Starmer to launch online ‘dashboard’ to let public track policy targets

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Sir Keir Starmer will next month launch a public dashboard enabling voters to monitor his administration’s progress on a range of new pre-election targets.

The prime minister’s upcoming intervention aims to boost “trust and transparency” in the government, according to people briefed on the plans, following a rocky start to his premiership.

Starmer will set out his “priorities for change”, detailed milestones that the government pledges to hit before the next general election, which is expected around 2029.

An online dashboard showing progress on these goals will be launched at the same time, which will compile published data on metrics relevant to the fresh targets.

As well as allowing voters to monitor ministers’ and mandarins’ progress on meeting these objectives, it will also keep minds across Whitehall focused on them, according to people familiar with the plan.

One official described the upcoming speech as a “pre-Christmas reset” after the past few weeks have seen the Labour administration hit by falling approval ratings and a Budget backlash from businesses and farmers. 

A Downing Street figure dismissed that characterisation, however, and insisted the prime minister was merely doubling down on his commitment to the five core “missions” that Starmer set out ahead of July’s general election.

The targets will be linked to those missions, which were growing the economy, improving the NHS, bolstering green energy, tackling crime, and “breaking down barriers to opportunity”.

One new target is expected to be that Britons are enjoying improved living standards by the time of the next election.

Another relates to the NHS waiting list target of a maximum of 18 weeks for routine operations. The target is currently met 59 per cent of the time, but the government will aim to achieve this 92 per cent of the time by March 2029.

An education target will state that the proportion of children reaching a “good” level of development by the age of five should rise from 67 per cent currently to 75 per cent by 2028. The health and education targets were first reported by the Times.

Starmer’s speech will also recommit to an existing pledge to build 1.5mn homes by the end of this parliament, a target that the housing minister last week warned would be “more difficult than expected” to meet because of the depth of the current supply downturn.

The final target will be to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030, a current Labour pledge.

The new targets are the culmination of work undertaken by Morgan McSweeney — who replaced Sue Gray as Starmer’s chief of staff last month — and Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in order to sharpen the political operation at the centre of government.

It followed concerns that the missions are too nebulous, and some are predicated on a decade-long timeframe, making it hard for voters to judge advances by the next election.

Starmer hinted at his plans in a speech in Birmingham last month, when he said: “On every mission, we will publish clear ambitions for this parliament and we will also track our progress against them, so that every single person in this country can see exactly how we measure up to things that matter to them.”

One government figure said: “It’s about recognising that the missions are big — we’ve always talked about a decade of renewal — and that we need to show steps forward over the next four-to-five years.”

They added: “These are going to be tricky targets, they will take real effort to achieve — they won’t be tests it’s certain we’ll pass. The idea is to pick priorities and say inside government, we all need to charge at this together.”

There is also a push in Downing Street to expand local data tracking to identify problem spots in specific policy areas, so that early remedies can be applied, but also calculate which areas are performing well and may harbour tips for the rest of the country.

Liz Lloyd, who was appointed Starmer’s new director of delivery and innovation this month, is expected to drive forward this work.

The prime minister and his key lieutenants want Whitehall to learn more from the rest of the country. Each of the mission boards that govern the five government priorities are set to meet outside London at least once in 2025.