A civic institute for competence, fairness and delivery in government.

Explore our purpose

Renewal was founded to rebuild competence and fairness in British government - to focus not on ideology but on what works.

We set clear standards for good government, test and share what works, and bring reformers together across politics, business and civil society.

What we do

Rebuild competence

We define what competent government looks like — setting standards and practical frameworks to help the state focus, deliver, and keep its promises.

Restore fairness

We design and test reforms that make public systems fairer — rewarding contribution, protecting opportunity, and rebuilding trust.

Strengthen delivery

We focus on how reforms are implemented in practice — clarifying ownership, improving decision-making, and turning commitments into outcomes.

Why Renewal matters

Many of the UK’s most costly policy failures are not failures of intent, but of execution. Programmes are launched without clear ownership, realistic timelines, or reliable information, and problems surface too late to fix.

Renewal focuses on the institutional conditions that make delivery work: clear priorities, explicit accountability, disciplined decision-making, and transparent performance. The test is whether commitments made by government translate into outcomes in practice.

Read the Renewal Standard

How we’re different

Many think tanks focus on ideas and policy positions. Renewal focuses on whether those ideas can be delivered in practice.

We start from the realities of implementation — working with practitioners to design reforms with clear ownership, measurable outcomes, and explicit trade-offs.

Our work combines policy design with delivery discipline, helping government focus on outcomes rather than announcements.

Publications

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