The Right to Choose: Yes, Prime Minister!

Sweden has been operating a choice-based school funding system since the early 1990s, with great success.

To promote this right to choose in the UK, three proposals are recommended: (1) parents should be entitled to remove their children from failing schools and choose any other school instead; (2) public finance would be available to all schools on the basis of the number of students they could attract; and (3) a non-refundable tax credit to provide parents with a pound-for-pound reductions in their income tax liability (up to an agreed limit) for each child they have in non-state education.

Read it here.

Road Map to Reform: Deregulation

"Over-regulation depresses corporate profits, consumes valuable management time and saps entrepreneurial morale," say the authors. "It makes the UK less attractive to investors and destroys the wealth creation on which the whole of government depends."

There are three big sources of red tape - the EU, Whitehell, and the regulatory offices like Ofcom and Ofwat. For each one, we need to make sure that fewer new regulations are created, that existing ones are rationalized, and that enforcement does not become over-zealous.

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Working Welfare

Inspired by the successful US welfare reforms of the 1990s, the proposals in Working Welfare would make work central to the benefits system. All working age people not meeting national disability criteria would face "immediate work requirements". This requirement would be backed with tough sanctions – "no work, no benefits" – and any absence from mandated work without good cause would trigger a pro rata reduction in benefit payments. The ASI proposals would also revolutionize the delivery of welfare. Responsibility for its provision and administration would be devolved to local agencies, which would be paid according to results. Agencies would be rewarded for getting people into work for a set period of time, ensuring an ongoing and personalised service for jobseekers. The report also advocates raising the personal income tax allowance to £12,000, to tackle high effective marginal tax rates for those trying to enter the workforce, and to make life easier for those with low incomes.

Read it here.

Safeguarding civil liberties

This paper itemizes how recent government acts have compromised or removed many of the legal protections traditionally enjoyed under common law. These include habeas corpus, right to trial by jury, right to remain silent, freedom from double jeopardy, among many others.

It is proposed that a new judicial panel be established, independent of government, to review the effect of recent legislation on long-standing liberties, and to make recommendations as to how the impairment of liberties might be redressed. While the body's recommendations would not have the force of law, it is envisaged that it would be so prestigious that governments would find it impossible to ignore or sideline their pronouncements.

Read it here.

Open Access for UK Schools

Open Access for UK Schools: What Britain can learn from Swedish Education Reform argues for a radical overhaul of the UK school system.

Inspired by Sweden's experience, the report calls for the UK to implement a universal open access scheme, which would allow parents to send their children to any school of their choice – whether state, private or religious – and make these schools eligible for government funding on a per–pupil basis. Two conditions must be met: the schools must not charge additional fees, and must accept pupils on a first-come-first-served basis.

Read it here.

Transforming Higher Education

Dr Terence Kealey highlights the reasons as to why American universitites are superior to ours, and other economically advantaged nations. He states that the aim of all universities must be to move away from state dependence to independence, with there being an urgent need for their endowments to be restored to assist in this move.

The best universities in the world are independent, but in the UK we've made the mistake of allowing governments to fund - and therefore control - the universities directly. The Higher Education Funding Councils should be abolished, and the universities should be freed of state control. The HEFCs' funds should be transfered to needs blind funding agencies to allow students, regardless of background, to access higher education on the grounds solely of merit.

Read it here.

Road Map to Reform: Health

In this report, part of the ASI's influential Road Map series, the authors seek to retain what is best about the NHS, in particular the fairness that it represents. The report is based on the principle that everyone should have high-quality healthcare free at the point of need, and assumes that most healthcare will continue to be funded through taxation. Nonetheless the authors also propose to unleash the power of enterprise and innovation in how healthcare is actually provided. This requires breaking through the ideological barricades - a public-private mixture is really the only way forward.

Read the report here.

EUtopia

In EUtopia Keith Boyfield and Tim Ambler talk on what EU would be best and how best we could achieve it.

Read the full paper.

Rewiring Democracy

Through drawing upon the successful example of e-government in Estonia, this paper proposes a radical modernisation of politics, fit for the 21st century.

Find the full paper here.

A Flat Tax for the UK – a Practical Reality

This report, A Flat Tax for the UK – A Practical Reality, calls for income tax to be simplified into a flat rate tax of 22%. Under the proposal, there would be a tax-free personal allowance of £12,000.

As the report says, the concept of a flat tax, a simple tax system that charges a single rate of tax on all income, is growing in popularity. It contrasts clearly with the current systems operated in most countries, with different tax rates depending on the level and type of income or on the personal circumstances of the individual taxpayer.

Read it here.