Away from the political bombshells and beefs emerging from the COVID-19 inquiry last week came a quieter if equally devastating assessment of the impact of the pandemic: the effects on public service performance.

The annual Performance Tracker, produced by the Institute for Government (IfG) in conjunction with the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) revealed that, of the nine public service areas assessed, eight were still not performing as well as they had been on the eve of the pandemic. The situation is particularly dire in hospitals and criminal courts, with children’s social care the only service area back at something like a pre-pandemic performance level.

The aftershocks of the pandemic are still being felt, says CIPFA’s chief economist Jeffrey Matsu.

“The kind of recovery the sector hoped for and desperately needed simply has not materialised.”

Now in its eighth year, Performance Tracker, released just ahead of the government’s Autumn Statement, has become an important annual indicator of the health of public services. It analyses comprehensive datasets across the NHS, social care, education, the criminal justice system and neighbourhood services, factoring in everything from funding patterns, demand pressures, staffing and activity levels to waiting lists and backlogs.

The grim headline from this year’s report is that public services are stuck in a “performance doom loop”. Services that were once creaking are now crumbling – in some cases literally: the report flags the school closures triggered by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) safety concerns. 

Other worrying indicators of a public realm under severe strain are the difficulty of accessing a GP, record high hospital waiting lists and prisons at capacity.

Taking a longer view, the Performance Tracker paints a particularly bleak picture. Four of the nine service areas – general practice, hospitals, adult social care and prisons – have been problematic for some time, being rated as ‘much worse’ on the eve of the pandemic than they were in 2009/10. 

The report is clear, however, that the blame cannot all be laid at COVID-19’s door. Disruptive though the pandemic was, it is no longer having a real impact on public services. Rather, two long-term underlying factors underpin this picture of deteriorating performance: workforce issues and weak capital investment. 

Workforce discontent exploded in recent months with teachers, nurses and doctors all taking strike action. Performance Tracker highlights that staff vacancies are at a record high, with social care and prisons particularly badly affected.

But the discontent was already there, says Nick Davies, programme director at the IfG. Staff discontent has been fuelled by decisions to hold down public sector wage increases throughout the 2010s. 

On capital investment, Davies argues that not only were budgets inadequate, but they were frequently raided to top up revenue spending, resulting in a decaying public estate and inefficient legacy IT systems. 

Alison Ring, ICAEW Director, Public Sector and Taxation, agrees that Performance Tracker shows decades of underinvestment by successive governments has had a “serious impact on productivity”.

Looking forward, the IfG and CIPFA flag a tight outlook for public service funding. While the 2021 Spending Review looked generous at the time, much of the increase it promised has been eaten away by unexpectedly high inflation. 

Spending plans from April 2025 onwards are particularly constrained, with services being promised an average increase of just 1%. However, when protections for defence, foreign aid and the NHS workforce are taken into account, unprotected services will receive a negative increase of -1.2% per year.

“If these spending plans were implemented, then it is likely that all services covered in this report, other than children’s social care, would be performing worse in 2027/28 than on the eve of the pandemic,” the report states.

Ring adds: “Without significant amounts of investment to transform how public services are delivered, it’s difficult to see how such savings can be achieved without further service reductions.”

Matsu describes the situation as “totally unsustainable. Whoever forms the next government will likely face huge public and political pressure to provide public services with more generous settlements.”

Amid all this gloom is the glimmer of a way forward and Performance Tracker sets out four commitments any government, of whatever political stripe, should adopt if it is serious about turning public service performance around. 

These are: a new multi-year budget for each public service; a long-term capital programme; a stable policy agenda that addresses “unsustainable levels of churn” among ministers and officials; and a fresh approach to workforce planning and pay policy to re-set of the relationship with public service staff.

“Trying to establish a more constructive relationship would be a very good first step,” says Davies. However, the challenge of turning around public service performance should not be underplayed, he warns. “In some cases the causes of the problems are decades old. It’s going to take more than one parliament to fix, but the next best time is now.”