As we celebrate living in a more diverse population, living longer and having a better quality of life, we must acknowledge the significant pressures on demand that this places on public services and councils across the country.

This of course will not be news to readers of The MJ, who are only too aware of the increasing demand and fiscal constraints impacting services.

Equally, it should be of no surprise to readers that an unprecedented rise in the over-65s will see the population of England and Wales increase by 6.1m by 2030, and that high unemployment and out-of-work benefit claims during the downturn have brought significant imbalances across the country, with a much-debated North/South divide.

As things stand, councils will not be able to continue to deliver services to the degree that people expect, nor will they be able to improve outcomes for residents.

Our research shows that already, in response to reduced funding, councils have cut back most on social protection, and community and secondary education spending.

Housing support payments have continued to increase to fund the rising number of housing benefit claimants.

Better public services, revolutionised, transformed and fit to meet the many demands of the 21st century, will be key to tackling these and future challenges.

Business and government need to build more diverse, competitive, accountable and transparent markets to deliver more effective and innovative services.

Too often, innovative approaches to improving service delivery, such as Community Budgets, are hampered by poor communication across government and characterised by mistrust and misunderstanding between the public and private sector.
But, together, the sector is stronger.

In pursuing better public services, the sector must band together and break down barriers to communication.

It will realise that ultimately, all involved in delivering services want a better quality of life for the people in their communities.

That is why the CBI launched the Public Services Network (PSN), to act as the facilitator of dialogue between all those within the sector.

We want businesses from across the economy, either as providers or as users of services, to connect with local councils, central government, VSOs and charity organisations, and discuss the challenges that the sector faces.

We need an open discussion about where things have gone wrong in the past and where opportunities for improvement can be found in the years to come.

It is clear that the business-government relationship has not always worked as well as intended: sometimes through fault and error, sometimes through poor contracting and
relationship management.

The challenge for business and government is to build and manage dynamic, responsive markets across all key areas of government spending on services and to ensure both sides have the skills and capacity to manage and operate in these markets.

Local authorities have managed their commercial relationships better than central government and are market leaders in creativity and service transformation.

Eighty seven per cent of local authorities now engage in some sort of collaborative commissioning with other councils. This has generated a reported £295m in savings to date.

But, procurement is an example of where our members still experience problems and
business believes there is a long way to go professionally managed.

I recall one particular conversation with a business that adequately summed up their
frustration, comparing the experience to shopping at the supermarket: ‘when I shop at
Tesco or Sainsbury's, whichever part of the country, the experience is the same', he told us, ‘but when I contract with the public sector, it's different every time, and that means higher costs'.

Communication is key. Our intention is that the network can begin to bring people
from within the sector together to start to discuss issues like procurement in an open and unrestrained way.

If we take the words of Henry Ford that ‘coming together is a beginning. Keeping
together is progress. Working together is success', then the PSN predicates that we are at the beginning of a long, but necessary, journey towards success.

Hopefully, through the network, true communication throughout between business and government can be made more achievable.