UK Government to Part-Privatise 'Nudge Unit'

The UK government has launched a competition to find a commercial firm to help spin out its Behavioural Insights Team or 'Nudge Unit' into a separate joint venture. The resulting unit will be part-owned by Whitehall, with the partner putting in new investment, and employees becoming shareholders.

Set up by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010 after he had read Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's book Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, the unit's remit is to apply the authors' theory that people's habits can be changed without government regulation, instead nudging them in the direction they 'should' go.

Drawing on academic research which shows how subtle changes to the way in which communications are framed can impact on how people respond to them, the unit - led by psychologist David Halpern (pictured) and costing £520k a year to run - applies these insights to public policy making in the UK. Last September, it was announced that the unit is to sell its expertise in the fields of behavioural economics and psychology to governments and institutions around the world.

This will be the first time that a policy unit has been moved out of government control, and run as a mutual joint venture, and a competition has now been launched to identify a suitable external investor.

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude claims that as a 'John Lewis-style mutual', the move will accelerate the Government's ambition to make public assets 'pay their way'. Agreeing with the Government's plan, CBI Director Matthew Fell says that there are many other functions across central and local government that could benefit from similar partnership models.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union argues that there is 'nothing mutual, co-operative, or employee-led about the scheme', and that improving public services requires 'investment, not gimmicks, and back-door privatisation'. In a recent opinion poll conducted by the PCS, just 16% of civil servants said they were interested in exploring the idea of becoming a mutual.

Web site: www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/behavioural-insights-team .