Inside the Nudge Unit

The decision to set up BIT with a default that it be shut after two years was based on my own experience of government, plus the desire to create a sense of urgency and momentum. I had seen too many units set up by previous governments that had failed to deliver, but limped on because no one got around to shutting them down. This way we would have a clear, time-limited target. It also enabled us to live by our own principles: we had effectively switched around the normal default of government teams so that the Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary would have to make an active choice to keep the team going