When it comes to contemplating radical change, especially that which requires the embracing of other professional worlds and life in neighbourhoods and communities, much of local government in particular has been a hot bed of complacency. The institutions of local government have been continuously critical of centrally-determined policy for reform directed at it, but have not been able to formulate their own proposals and innovations that address the essential need to reform.

Further, the level of resources devoted to research and development is pitiful. While some other areas of public service may have been a little more innovative, the overall history has been depressing.

Currently, public service agencies are giving considerable attention to the more structural and legalistic aspects of the reform agenda. While this is necessary, it is also entirely predictable that they will do this largely to the exclusion of these aspects that relate more closely to the issues being addressed here. This is simply to follow the Fordist and Taylorist traditions and their preoccupation with the structural aspects of power and control.

Most attention in local government is likely to focus upon deriving new structures and mechanisms of governance and partnership as ends in themselves. Similarly, the reorganisational aspects around the formation of primary care groups – not to mention the political obsession with waiting lists – may well take attention away from the primary purposes of the reforms. For the police service, the immediate legal, structural and partnership aspects of the Crime and Disorder Bill are likely to become paramount. The real concern is that many of our public services will not progress beyond these short-term concerns. What should be the means towards longer-term ends become ends in themselves. Each agency may pursue partnership, consultation and involvement, driven from its own agenda and needs, and the necessity ‘to comply’ with the formal aspects of government requirements.