Have you ever come across an annoying little problem and thought, “why don’t they just fix that?” If so, I want to hear from you. I’m looking for your ideas for practical, low-cost, non-controversial ways to improve the UK – whether that’s health, schools, transport, business, housing, policing, justice, tech, shopping, money – or owt else entirely.
The spark for this happened just over a year ago, when I spoke at Politico’s fringe event at Labour’s conference. The key discussion was about Keir Starmer’s unpopularity. I was asked what I’d have advised the government when it took power, so I said: “Come up with 100 small things that piss people off and that you can fix, and they can see that you have fixed them.” Then I reeled off a list of small fixes for my subject area: the counterproductive way council tax debt is escalated; renaming “tax-free childcare”; and so on.
As I walked off stage, I emailed myself: “Set up an Institute for Small Ideas.” I started straight away, did some work, brought some people together, put it out to tender for charities to run it, and then a month ago it launched – albeit with a slight name change. Think of it as a sort of apolitical national suggestion box. And in those few weeks since launch, we’ve already had 42,000 suggestions.
At a time when public debate can feel dominated by division, outrage and disagreement, there’s something quietly encouraging about tens of thousands of people taking the time to offer constructive ideas. Clearly the timing was fortuitous, as small ideas are now all the rage.
We haven’t started the filtering process yet, but here are just a few of the ideas that have been suggested:
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Tell people their blood group at their first adult blood test. Knowing you’ve a common or rare type may make you more inclined to donate. It’s a brilliantly simple nudge that could widen the donor pool and save lives.
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A mandatory “AI-edited” label on property photos on estate agency sites.
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A “no wrong door” rule for councils and public bodies: report a problem anywhere, and they must pass it to the right place, rather than bouncing you from department to department, or from council to contractor to agency.
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Cycle racks on the back of buses.
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Cinema seating plans that clearly show aisles and walkways for disability access.
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A voluntary wheelie-bin sharing scheme, so neighbours with spare capacity can help stop bins overflowing.
The idea is that if someone could fix enough of these frustrations and make lives easier, save time and let everyone get on with work or the things they enjoy, the combined effect – and the feelgood factor – would help shift the national mood.
To make this happen, I’ve funded the Small Ideas Initiative, with two charities – Nesta and Involve – running a project in the background. (I’m telling you this because I believe funding transparency is crucial in any policy charity.) They will filter the suggestions and hopefully select and publish at least 1,000 of the best to provide a bank of ideas others may look at in future. They’ll pick 200 of these to turn into fully researched policy proposals.
Then, having got public feedback on those, we’ve brought together a cross-party panel – with representatives from Green to Reform and every party in between – who will need to unanimously agree the final 50-ish. These are meant to be useful and doable, not party political or controversial. And if that broad a church can agree on them, we’ve likely succeeded. These 50 will form the first Small Ideas manifesto we will campaign to get implemented.
Since that Labour party conference a year ago, the prime minister has changed of course, and Andy Burnham seems to have taken small ideas to heart. Which means I hope the door may be open for many of these suggestions.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that Britain needs only small ideas. These quick fixes are there to work alongside, not instead of, the longer-term big structural changes that society and the economy need. Yet if you focus only on legacy and not on legwork, it can leave the public feeling detached and with an impression that politics is futile, achieves nothing and is just talk without delivering. Small fixes are still fixes – fix a lot of them and it adds up.
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So, if you have a solution for a broken part of the way things work, you have until 5pm on Thursday 12 November to put it forward at Small-Ideas.org.
