In recent years, local authorities have struggled to manage increasing demand for public services against a backdrop of significant budget reductions. As the New Local Government Network (NLGN) has identified, this has created an environment in which public services interact with communities in an increasingly transactional manner, offering quick-fixes to acute problems rather than tackling issues more broadly and getting to their root cause. This has resulted in a loss of trust in public institutions, reduced effectiveness in responding to issues and an increase in demand for services.

There are pockets of deprivation across the country that current public service provision is ill-equipped to address, yet it is these areas that need public services the most.