Productivity is defined as the ratio of outputs to inputs. When applied to the public sector, productivity becomes a key performance indicator that shows how efficiently public resources are employed in providing public services. Until not too long ago productivity in the public sector was...

The role of innovations in improving government productivity and the effectiveness of services has previously been little studied. This report surveys central departments and agencies to ascertain what kinds of innovations they have recently made, and analyses the factors that they see as...

Under automatic enrolment, employers are required to automatically enrol their employees into a qualifying pension scheme. The minimum total contribution rate is 8% of a band of earnings from £5,668 and £41,450 per annum, of which a minimum 3% must come from the employer. With over 80% of...

While Southern European countries have pursued a series of pension reforms since the early 1990s, significant variation arises across them. Focusing on the concept of political replacement risk (the probability of a government being electorally punished for pursuing a given policy) and the...

The co-Director of Democratic Audit, Professor Patrick Dunleavy was asked by the leading Scottish newspaper, the Sunday Post, to write a report on the costs of transitioning to a new government in the event of a ‘Yes’ vote in Scotland’s independence referendum. The report argues that an...