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In a new paper Making Sense of Entitlement, NLGN argues that more devolution and a local approach towards public service delivery would ensure better services for the communities.  Calling for less central government intrusion this paper argues that use of entitlements and guarantees to citizens replicates many of the problems of traditional performance targets and restricts the ability of services to focus on the needs of their local communities.

Local public bodies should operate more transparently and should be held accountable for the decisions they make argued the paper whilst championing the rights of local authorities independently devising public service strategy for their local communities.

The think tank welcomed the Coalition Government’s decision to scrap the “free care at home” and the waiting time targets and suggested that one to one tuition as well as an entitlement rights for 17 year olds to education, jobs or training should be dumped as well.

NLGN makes the following recommendations in the paper:

•    Negotiated Agreement between central government and local authority based on policy objectives and needs of the local community

•    Accountable and transparent public services with appropriate safeguards built into the system

•    Future entitlements should be outcomes based

•    More powers should be devolved to local authorities to run healthcare and policing