Strategic Audit: Progress and challenges for the
UK
The Prime Minister asked the Strategy Unit to undertake a second Strategic
Audit at the end of 2004 to assess the progress made by and challenges
facing the UK. The report, 'Strategic Audit: progress and challenges
for the UK' aims to provide a balanced and objective assessment to help
establish a factual context for policy-making and wider discussion.
The Strategic Audit shows that Britain has made considerable and sustained
progress in many key areas. These include the overall performance and
stability of the economy, closing productivity gaps, improving educational
attainment, tackling child and pensioner poverty, substantially reducing
crime, and improving health outcomes and the capacity of the NHS.
In other areas, the challenges are long running and structural, such as
meeting the growing demands on transport infrastructure, ensuring enough
houses are built, getting the hardest-to-reach groups back into work, and
further improving the life chances of those born into the poorest
households.
Strategic Audit: Discussion Document
During the first half of 2003, the Strategy Unit worked with departments to
consider future priorities and strategic choices across departmental
boundaries. The process included analysis of long-run trends and
benchmarking the UK against other countries.
This pack provides a condensed summary of the work. The material is not
intended to be definitive or comprehensive, and we have excluded some
issues on which current reviews are already underway.
The material draws extensively on international comparisons. These are
rarely up-to-date, and are better at describing the UK's performance in
the late 1990s than now. However, they are useful tools for mapping the
UK's long-term relative performance.
Report: Strategic
Audit: Discussion Document (pdf, 1654kb) December 2003
Further Information
For further information, or to check the availability of hard copies of the
report, please contact the
Strategy Unit.
Strategic Audit for Scotland
launched 23 May 2006.
