What next for public services in 2026?

The next twelve months will be critical for public services and determine the scale of the reform that will be delivered in the next three years. John Copps picks out some of the areas to watch out for.

2025 felt like stuttering progress for a government that has styled itself as a champion of public services.

It was always going to be a tough job, but the rollercoaster of the previous ten years has not been replaced by something that feels like stability. There’s been lots of White Papers and policy announcements, but it is all yet to cohere into something bigger than the sum of its parts.

What will the next twelve months bring in public services? Will the government’s efforts at reform hit their stride?

Realising change in mechanisms of government

For years now, public spending has been working on one-year cycles. In June, the multi-year Spending Review changed that – with HM Treasury agreeing a plan until 2029.

April will see that multi-year cycle kick in – and with it, hopefully, a greater sense of certainty. At the same time, new Ministers will have had time found their feet after September’s reshuffle, unlocking delays in decision-making.

On the other hand, the much trumpeted ‘missions’ that were meant to guide public service reform seem to have dissolved as a driving force. And the local elections in May could prove a challenging time for maintaining momentum around public service reform.

‘Getting stuff done’

‘Delivery, delivery, delivery’ were the Prime Minister’s words at the end of last summer. If public services are going to be reformed on the scale promised, 2026 has to be about gripping this promised transformation.

As we all know, making change happen is easier said than done. Ministers want to move fast but, after years of stasis in domestic policy, civil servants are still adjusting. The government has committed to a mantra of ‘test, learn and grow’, describing a focus on trying out solutions directly in local areas. This approach will need to mature quickly if 2026 is to be a successful year. You can read more about MV’s approach to 'delivery' in public services here.

The return of Total Place

The 2025 Autumn Budget saw a significant announcement in public service reform with investment in five ‘place-based budget pilots’. The aim is simple: to bring all the funding streams in an area together around the needs of a place rather than the boundaries of individual programmes or departments.

These pilots have been heralded as the successor to 2009’s Total Place policy and come after sustained campaigning from within local government and think tanks, including our own work on Radical Place Leadership and place-based public services with the LGA. My colleague Andrew Laird has written about how place based budgeting risks being fruitless unless combined with a 'relational renaissance'. 

Very much allied to the five pilots is the integrated settlements that will come into force in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands in April. How accountability for that will work is still something of an open question, although ulitmately the proof of the pudding is in whether GM and WMCA leaders can deliver a better experience and outcomes for citizens. We wait to see.

AI continues its rapid ascent

There is no area of public services that isn’t already touched by AI. Everything from customer services, to medical screening, analytics and day-to-day adminstrative tasks. The number of social workers using AI tools to write notes, for example, was reported by Community Care to be 21% in October 2024 and had risen to 30% in June 2025. At that rate of growth, you wouldn't bet against nearly all of them using them by the end of 2026.

In the year to come, hopefully we should see more sustained benefits from AI and an real impact on productivity in public services. This also means addressing the big question around how greater automation fits with what people need from front-line services. AI must be used sensitively and not erode the relationships that make public services successful.

Decision-makers should avoid impulsively grabbing for the next 'shiny thing' for fear of being left behind. Public bodies need to take the time to think about the 'why' not just the 'what'.

Redrawing the map: Devolution, Local Government Reorganisation and the ICB shakeup

In 2026 a lot of time and energy will go into the process of changing the map that underpins local public services. The government has set in motion a path to removing two tier local government, creating new Mayor-led strategic authorities, and consolidating local Integrated Care Boards.

The end of November saw 21 areas make their bids for the future of local government reorganisation (LGR) – largely with county councils wanting large units and district councils wanting smaller units. It is now the government’s job to come down on one side or the other, although Ministers have been at pains to say decisions will be taken individually ‘based on the merits of each proposal’.

In a separate process, where they don’t already exist, ‘Strategic Authorities’ will be formed by groups of councils and be responsible for managing regional growth priorities. And in the NHS, ICBs are consolidating and streamlining to make huge budget savings.

All this means 2026 will see a redrawing of the map of public services. Decisions on LGR are promised ‘in the summer’ and councils are already in the process of clustering to create strategic authorities. ICBs will spend the early part of the year finalising their leadership teams and size of their teams as a precursor to merging.

The big question is whether all this change can be managed along reform in the way services are delivered – a lot is being asked and the risks are high. Leaders should regularly remind themselves that isn't simply an exercise in administrative musical chairs. Real public service reform must go alongside it. 

A focus on local growth

Economic growth, alongside reform of public services, is the defining pledge of this government.

Launched at the end of last year, the government hopes that its new ‘Local Growth’ and ‘Pride in Place’ programmes will help stimulate a boom in regional economic success. Taken together the programmes bring long-term capital spending to increase regional productivity, skills and infrastructure, alongside hyper-local investment giving residents the power to shape their neighbourhoods.

In 2026 planning will begin for hundreds of new projects, although it will take until 202 for spades to make it into the ground. Local leadership will need to step up. In particularly Pride in Place will mean residents, businesses, and councils working together through Neighbourhood Boards to act together, make their own decisions, and create places that feel distinctly theirs.

Learn more about the support MV can provide to areas receiving funding from the Pride in Place Programme here.

Children’s services reform gets real

The big news in 2025 was the appointment of Minister Josh MacAlister, author of 2022’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. Unusually, he comes into post with a clear and very public view on what he thinks needs to be done.

Top of the list is to ‘get more foster carers recruited’. Elsewhere, the Families First for Children Programme is embedding new approaches to shift the system to more relational, family-focused practice and reduce the number of children entering care.

Overarching all this is the trend towards regional working, as the government sees the benefits in scale for planning, managing and buying placements in the form of Regional Care Cooperatives. We are expecting the new Children’s Families Bill to become law this summer, and powers to force local authorities to work together, albeit with statutory responsibilities for the safety and care of children remaining with councils. How this tension plays out will be key in shaping the impact of the reforms.

Towards a Neighbourhood Health Service

Last July’s NHS Ten Year Plan set out three ambitious shifts in the way the NHS works – hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. Some of the most practical measures were the ambitions to set on integrated neighbourhood teams and neighbourhood health centres, to empower practitioners in the community to make decisions. The work and health agenda also gained momentum in 2025, with the realisation that the UK has a serious issue with sickness and disability in the working age population. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the announcement that the government was to abolish NHS England, bringing its functions into the hands of the DHSC.

All things considered, the direction of reform in health feels familiar – both from previous plans and the something-like-a consensus that has built up over the past couple of decades. But if anything, the plan feels more like a set of ambitions, without much detail on implementation and timetable.

The King’s Fund have criticised it as ‘too implicit on the trade-offs the government has promised to be open about’ – in other words not fully addressing the difficult choices needed to balance the ambition with funding and workforce constraints, and the absence of social care. 2026 needs to see more flesh on the bones.

If the government is going to live up to its own billing on public service reform, then there is a lot to do in 2026. Whatever happens, we’ll be here to support our public services. 

Happy New Year from everyone at MV! We wish you a successful and prosperous 2026.

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