CPP hosted a virtual roundtable entitled '2020 Public Services Commission – 10 years on’. The roundtable brought together members of the former 2020 Public Services Commission to discuss progress made over the last decade against the Commission’s recommendations and what next for public services and the role of the state within the context of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. Read the write up.

The 2020 Commission was established in 2008. At the time, improved outcomes in health, child poverty and education levels were beginning to plateau among an increasingly sterile policy debate. But with fiscal consolidation on the horizon, solutions were needed that could accommodate lower budgets. With this in mind, the Commission was an attempt to look forward ten years and anticipate the major opportunities and challenges facing society, going back to the first principles of public services and re-imagining the citizen-state connection.

On its tenth anniversary, former members of the Commission published a collection of essays exploring what next for public services and the role of the State within the context of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. The collection provides a key point of departure for policy makers and practitioners into the required response to the current crisis and beyond.

To accompany the collection, CPP has developed a new measure of community spending which includes per head spending on services vital for supporting community relationships and social cohesion: libraries, open spaces, recreation and sports, Sure Start, and services for young people across local authorities.

The collection

Read the complete collection here or individual essays through the links below.

Introduction

• Ben Lucas, Founder and Managing Director, Metro Dynamics
  
• Henry Kippin, North of Tyne Combined Authority (writing independently)

Social productivity: the future is all around us

• Victor Adebowale, Chair and Founder, Collaborate
• Jeff Masters, Senior Head of Practice, Collaborate
• Anna Randle, Chief Executive, Collaborate

Citizens’ power: a missed opportunity

• Greg Parston, Visiting Professor, Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London

Building a coalition for change

• Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, RSA

A troublesome legacy: more centralised, less preventive services

• Professor Nick Bosanquet, Professor of Health Policy, Imperial College

Where next? Rewriting history and the role of the state

• Charlotte Alldritt, Director, Centre for Progressive Policy

Social productivity in a lost decade

• Paul Buddery, Director of Strategy, Volunteering Matters (Feb 2017– May 2020)

It is not enough to have good ideas: actions come harder

• Bridget Rosewell, Commissioner, National Infrastructure Commission

Public services and localism before and after Covid-19?

• Ben Page, Chief Executive, Ipsos MORI

Online or in-line? Ten years on

• Tim Kelsey, Senior Vice President of Analytics International, HIMSS

An ageing society: how has public policy responded?

• Geoffrey Filkin, Former Chair of Centre for Ageing Better