After more than 20 years working on policy inside and outside government, I have learned that securing a policy commitment is only part of the job. The harder task is making change last.

It can sometimes feel like we are in an endless cycle of new initiatives being announced and established, only for priorities to shift, the work to be dismantled and campaigning to begin again.

In 2010 I worked on the Child Poverty Act which aimed to lock in progress on child poverty and commit future governments to further reductions. It did not work. The Act was amended and child poverty rates soared. And, despite what the architects of the Act had hoped, there was no real political cost to these decisions. There was no big public outcry. Politicians did not have to stand on doorsteps and account for the worsening situation.

This is not a unique example.

Political short-termism is partly responsible, but we should also ask why successful policies can be reversed at so little political cost.

A recent podcast exchange between Yvette Cooper and George Osborne answered this question. The new Health Secretary berated the former chancellor for dismantling Sure Start, before they both agreed this was only possible because the coalition government felt little political pain for the decision. Beyond the families and practitioners who knew and loved it, Sure Start had limited public salience. Its dismantling did not generate the kind of public pressure that makes politicians think twice

It is clear: if we want to deliver change that lasts, we must work harder to create and demonstrate a public mandate for action.

Charities often focus on persuading the relevant minister, adviser or official to make a change. We collate the best evidence and the experts and we sit around tables in places like Westminster, Holyrood or Stormont making the case for action. This might achieve specific changes to policy, legislation and investment, but it does not ensure that change lasts when the particular minister or government moves on.

Changing our way of working is becoming more urgent as the UK enters a fragmented, multi-party political era. Power is dispersed among different parties, devolved governments, mayors and local leaders.

Shaping priorities across traditional political divides

Lobbying one party or cultivating a small number of political champions will no longer be enough. We must shape priorities and expectations that reach across traditional political and demographic divides.

This is the founding insight for our new organisation, Start Strong, which exists to ensure every baby and young child has a fair start in life.

Our strategy has three connecting parts: changing the story to shift how people think and talk about early childhood; mobilising a broad movement and using that movement to help politicians to take bold, long-term action.

We want to create the conditions in which change is not only possible, but expected, so that governments face public pressure to act and a political cost to going backwards.

Our first step has been research with More in Common into how people think and talk about babies, young children and their families. This helps us to understand where common ground exists between people from different communities. It shows which arguments speak across political divides, which assumptions limit support, and which shared values could underpin a lasting public mandate for change.

The research shows that a broad range of people are moved by understanding the reality of babies’ and children’s lives today. We don’t need to make more long-term or economic cases for action, but we do need to make early childhood more salient and make the inequalities in children’s early experiences more visible.

The findings of the research and recommendations will be available later this month.

Citizen’s Assembly

Building on this, we are now running a national listening exercise and hosting a Citizens’ Assembly to identify policy solutions that command broad support.

The Citizens’ Assembly, which will take place in November, will bring together 100 people from across the UK, elected through a large-scale public recruitment process designed to create a group that is representative of the wider population. They will spend two weekends developing a vision for early childhood and priorities for governments.

Citizens’ assemblies give people with different experiences and political instincts the time and information to think beyond their starting positions, consider trade-offs and identify what they can agree on.

That does not mean manufacturing unanimity. Nor should an assembly be treated as a focus group designed to endorse a campaign. The goal is not artificial consensus, but an understanding of where informed public agreement exists. This gives us a basis for building a broader public consensus around what every child should be able to expect in their earliest years.

None of this replaces conventional lobbying. Charities still need robust evidence, credible proposals and trusted relationships with politicians and officials. But these will be all the more effective in the context of public support for action.

In a fragmented political landscape, that public mandate may be one of the sector’s most valuable assets. It can help us secure action, sustain it when governments change, and make it harder for progress to be quietly undone. Because ultimately, the test of successful advocacy is not whether we win a policy commitment, but whether babies and young children’s lives improve.

Sally Hogg is director of Start Strong

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