NEWS: Today I’m launching The Small Ideas Initiative. We want you to submit ideas at Small-Ideas.org for non-controversial fixes, e.g “live sewage updates for beaches” or “standardised allergen menus”. A year ago, an interviewer asked what I’d have told the Government if I’d been advising it, I replied, 'Come up with 100 small things that piss people off and fix one a day for the first 100 days'. As I left the stage, I emailed myself, 'set up Small ideas institute!' And today, I’m excited it's happening. I’m funding two charities to work together to collate the submissions, narrow them down to about 200 doables then turn those into formal policy proposals which I'll bring back to you for feedback. Then to finish we've a Cross-Party panel who’ve agreed to pick 50ish, after which we’ll start trying to make them happen. You can read far more about it and who the cross party panel are here… blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2…

Exclusive from @patrickkmaguire Andy Burnham has said that No 10 North will take over responsibility for economic growth from the Treasury as part of a “huge transfer of power” out of Whitehall In an interview with The Times, the prime minister raised concerns about the Treasury’s traditional “dual role” in both promoting economic growth and controlling the public finances He said the department’s focus on balancing the books “sometimes clouds that growth mission” and that the significance of No 10 North, which is based in Manchester, would become “more and more apparent as we go forward” The prime minister said John Healey, the chancellor, was fully supportive of the approach, while he hit out at critics who have derided No 10 North as a “satellite office” Comparing No 10 North to the Department of Economic Affairs, Harold Wilson’s doomed attempt to establish a dedicated growth ministry, Burnham said: “I just wish people might just engage with the seriousness of the proposition.” “It is actually a huge transfer of power,” Burnham said. “It’s something that the country has never cracked before. I don’t wish this to sound, you know, a criticism or negative about the Treasury. “There’s a job to be done around control of public finances. It’s just the dual job of growth and control of public finances [that] sometimes clouds the growth mission. And particularly having No 10 leading on that growth mission means you’ve got maximum power to unlock the blockages where they exist in the wider Whitehall system.” thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…