The Venture State

Abstract

The Blair governments deployed several public service reform strategies. Although many have been effective, they have had limited traction at the ‘hard end’ of disadvantage: entrenched deprivation remains a stubborn feature of the social landscape. Reforms have had limited impact on this deprivation because they expect users to behave either as eager recipients or as informed consumers. But disadvantaged groups rarely emulate the active middle class; instead, they are distrustful of public institutions—even hostile. We need a different reform strategy that does not presuppose these behaviours and which generates new ideas. This ‘venture state’ approach would go beyond commissioning and invest in services that demonstrate the greatest social returns with disadvantaged groups. Like the eponymous capitalist, it would identify a portfolio of high‐impact providers that can be scaled or sustained; and it would provide the resources required to do so. Rather than seeking to target its own services with ever greater precision, the venture state would focus on structuring innovation in those services most important for the hard end of disadvantage.