Britons have noticed little progress in government delivery on the public’s most important priorities

Ratings of government performance on key policy priorities have mostly worsened over the year as public is focused on NHS, cost-of-living, economy and small boat crossings.  

Key findings

• Public priorities continue to be dominated by the NHS and cost-of-living issues: Cutting NHS waiting times (56%), cutting energy bills and boosting home energy security (52%), raising living standards in every part of the UK (52%) and delivering economic stability to keep taxes, inflation and mortgages low (51%) continue to be the public’s top priorities from a list of milestones the Government has set for itself and other priorities.  The NHS and bread and butter issues have dominated the public agenda this year, alongside reducing the number of small boat crossings (49%) which rounds up the top five this month.

• Partisan divide and convergence in priorities: While Labour, Conservative and Reform UK voters differ in the importance they place on different priorities, we also find some similarities. Cutting NHS waiting times, economic stability and cutting energy bills are top 5 priorities for 2024 voters of all three parties. Labour voters are more likely to prioritise elective care waiting lists (54%), while Conservative and Reform voters are more likely to prioritise reducing small boat crossings (68% and 70% respectively) and reducing net migration (54% and 66% respectively)

• Poor performance on the public’s most important priorities: Perceived performance is net negative across all of the 13 priorities and milestones in the survey, with the worst ratings on raising living standards (61% saying the government is doing a bad job), delivering economic stability and reducing the number of small boat crossings (both 59% bad job), all among the public’s top 5 priorities. On the public’s other top priorities, views are not quite as critical but still clearly more negative than positive on cutting NHS waiting times (20% good job, 49% bad job) and cutting energy bills (18% good job, 53% bad job). 

  

• Declining performance: Since March 2025, government performance has worsened across nearly all milestones and priorities, with only tacking action on energy bills and setting up Great British Energy seeing a fall in negativity (from 61% bad job in March to 53% bad job now). Some of the biggest declines are on:
  • strengthening Britan’s armed forces and national security (20% good job v 33% in March, 13-point drop);
  • elective care targets (17% good job v 25% in March, 8-point drop);
  • cutting NHS waiting times (20% good job v 28% in March, 8-point drop);
  • reducing the number of small boat crossings (59% bad job vs 52% in March, 7-point increase).

• Little progress: Few say they have noticed progress being made towards achieving the government’s milestones and priorities. One in five each say they have noticed progress on strengthening Britain’s armed forces (22%), cutting NHS waiting times (21%), building 1.5m homes in England (21%), and elective care targets (20%). At the bottom of the list, only 14% say they have noticed progress on raising living standards across the UK, with 72% saying they have not noticed very much or any progress at all.

Commenting on the findings, Alex Bogdan, Research Director at Ipsos, said:

A year ago, the government set itself a number of milestones it wanted to deliver by the end of this parliament. The public’s priorities have been set on the NHS and cost-of-living issues this year, along with reducing small boat crossings, yet they are not seeing much if any progress and their assessment of the government’s performance so far is poor and generally worsening over the year.  Following the Autumn Budget half of Britons think taxes are going up too much but this new research suggests they don’t feel they are seeing results to make the financial pain worth the rewards.

Technical note: 

• Ipsos interviewed a representative sample of 1,074 adults aged 18-75 across Great Britain. Polling was conducted online between the 28 November – 2 December 2025.  
• Data are weighted to match the profile of the population. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error.