UK Government Criticised for Lack of Strategy

A new report by the London-based think tank, the Institute for Government (IfG), has delivered a sharp critique of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's first year in office, concluding that a failure to plan adequately while in opposition has led to chaotic and uncoordinated efforts to reform struggling public services. The report, titled "Public Services Performance Tracker 2025," released on Wednesday, 19 November 2025, argues that the Labour government entered power with a set of missions but no clear roadmap on how to achieve them. This has resulted in a "void at the heart of government" concerning public service reform, undermining progress in critical sectors including health, social care, and the justice system.

Nick Davies, a programme director at the IfG and one of the report's authors, stated that Prime Minister Starmer must "urgently get a grip" to deliver tangible improvements before the next election. The comprehensive annual assessment, which uses over 250 indicators across nine public services, found little to no progress in six of them. It particularly highlighted that decisions made under the new administration have worsened challenges in adult social care. While acknowledging that the government inherited services in a state of crisis after years of underinvestment, the IfG insists that better preparation before the election was essential and that "the buck for these failures stops with the prime minister."

A Familiar Story: The Kenyan Parallel

The challenges facing the UK government—translating ambitious campaign promises into effective, coordinated action—offer a powerful and relevant lesson for Kenya's political landscape. The gap between manifesto pledges and on-the-ground delivery is a persistent feature of Kenyan governance, both at national and county levels. Successive administrations have faced criticism for launching ambitious projects without sufficient groundwork, leading to implementation delays, budget overruns, and a public perception of unfulfilled promises.

In Kenya, public service delivery is frequently hampered by systemic issues, including corruption, weak institutional capacity, friction between national and county governments, and inadequate public participation. A 2024 analysis noted that a bloated workforce and poor revenue collection at the county level often misalign development projects from citizens' actual priorities. Similarly, a baseline survey on public service innovation in Kenya, discussed in March 2025, identified significant challenges including resource constraints, poor knowledge sharing, and a need for stronger policy frameworks—issues that mirror the IfG's critique of a lack of coordination in the UK.

Tools like the 'Promise Tracker' by InfoTrack and The Africa Center for Open Governance (AfriCOG) monitor the Kenya Kwanza government's manifesto, revealing the complexities of implementation. For example, while progress has been made on some fronts like clean cooking technology, major initiatives like the digitization of government services face hurdles such as a lack of coordinated implementation across ministries and resource limitations. This underscores a universal principle of governance: without a detailed, costed, and cross-departmental strategy developed long before taking office, even the most well-intentioned reforms are likely to falter.

The Universal Challenge of Governing

The IfG report notes that while the Starmer government has taken some positive steps, such as providing greater funding certainty for public services and proposing reforms in local government finance and social care, these efforts are undermined by the foundational lack of a coherent plan. This dynamic is not unique to the UK. The World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators measure factors like government effectiveness, policy formulation, and the quality of public services as crucial for development. The challenges highlighted in London are the very same that development experts identify as barriers to progress in many nations, including Kenya.

The core message from the IfG's findings is the critical importance of the opposition's role in preparing for government. It is not enough to formulate missions and pledges; a government-in-waiting must develop detailed implementation frameworks, identify potential bottlenecks, and ensure departmental plans are integrated. In Kenya, where political transitions are often fraught and manifestos can be ambitious, this lesson is particularly salient. As noted by governance experts, effective public service requires transparency, accountability, and a clear strategy to rebuild public trust, which is often eroded by the perception of waste and inefficiency.

Ultimately, the struggles of a government nearly 7,000 kilometres away provide a clear and cautionary case study. The verdict on the UK Labour party's first year serves as a stark reminder to leaders in Nairobi and across the region that the hard work of governing begins long before election day. Without rigorous, detailed, and coordinated planning, the journey from campaign trail promises to tangible public benefit remains perilously difficult.