From blood group ID to cycle racks: I asked for little ways to fix broken Britain and the public’s ideas give me hope | Martin Lewis

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There are thousands of small tips to make our country better. People know what is wrong, and it’s clear they have solutionsHave you ever come across an annoying little problem and…

There are thousands of small tips to make our country better. People know what is wrong, and it’s clear they have solutions

Have you ever come across an annoying little problem and thought, “why don’t they just fix that?” If so, I want to hear from you. I’m looking for your ideas for practical, low-cost, non-controversial ways to improve the UK – whether that’s health, schools, transport, business, housing, policing, justice, tech, shopping, money – or owt else entirely.

The spark for this happened just over a year ago, when I spoke at Politico’s fringe event at Labour’s conference. The key discussion was about Keir Starmer’s unpopularity. I was asked what I’d have advised the government when it took power, so I said: “Come up with 100 small things that piss people off and that you can fix, and they can see that you have fixed them.” Then I reeled off a list of small fixes for my subject area: the counterproductive way council tax debt is escalated; renaming “tax-free childcare”; and so on.

As I walked off stage, I emailed myself: “Set up an Institute for Small Ideas.” I started straight away, did some work, brought some people together, put it out to tender for charities to run it, and then a month ago it launched – albeit with a slight name change. Think of it as a sort of apolitical national suggestion box. And in those few weeks since launch, we’ve already had 42,000 suggestions.

At a time when public debate can feel dominated by division, outrage and disagreement, there’s something quietly encouraging about tens of thousands of people taking the time to offer constructive ideas. Clearly the timing was fortuitous, as small ideas are now all the rage. We haven’t started the filtering process yet, but here are just a few of the ideas that have been suggested:

The idea is that if someone could fix enough of these frustrations and make lives easier, save time and let everyone get on with work or the things they enjoy, the combined effect – and the feelgood factor –…

Then…

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Guardian Business. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.