Early action : landscape review, cross-government

Early action is the early deployment of resources by public bodies to prevent problems occurring or getting worse in service provision, rather than spending money reactively once those problems have occurred.

Determined leadership is necessary to divert resources away from pressing and highly visible current needs, in line with public expectations, towards long-term early action programmes, particularly at times of fiscal austerity.

Evidence of early action's impact and cost-effectiveness is thin and since information on costs within most departments is also patchy, specifying an amount that could be reduced within the estimated GBP377 billion spent on 'social' spending in 2011-12 is not possible.

However, projects with the strongest evidence base show that some early action projects can achieve returns of up to 4 to 1. The Government has adopted the principle that early action is important in public service provision but does not plan a significant shift in resources. The total amount spent each year by the Department of Health, Department for Education, Home Office and Ministry of Justice on early action intervention programmes has remained fairly constant at around GBP12 billion, about 6 per cent of the departments' spending in 2011-12.

The NAO has identified four key challenges the addressing of which could help in the design and implementation of early action programmes: namely, more consistent and robust gathering of evidence of what works; overcoming short-term thinking and other practical barriers; effective cross-government coordination of early action; and strengthening departments' capacity to innovate and take bold long-term decisions.