For the Public Good: How people want their public services to change
This research reports on a series of focus groups and polling that were conducted in spring 2012 to find out what people think about public service reform. The views revealed in this research present some strong challenges to the government?s ?open public services? programme of reforms. NOTE! While this report makes reference to charities they have been grouped together with private companies. It is therefore unclear to what extent the public opinion applies to both private companies and charities, or awareness of the opportunities for people to influence local services via voluntary action and local charities. Some of the main findings were: - Only a minority support the government?s view that there should be?no default?, with the private sector as an equal provider alongside public agencies. 62 per cent of people thought that public services should be provided mainly or only be government. - We also found concern regarding the practical implications of an enlarged role for non-state providers, and also strong support for the view that public services are inherently different from business and there are limits to the extent they should become more businesslike. 64 per cent of people agreed that public services should not be run like businesses but rather depend on the values and ethos of the public good.
