Yet the Government is operating within a highly constrained and challenging environment. As the UK’s challenges have grown, public finances, political capital and public trust have diminished.

To deliver, the way Government works needs to change. It needs to do more with less. Being mission-driven in how it governs – as it has committed to do – has the potential to drive the sort of progress needed. But what does being “mission-driven” mean in practice?

How can Government set long-term objectives and work in partnership with businesses and communities to deliver? What role does “test and learn” play? What does this mean for policymakers and practitioners, where is it already happening, and where could it make the most difference?

As a mission-driven organisation, we think we’re well placed to help answer some of these questions.

We’re ultimately interested in working with public servants on how to govern through missions in an administration that has pledged to do things differently.

To lay the foundations, we’ve worked with the Institute for Government to set out how Government could effectively organise itself to deliver missions, and with Public Digital on The Radical How to illustrate how it applies to real policy problems – and indeed where we can draw lessons from pioneering teams already working in Whitehall. We’ve also shared thoughts on how to catalyse innovation for missions outside of government.

Now, we’re working with policymakers and practitioners to translate paper into practice, focusing on the tools and methods of missions-in-practice, drawing on Nesta and BIT’s experiences and capabilities. We’re working with public servants to apply these approaches to particular policy problems and will continue to publish additional resources and provocations where we learn they’re useful.

Watch this space for deep dives on applying ‘test and learn’, more detail about how to drive progress on the UK’s transition to clean heat and how reform of digital public services can support mission delivery.

Finally, we’re continuing to bring together UK policymakers and practitioners to explore policy successes from around the world and what the UK can learn, as part of our How to make good things happen series.

If you’re working at the frontier of applying mission-driven approaches, or a senior leader in the public sector or civil society interested in how to drive progress on missions, get in touch at [email protected]