I spent 10 years researching and writing this book so that I and you could understand what it really takes to deliver effectively in government – the conditions for success, the challenges and even the crises that it takes. The book tells the messy, unvarnished human story, full of uncertainty and then over time, slowly, a story of triumph. Learning from history is not just about nostalgia – it’s about addressing a lack of institutional memory, which can lead to a government being conducted in an ahistorical environment.
Dr Michelle Clement, Lecture in Government Studies and Researcher in Residence at No 10 Downing Street
03 June 2025
Blair's 'delivery revolution' unveiled: new book reveals inside story of government reform
Author Dr Michelle Clement discussed her groundbreaking study of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit with its founder, Sir Michael Barber
The inner workings of Tony Blair’s pioneering approach to government delivery were laid bare at an event at King's last week, as Dr Michelle Clement launched her new book, The Art of Delivery: The Inside Story of How the Blair Government Transformed Britain's Public Services.
The event, hosted by the Strand Group at King's – part of the Policy Institute – featured an in-conversation between Dr Clement, a Lecturer in Government Studies and Researcher in Residence at No 10 Downing Street, and Sir Michael Barber, former head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit (PMDU) from 2001 to 2005.
Dr Clement’s book represents the first academic study of the PMDU, and was produced with unprecedented access to Sir Michael Barber's private, unpublished diaries from the period – a staggering 600,000 words of handwritten notes that chronicle the inner workings of government reform. The research also drew on exclusive interviews with central protagonists and previously unseen government papers.
Introducing the event, Professor Jon Davis, Director of the Strand Group, paid tribute to Dr Clement, commending her development as a leading scholar. “With her first book now and another on the way, she is becoming one of the foremost historians of the New Labour era,” he said.
The birth of ‘deliverology’
Explaining the political context at the time, Dr Clement said that two years into his first term, Blair complained of having “scars on my back” as a result of trying to reform the public sector – his rhetoric a reflection of his own frustration at learning how to govern on the job.
The book chronicles how Blair, after winning the 2001 general election, told the British people he had received “a mandate for reform … an instruction to deliver”. To transform this rhetoric into reality, he asked Michael Barber to establish the first-ever Prime Minister's Delivery Unit.
The PMDU was set up in 2001 to monitor and accelerate the implementation of Prime Minister Tony Blair's public service reform priorities in health, education, transport, crime and asylum.
Discussing how the unit worked in practice, Dr Clement said it was staffed by about 40 people – civil servants and consultants – who shadowed the work of each of the delivery departments. “Michael kept the unit small on purpose to avoid a large bureaucracy overseeing an even larger one,” she said.
They established new routines – delivery plans, quarterly delivery reports with league tables, stock-take meetings with the Prime Minister, priority reviews to tackle urgent problem areas, and delivery training seminars for civil servants.
Through these kinds of measures, “the Delivery Unit helped transform public services, changed the role and capacity of the civil service, and set a new standard for what it means to be an ambitious Prime Minister who delivers,” Dr Clement said.
She also highlighted how, as head of the Delivery Unit, Michael Barber’s ability to form effective working relationships was critical to the "art of delivery", without which the "science of delivery" could not have been fully operationalised
As Blair himself later reflected at a previous Strand Group event in 2015, Barber's approach with the Delivery Unit was “quite revolutionary, more so than we realised at the time”.
Lessons for the future
Reflecting on his work in the PMDU, Sir Michael said it was a fantastic time in his career, but “there’s no need to be nostalgic”. He argued that in an era of populism, strongmen, and people losing faith in democracy and progress, we need to be persistent in ensuring government and public services provide a better future for the public. “The antidote to all of that populism is serious delivery,” he said.
I hope that people not just in this country, not just in this government, but all over the world, will read Michelle’s book, learn the lessons of delivery and show citizens that we can deliver and we can make a better future, and the golden age could well be ahead of us.
Sir Michael Barber, former head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit
The Art of Delivery: The Inside Story of How the Blair Government Transformed Britain's Public Services is published by Biteback Publishing.