services, and the prime minister has since promised no return to austerity. Meanwhile, the chancellor has promised that the upcoming Budget will be a ‘Budget for investment’. And there’s those promises to get debt falling, and not to raise the main rates of income tax or corporation tax, or to raise national insurance or VAT at all.

So how could they meet their fiscal targets while also fixing public services and increasing investment? What is the public finance picture looking like? And will there be enough resource to tackle some of the challenges facing the UK economy?

To explore these questions, Paul is joined by Carl Emmerson and Ben Zaranko.

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There’s been lots of speculation that Chancellor Rachel Reeves is looking to raise Capital Gains tax in her upcoming budget. 

Capital Gains tax raises around £15 billion a year, which is less than 2% of total tax revenue, and it’s paid by less than 1% of the adult population. But it’s important for both the fairness and efficiency of the tax system. 

In this episode, we’ll explore why CGT reform is necessary and how changes could make the tax system fairer, more efficient, and better aligned with long-term economic growth. We’ll also ask what Rachel Reeves would need to do if she wants to raise significant additional revenue from taxing capital gains.  

To explore that, Paul is joined by IFS Deputy Director, Helen Miller and Dan Neidle, a tax lawyer and founder of Tax Policy Associates. 

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Currently, around 4.3 million children - that’s around 30% of all kids - are living in relative poverty. Since 2010 that figure has risen by over 700,000 and the new government has made tackling child poverty one of its key policy objectives, with a cross-government strategy due to be published in 2025.

In today’s episode, we’ll explore the factors contributing to this increase in child poverty, including changes to the benefits system, housing challenges, and the broader economic context. We’ll look at the long-run impacts that child poverty has and examine the potential policy options available to reduce child poverty.

To do that, Carl is joined by Tom Waters and Christine Farquharson.

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Since the introduction of auto-enrolment over 10 years ago, more people than ever are saving into a workplace pension than ever before. However, new research from the IFS shows that approximately 30% to 40% of private sector employees (5 to 7 million people) saving in defined contribution pension schemes are on course to have individual incomes that fall short of standard benchmarks in retirement.

What changes should government make to the auto-enrolment policy? How much do people need to save? What about self-employed people?

To answer these questions, Paul is joined by Jonathan Cribb and Carl Emmerson from the IFS.

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We’re looking at the benefits system and answering the questions likely being asked by government ministers: how can the rising costs of benefits be managed, and what changes could improve the system?

With disability and incapacity benefit caseloads rising and the Universal Credit rollout still ongoing, what options does the government have to address these challenges? How might frozen housing support and past cuts to working-age benefits be impacting the most vulnerable? Should the government abolish the two-child limit?

To tackle these questions, Paul is joined by Tom Waters and Carl Emmerson from the IFS.

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Find out more: https://ifs.org.uk/podcasts-explainers-and-calculators/podcasts 

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