David Cameron’s ‘Nudge Unit’ is part-privatised
A team of behavioural insights experts recruited by the government, under a pet project of Prime Minister David Cameron, has been sold to its employees and the charity Nesta with the government retaining a stake in a three way split.
Widely known as the ‘nudge unit’, after the 2008 behavioural psychology book penned by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, the team devise ways of changing public behaviour by making small changes to the choices they face.
It has claimed success at increasing Britain’s organ donors by 100,000 by changing the wording on a driving license renewal website. They also claim credit for increasing the payment of court fines by sending personalised texts to offenders.
Cabinet office minister Francis Maude said: “There is loads of evidence that employee-owned and led companies outperform their competitors. The government has retained a stake so that if it is spectacularly successful, as we hope it will be, the government has an interest in the upside."
The government sees this as the first step in a wider programme of selling off public sector policy teams but unions have attacked the move as ‘back-door privatisation.’