Informed analysis on public policy: the NHS reforms and other changes

With so much change swirling around public services it’s useful to have a place to go for informed analysis. Today I stumbled on the LSE's British Politics and Policy blog which features a wide range of academics. Some of the bloggers, such as Tony Travers, are found in publications like CIPFA's Public Finance; others are more elusive (I cannot remember reading anything by Nicholas Barr since studying public sector economics at university sometime ago.)

This morning I read with interest Julian Le Grand’s thoughts on the Coalition’s plans to overhaul the NHS. Le Grand is a former advisor to Tony Blair on public service reform. He describes Andrew Lansley’s proposals as “impressive” with “their origin in policy reforms initiated by John Major’s Conservative government in the 1990s and subsequently developed by Tony Blair’s Labour government”. Similar sentiments were expressed last month by another advisor to Tony Blair – Simon Stevens wrote in the Financial Times that the Coalition’s plans take forward earlier reforms blocked by “internal opposition”.