1. Power to the professionals

Under the new government’s proposals, schools and GP surgeries will have greater responsibility for providing and commissioning local services, and there will be more direct accountability within the police. The flipside is that power over service delivery will be taken away from local government: local authorities will see their responsibilities as local education providers shrink and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are set to disappear. The likely result is further innovation and experimentation at a local level.

2. Redefining the welfare state boundaries

The coalition will use the challenging fiscal context as an opportunity to redefine the boundaries of the welfare state. Plans for a National Care Service died with Labour’s electoral defeat; in the future we can expect social care to be provided through private – and perhaps compulsory – insurance. A similar approach may be taken with unemployment insurance. Although universal benefits in the main survived the Budget, this is unlikely to last: Child Benefit, among others, may yet be axed.

3. EasyCouncil v The Cooperative Council

Local councils are facing immense pressure in terms of budgetary cuts. Expect to see a paring back of non-statutory services, with councils looking for innovative ways to tighten their belts – for example, Barnet’s ‘easyJet’ model in which residents pay-as-they-go for extra services, and Lambeth’s ‘cooperative council’ model in which citizens get a discount on council tax for taking part in service delivery. But might these models result in the neediest people being short-changed of services?

4. More payment by results

The approach used in welfare reform – in which risk is transferred from the public to the private and voluntary sectors through payment-by-results contracts – will be applied to other sectors. For the private sector, this spells greater service provision opportunities. Charities may become preferred providers because of the added value they bring. Alternatively, if they cannot compete on the same grounds as large private sector contractors, they may be crowded out of public service delivery in the way some argue has happened in welfare reform.

5. The Big Society filling the gap

Citizens will be expected to fill some of the gaps created by public spending cuts. Cameron’s vision of a Big Society rests upon an increased role for charities and volunteers in delivering public services. Home Secretary Theresa May’s announcement in July that citizens will be encouraged to volunteer as reservists in the police force shows that volunteering will be encouraged even in key core services.