There will be significant changes to public services over the coming years, with many services merging together or being privatized. Local authorities will have a more limited role and focus more on capacity building rather than direct service delivery. Citizens will have more control over funding for services and how that money is spent. New types of public-private partnerships and funding models will also emerge to help support services.

1. looking ahead
there will be many mergers of services units.
there will be fewer hospitals, police and fire stations.
there will be fewer local authorities as they merge together, particularly districts
community governance (town and parish councils) will bloom
councils may merge with other units of service provision
cities take charge, e. g welfare
councils will seek to transfer risk, particularly to community organisations

2. Local authorities will have an even more limited role in the education
system.
All schools will be ‘independent’ of the local authority.
Schools might be run for profit?
Community Universities
Community Justice approaches will be used instead of custodial sentences in
more cases, as prisons reach bursting point
New Local Prisons
The Work Programme will be reviewed and possibly replaced

3. in the nhs access to new pharmaceuticals and treatments will be restricted
and waiting times will increase.
public health interventions will be the only significant way to achieve big
changes in outcomes.
the private sector in health care will expand.
more people will buy health and social care insurance products
older people will have occupational health checks, immunisations, other
public health interventions

4. reducing energy costs will become one of the top priorities for
public service providers
this and channel shift and the cloud, mean
public services will be increasingly delivered to users where they
are, rather than in institutions
public service workers will be ever more mobile

5. ‘personalisation’ will be accelerated with more service users being given a
funding allocation, across more services, which they may ‘top up’
comparison websites will become an important market place for public
services

6. new or growing areas
services supporting independent living
‘socialisation’ services for older people
vocational education (as young people chose not to go to university)
information management services about citizens/service users
services subject to "right to challenge" - will be used by different parts of
government
stewardship of natural resources. "local nature partnerships"
government advisory services, such as financial advice
government and insurance - flooding, social care etc

7. more commercial trading by parts of government
new council housing - borrowing against the hra
will we see tesco hospitals or ebay degrees?
will there be significant new forms of funding public services through new
financial models, such as hedge funds funding prevention?

8. what does this context mean for the future
council?
service delivery or capacity building?
changed relationship of citizen and (local) state
democratic accountability?