Institute for Public Policy Research

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR )is a UK think tank with links to the Labour Party. It describes itself as "progressive".

History

According to the IPPR website, the organisation was "founded by Lord Hollick who developed the idea for an independent progressive think tank in 1986".

Links to the Labour Party

Writing for a Times Educational Supplement article in 2005, journalist Jon Slater investigates the "influential figures behind the Government's education policies":

If you want to influence Labour's education policy, you could do worse than target a think-tank and a management consultancy. More than London university's institute of education, the teaching unions or even the Labour party, the Institute for Public Policy Research and McKinsey have the ear of people in high places.

McKinsey's motto, "Everything can be measured and what gets measured gets managed", could apply to Labour's schools policy... the web of connections between 10 Downing Street and McKinsey is rivalled only by that between the IPPR and the Department for Education and Skills.

David Miliband, the former schools minister, started out at the IPPR and all four special advisers to Education Secretary Ruth Kelly - Richard Darlington, Will Paxton, Dan Corry and Gavin Kelly - are ex-IPPR (although curiously none specialised in education). Nick Pearce, director of the IPPR, is a former special adviser at the DfES and Home Office.

Relations between the two bodies are close enough to allow IPPR research fellows to moonlight in Labour's innovations unit, and for Anna Bush, a DfES civil servant, to be seconded to the think-tank where she wrote a report expected to criticise the Government for not doing enough to get the best teachers into inner-city schools.

The think-tank - which recently argued for a limit on fixed-term exclusions - also has links with No 10 where Matthew Taylor, Mr Pearce's predecessor, now works...

Those who have moved between think-tanks and government say the two are complementary. Working in a think-tank allows advisers to build expertise in a policy area which is invaluable in government. Conversely, think-tank people with Whitehall experience have a better idea of how policy is formulated and how their ideas will affect government.

The advantage of outside experience within Whitehall is increasingly recognised within the civil service with Sir Alan Wilson, former Leeds university vice-chancellor, and Michael Stephenson, former director of factual and education programming at the BBC, both on the DfES board.

Insiders insist such relationships are far from symbiotic, with even sympathetic think-tanks frequently infuriating ministers.

But the IPPR, SMF and others are in regular discussions with government advisers about policy and are sometimes happy to act as outriders on some issues, helping to start controversial debates and fly political kites without ministers getting their hands dirty.

Personnel

IPPR Trustees

• Chris Powell - Chairman
• Jeremy Hardie - Treasurer - also chairman of Opendemocracy, and of WH Smith
• Chai Patel - Secretary
• Kumar Bhattacharyya - former adviser to Thatcher [1]
• Lord Brooke - formed TUC general council member
• Lord Eatwell - former advisor to Neil Kinnock
• Lord Gavron (ex of Nicky Gavron), and ex-chair of the Guardian
• Chris Gibson-Smith - has been chair of London Stock Exchange, and the National Air Traffic Servives
• Anthony Giddens - from the LSE
• Lord Clive Hollick - of United News and Media
• Jane Humphries - historian from Oxford
• Roger Jowell - from National Centre for Social Research, Centre for Research into Elections and Social Trends - another LSE person
• Neil Kinnock - former Labour leader
• Richard Lambert - former editor of the Financial Times
• David Marquand - from oxford university
• Frances O'Grady - deputy sec general of TUC
• Michael Perry
• David Pitt-Watson - managing director of various financial etc companies
• Dave Prentis - secretary general of Unisom
• (Lord) David Puttnam - filmmaker?
• Martin Rees - the Astronomer Royal
• Jan Royall - head of the European Commission Office in Wales, former aide to Kinnock
• Ed Sweeney -
• Shirley Williams
• Baroness Young of Old Scone

Staff

• Carey Oppenheim - co-director
• Lisa Harker - co-director
• Ian Kearns - Deputy Chair of ippr's Security Commission
• Danny Sriskandarajah - Director of Research Strategy, Head of Migration, Equalities & Citizenship
• Kate Stanley - Acting Deputy Director and Head of Social Policy
• Sue Stirling Director, ippr north
• Jane Smith Director of Finance and Operations
• Olga Mrinska Research Director, ippr north

Affiliations

Media

In 2004, the IPPR organised an extensive series of fringe events at the 2004 Labour Party conference, in association with TV station Channel 4.

Health

In 2006, Merck Sharp & Dohme Limited (MSD) agreed to partner with the IPPR on a project examining what the NHS might look like after 2008.

The MSD website explains the background to the project "is that, whereas in 2002 the government began the process of providing significant extra resources to the NHS, come 2008 the rate of growth of this spending is certain to fall. This project will therefore put forward proposals on how a sustainable health system which commands high levels of public support may be developed after 2008".

It adds that 'MSD has previously worked closely with the IPPR on a number of projects. This has included supporting the development of a number of independent research projects, and joining several other corporate sponsors in supporting conferences and fringe events'. However they do not give more detailed information of their involvement or of what form it took.

External links

• Institute for Public Policy Research Website Home Page Last Accessed 9 June 2007.