Prospects for More Local, More Personalised Public Services: A North East perspective

This discussion paper sets out of some of the key questions that ippr north's Commission on Public Sector Reform in the North East will be considering over the coming months, and the analysis that forms the backdrop to these questions.

The Commission's overall goal is to catalyse improved health, wealth and well-being for individuals and communities within the North East region by proposing policy measures and forms of governance that aim to strengthen the impact of public services locally, regionally and nationally in a socially just way. The Commission brings together a number of senior figures from the region's public, private and voluntary sectors and is looking in particular at four key public service sectors:

• Education
• Health
• Welfare-to-work
• Criminal justice.

The Commission will consider both services provided directly by the public sector and services commissioned from the private and voluntary sectors.

Many of the key issues surrounding public services in the North East will be familiar to other parts of the country but the Commission takes a distinctive approach to these issues.