Every £1 of public money spent on net zero delivers between £2.20 and £4.10 in return, according to Mariana Mazzucato, professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London. In a new report from the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Mazzucato argues that Labour must revive its mission-oriented governance approach to tackle the UK's deepest structural challenges.
Labour's Lost Mission Agenda
When Labour won its landslide in July 2024, it promised five national missions from clean energy to child poverty, inspired by Mazzucato's book Mission Economy. However, as Keir Starmer's government took shape, the mission agenda was treated as a communications exercise rather than a governing architecture. The Mission Delivery Unit in the Cabinet Office was dissolved in autumn 2025 and replaced with a team inside No 10 focused on three short-term priorities: reducing NHS waiting lists, securing the border and tackling the cost of living.
The Treasury has failed to align its fiscal framework with mission goals, and the industrial strategy has reverted to identifying eight 'high growth' sectors – a fragmented approach that contradicts the logic of missions. Defining economic growth as a mission in its own right is a fundamental error; growth is an outcome of well-designed missions, not a mission itself.
Progress and Unfinished Tasks
Important changes have been made. After Mazzucato and other economists raised the need for a step-change in public investment, Rachel Reeves updated the fiscal rules to consider what the UK owns, not just what it owes. The government also established the National Wealth Fund and Great British Energy. These steps have yielded results: low-carbon sources produced 73.3% of energy generation in 2025, up from 60.3% in 2023.
However, achieving the mission agenda in full requires a deeper state transformation. As attention turns toward Andy Burnham, the incoming prime minister, Mazzucato's report From Mission Talk to Mission Delivery outlines five key changes needed.
Five Key Changes for Mission Delivery
1. Whole-of-Government Coordination
Missions require a genuine whole-of-government approach where every lever of the state pulls in the same direction. This means re-establishing a central coordinating unit with real authority – a delivery engine backed by No 10, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. The UK can learn from Brazil, where tackling the ecological crisis is a priority of President Lula's office and his core economic agenda. The industrial strategy should be redesigned around challenges to solve, such as health or clean water, rather than sectors to support.
2. Fiscal Rules for Long-Term Investment
The Office for Budget Responsibility's own analysis shows that a 1% increase in public investment is expected to generate an 8.7% return to the wider economy over 10 years – a significant return not properly factored into spending decisions. Every £1 of public money spent on net zero delivers between £2.20 and £4.10 in return. The UK's fiscal framework should be redesigned to capture this upside by adopting public sector net worth as a measure of true value of public assets, extending the fiscal horizon from three to 10 years.
3. Mission-Aligned Policy Tools
Public procurement – £341bn a year in the UK – remains one of the most powerful and underused levers. A mission-oriented approach makes public buying power go further, moving from buying the cheapest products to achieving good outcomes. Public finance institutions such as the National Wealth Fund must be empowered to act as investors of first resort, funding innovative projects aligned with missions, rather than simply de-risking private investment as lenders of last resort.
4. State Capacity Building
Decades of outsourcing to consultancies have hollowed out the civil service's ability to steer the economy, negotiate with business and shape investment conditions. The government's new public interest test – asking whether a service can be delivered in-house before large contracts are outsourced – is promising. But ministers must go further, conducting a comprehensive review of public-sector skills, capabilities and cultural shifts required for transformative policy.
5. Co-Creation with Citizens, Workers and Communities
Missions gain legitimacy and resilience from the degree to which people affected have genuine ownership of goals. This means deliberative forums, citizens' assemblies, participatory budgeting, and trade unions with a meaningful seat at the table. It also means investing in arts and culture as core social infrastructure for the green transition, building public imagination and democratic engagement.
Conclusion: A New Standard for Government
Burnham has called for an end to '40 years of neoliberalism'. Confronting Britain's challenges requires building concrete partnerships between the state and the private sector where business is held to its role in producing value rather than extracting it. Labour cannot afford to be simplistically 'business-friendly' but should work symbiotically and productively with business, sharing risks and rewards under a robust governance architecture that delivers for people in the near-term. That is the standard this government must now meet.
