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Probably42 News - February 2023
Welcome to our February Newsletter!
We’ve just entered for this year’s Heywood Prize which is about ‘innovative and impactful ideas with the potential to improve UK Policy’. So far we’ve input an entry on ‘Transforming UK National Productivity’ based on our document Generating a Productivity Obsession and we are planning to make a couple of other entries. If there is any idea that you’ve seen from us that you particularly like, do let us know. You can also enter your own ideas at www.heywoodfoundation.com/contest
Recent and Forthcoming Discussions
Since our last newsletter in December we’ve covered two interesting topics of a very different nature ‘The Ever-deepening Housing Crisis’ and ‘Constitutional Reform’.
We’ve updated our Housing Crisis document as a result (issue 5) and have added several further proposals but all the original proposals dating from 2018 remain just as relevant today as they were then. There is a lot of analysis but if you just want to view the 12 proposals they are in the final section of the document with the summary of each in bold, so very easy to have a quick scan at Tackling the Housing Crisis.
Our discussion of Constitutional Reform was prompted by the recent report by Gordon Brown on the subject for the Labour Party. Do you know what our Unwritten Constitution actually consists of? Interestingly, we started with the mindset that a proposed Written Constitution was probably a good idea. However, once we got into the subject we unanimously decided it was a bad idea. If you want to see why and what we actually think should happen take a look at Constitutional Reform.
We haven’t finalised our topic for February yet but keep an eye on Topic of the Month - Forum View for announcement of the topic and agenda.
Government Information that may interest you
As usual we highlight more examples of information on Parliament activity and outputs which may interest you:
- Did you know that the UK had a world-leading National Measurement System UK Measurement Strategy 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) ?
- A call for evidence seeking to bring the NHS and Social Care closer together Hewitt review: call for evidence - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
- A further call for evidence seeking to update the National Planning Policy Framework Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill: reforms to national planning policy - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .
Why not join a Group?
If you’d like to join one of the Probably42 discussion groups held via videoconferencing, just email in response to this newsletter and we’ll send you more details. We very much want a diversity of viewpoints, so you can be sure your views will be welcomed. Remember it’s about relaxed discussion and having an enjoyable time, with hopefully some useful ideas identified.
We also want to encourage face-to-face real world discussion groups, as feeders into the main online discussions. If you’d like to find out more about the one in Berkshire, or if you’d like to see one start in your area, just email in response to this newsletter and we’ll send you details.
Feedback
We always welcome any feedback, thoughts, ideas or questions about Probably42. Simply reply to this newsletter and you’ll receive a personal reply.
All the best
Tony