News - Press releases

On the eve of the Conservative Party conference, Speakers’ Corner Trust is publishing (on Friday 1 October) an online debate on the merits of localism, one of the Government’s most cherished priorities and cornerstone of its vision for the Big Society.

Politicians must set out a coherent long term approach to public services in advance of the Comprehensive Spending Review says the cross-party and authoritative Commission on 2020 Public Services. In its final report published today, the Commission calls for a complete reconfiguring of public services around the needs and capabilities of citizens, based on the principle of social productivity.

The report claims that our public services are increasingly unsustainable. The impact of an ageing society could load the equivalent of an extra 4-6% of GDP on to public spending over the next two decades. Inequality is rising and current public service productivity has been falling.

Our public safety services are overly complicated, inaccessible, and not delivering strong justice outcomes and clear value for money, says a report published today: 2020 Public Safety: Opportunities for Reform. As a new round of reforms begins, it is essential to agree the principles that hold together this vast range of diverse activity.

The curriculum is too long, overly prescriptive, constrains teachers and stifles innovation. The admissions system is a mess - a fact evidenced by extraordinary levels of social segregation between schools. Shifts in culture, power and finance: a way forward for education, a new report published today by the 2020 Public Services Trust, identifies these problems, and calls for future education and schooling to be address them by becoming more localised and more personalised.

After 30 years of welfare reform the public could be forgiven for failing to notice any changes. Successive governments have tried both to get spending under control and to ensure that those who need it get help. Neither task has been achieved.

This new report argues for a new way of thinking about welfare and a new approach to reform. 2020 Welfare: Life, Work, Locality, published today by the 2020 Public Services Trust sets out a route to unlocking citizen action and for greater transparency of welfare spending for ordinary people.