Productivity in public services has never been more important. Most services are struggling to return to pre-pandemic performance levels, and both the Conservatives and Labour have indicated that they will stick to tight spending plans after the election. Improvements in performance will likely come from frontline workers finding new, innovative ways of delivering services. 

So what can be done to improve productivity? By highlighting outstanding examples of innovation across public services, Productivity Pitches, a new series of events hosted by the IfG, aims to share and support ways to improve performance levels. 

This event was the second in the series and will focus on the criminal justice system. 

Each speaker had 10 minutes to present their innovation, followed by 10 minutes of audience questions. The chair and a guest from The Productivity Institute – who are kindly supporting this event series – then brought together the common themes from the pitches and discussed the lessons for improving productivity. 

The speakers for this edition of Productivity Pitches were: 

Mat Burbeck, Temporary Superintendent seconded to the independent Policing Productivity Team 

Chantal Hughes, Chief Executive and Emma Hazan, CARA Development Manager at Hampton Trust

Dr Varinder Panesar, Lead Forensic Psychologist/Therapies Lead and Neil Fraser, CSU & NDU Custodial Manager at HMP Pentonville

The event was chaired by Nick Davies, Programme Director at the Institute for Government. Bart van Ark, the Managing Director of The Productivity Institute, joined the discussion of common themes. 

Productivity Pitches is produced in partnership with The Productivity Institute.