Campaign 1
Show Us the Score
Make major government commitments easier for the public to track, understand and verify.
Government makes commitments about the things that shape our lives — healthcare, housing, crime, education, transport, migration, economic growth, the environment and public services.
But it is often surprisingly difficult for an ordinary citizen to answer a simple question: Is it working?
Britain on Purpose wants to change that.
We are calling for a simple, consistent Government Performance Standard for major measurable government commitments.
Not another strategy document. Not another press release. Not another layer of government spin. A clear public scoreboard.
The campaign in 30 seconds
When government makes an important measurable commitment, the public should be able to see:
The problem
Government already publishes enormous amounts of information, but major commitments are not consistently presented in a way ordinary citizens can easily follow.
Our proposal
Create a common Government Performance Standard for major measurable commitments.
Our ask
Show the promise, starting point, target, latest result, status, evidence and what happens next.
Success looks like
Anyone can understand whether an important government commitment is on track without needing to be a policy expert.
Promise → Baseline → Target → Latest Result → Status → Evidence → Next Action. That should be the basic minimum for public accountability.
Add your name — sign the official Parliament petition.
Sign the petition →Why this matters
Trust requires visibility
Public trust cannot be rebuilt through better slogans. It has to be earned.
When government makes a commitment, citizens should be able to see what happened afterwards. If something improves, government should be able to demonstrate it. If something is failing, the public should be able to see that too.
And if circumstances genuinely change and a target needs to change, government should explain why.
Accountability should not depend on which political party happens to be in power. The same standard should apply to every government.
From announcements to outcomes
Political debate often focuses on activity: a policy was announced, money was allocated, a strategy was launched, a task force was created, or a consultation took place.
Those things may all be necessary. But none of them tells us whether the underlying problem improved.
Britain on Purpose wants government to move towards a different cycle: Problem → Target → Action → Measurement → Learning → Improvement
The important question should always be: Did it work?
Add your name — sign the official Parliament petition.
Sign the petition →What could a scorecard look like?
For a commitment to reduce long waits for planned NHS treatment, a citizen should be able to see:
The same basic structure could be used for major commitments involving healthcare, housing, crime, school attendance, migration, transport, water quality, employment, economic growth, public-sector productivity and infrastructure. The measures will differ. The accountability standard should not.
Seven rules for a credible scorecard
A Government Performance Standard only works if the rules are strong enough to prevent it becoming another communications exercise:
Targets must be measurable. "Improve public services" is an ambition. A target tells us what improvement means.
The baseline must be published. Progress is meaningless without knowing where we started.
Measurement should remain consistent. If methodology changes, the change should be explained and previous results preserved where possible.
Missed targets must remain visible. Failure should not disappear from the website when a new announcement arrives.
The underlying evidence must be accessible. Headline figures should link directly to the source data and methodology.
Targets should not quietly move. If a target changes, government should explain what changed, when, why and who authorised it.
Updates should follow a published schedule. Citizens should know when the next result is due.
This must not become government advertising
A Government Performance Standard should not exist to demonstrate that whichever party is in office is doing brilliantly.
Sometimes the results will be good. Sometimes they will be poor. Sometimes the evidence will be ambiguous. That is precisely why the system is valuable.
Government should publish the evidence. It should not get to decide what the evidence means for everybody else.
Opposition politicians, journalists, researchers, independent organisations and citizens should remain free to challenge the interpretation.
The purpose is not to eliminate political disagreement. It is to give political disagreement a better factual foundation.
Accountability should work in both directions. If waiting times improve, say so. If crime falls, say so. If housebuilding rises, say so. Good news should survive politics too.
What happens when a target is missed?
Missing a target does not automatically mean a government or policy has failed. Circumstances change. Forecasts can be wrong. Unexpected events happen. Some problems are genuinely difficult. And sometimes an approach simply does not work as expected.
But a significant missed target should trigger an explanation. Government should answer:
Why did we miss it?
What did we learn?
Is the original target still appropriate?
What are we changing?
When will we report again?
There should be no shame in discovering that an approach did not work. There should be a problem if nobody learns from it.
What we are not proposing
We are not proposing that every aspect of public life can be reduced to a number.
We are not proposing simplistic ministerial league tables.
We are not asking for hundreds of new targets.
We are not asking government to guarantee outcomes completely outside its control.
We are not proposing an expensive new bureaucracy duplicating information government already holds.
We are not suggesting that statistics can replace political judgement.
We want a clearer route from promise to evidence.
One standard, whichever government is in power
This proposal is deliberately non-partisan.
A Labour government should be held to it. A Conservative government should be held to it. A Liberal Democrat government should be held to it. A coalition should be held to it.
Tell us what you are trying to achieve. Show us what happened.
This is not about helping one political side win. It is about helping citizens judge whichever side governs.
What we are asking government to do
We are asking the Cabinet Office to work with departments, Parliament, civil society and independent experts to develop and test a common Government Performance Standard.
The first step does not need to be a government-wide rollout. A practical pilot could apply the standard to a small number of major measurable commitments across several departments.
The pilot should test whether citizens understand the information, whether data can be drawn largely from existing reporting systems, whether the standard creates unnecessary administrative burden, whether status assessments can be made fairly and consistently, and whether independent organisations can easily verify the underlying evidence.
If the approach works, expand it. If it does not, improve it. Show Us the Score should itself be judged by whether it works.
Add your name — sign the official Parliament petition.
Sign the petition →What success looks like
Success is not the creation of another government website.
Success is reaching a point where a citizen hearing an important government promise knows exactly where to look later to find out what happened.
A citizen should be able to answer:
What was promised?
Where did we begin?
What is the target?
What has actually happened?
Are we on track?
What evidence supports that conclusion?
What happens next?
Without needing to understand the machinery of Whitehall.
What would change our mind
Britain on Purpose would reconsider the need for a separate Government Performance Standard if existing government reporting became sufficiently consistent, accessible, timely and comparable that ordinary citizens could reliably answer those questions without one.
We would also change the proposed design if evidence showed that a different approach delivered transparency more effectively or with substantially less administrative burden. The objective matters more than our preferred mechanism.
Campaign Progress
We are taking Show Us the Score directly to the people and institutions responsible for government performance, transparency and accountability.
Our aim is not just to seek endorsements. We want the proposal challenged, tested and improved.
Contacting Local MPs
We have begun contacting MPs directly to introduce Show Us the Score and ask for their views on the proposal.
Three MPs have been contacted so far.
We are asking them to support the principle of clearer public reporting on major government commitments, challenge and improve the proposal, raise it with relevant government departments and committees, and suggest other policymakers or experts we should speak to.
Our aim is to build cross-party support around better government accountability, rather than align the campaign with any one political party.
Cabinet Office Open Government Team
We have contacted the team responsible for the UK's Open Government programme to ask whether Show Us the Score could contribute to current work on transparency, accountability and public participation.
We have also offered to help develop a practical prototype using existing government data.
Simon Hoare MP and PACAC
We have approached the Chair and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to ask whether a common public performance standard could improve accountability and whether the proposal could be examined through the Committee's work.
Louise Haigh MP / Cabinet Office
We have asked the Cabinet Office to consider a small pilot applying the standard to a limited number of major commitments across several departments.
The pilot would test whether the approach is useful to citizens, practical for government and capable of using information that already exists.
What We Want
Our immediate goal is simple:
Get the idea properly examined.
We want government, Parliament, civil society and independent experts to help answer one question:
Can we make it much easier for citizens to see whether major government promises are actually being delivered?
Our proposed standard is:
Promise → Baseline → Target → Latest Result → Status → Evidence → Next Action
We will publish meaningful responses, criticism and changes to the proposal as the campaign develops.
Get Involved
Four ways to make this campaign count.
Share this campaign
Help us reach more people. Share Show Us the Score and ask others to add their support.
Follow on InstagramSign up for updates
Be the first to hear when we publish new evidence, launch new campaigns, or need your voice on something urgent.
Get updatesSign our petition
Add your name to our petition calling on the government to publish a clear, independently verified scorecard of its own commitments.
Sign the petitionWrite to your MP
Use our template letter to ask your MP to support mandatory, verifiable public reporting on major government commitments.
Subject: Will you support clearer public reporting of government targets?
Dear [MP name], I am a constituent living at [address/postcode]. I am supporting Britain on Purpose's Show Us the Score campaign. The proposal is simple: when government makes a major measurable commitment, the public should be able to see its starting point, target, latest result, status, underlying evidence and what happens next in one clear and consistent format. Government already collects and publishes substantial performance information. Show Us the Score is not asking for another large reporting bureaucracy. It is asking for a clearer citizen-facing standard that makes existing information easier to understand and verify. I believe the same standard should apply whichever political party is in government. Would you support the principle of a common Government Performance Standard, and would you be willing to raise the proposal with the Cabinet Office? I would be grateful to know your view. Yours sincerely, [Name] [Address/Postcode]
Got a reply? Share it with us — we track how MPs are responding across the country.
Share your MP's responseSupport Show Us the Score
If you believe major government commitments should come with clear, verifiable public reporting, add your support.
Government makes the promises. Show us the score.
A better tomorrow, together.