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The Prime Minister has fired a starting gun on a debate about the fundamentals of government and you can see sectors, institutions and everyone connected running after the answer. It is a timely debate, as anyone working in public services knows in their bones that we need to redesign how we are working.The key will be basing this thinking on our knowledge of the now, rather than nostalgia.I am defining ‘The State' as the machinery of government which is accountable for the outcomes which the country explicitly or tacitly voted for over the course of successive elections. Public services, by this definition, are the machinery and methods by which public servants deliver those outcomes. Have you stopped to consider your own definitions?Rewiring has a pleasingly technical ring to it, it resonates with a view of the state as a machine that needs fixing – we just need to sort the wiring out and all will be well.But, if public services are the manifestation of the Government's desired outcomes in people's lives, surely we need to really understand those lives and the world we now live in?I wonder if we need to talk about renewing the state as it is a phrase that speaks to the intangibles that we also need to replenish – relational health and social capital.If we try to solve the problem of public service reform by ‘fixing' a model that was designed for a very different age, we will miss the mark. When we are thinking about public service reform, the first problem we are trying to solve is relevance. A more technocratic but better wired state will make no difference if it is less relevant to people's lives.We live in a world that is complex and networked, which has fundamentally shifted from the industrial model, even if the delivery of public services has not yet managed that.When we step back and look at our communities they are less connected. The same technologies that are bringing us closer at work are separating us socially. We can see that in our politics.A recent report from think-tank Demos, Work in Progress: How to Upgrade Democracy in the Age of AI, talks about relational health and the strength of relations between people in the system as being foundational to any kind of functioning democracy. I would argue the same goes for renewed public services. We need to address the world as it is now if we are to rewire the state in a way that has meaningful impact.If we try to solve the problem of public service reform by ‘fixing' a model that was designed for a very different age, we will miss the mark. When we are thinking about public service reform, the first problem we are trying to solve is relevance. A more technocratic but better wired state will make no difference if it is less relevant to people's lives.Here are just some of the big shifts that have happened since then and which lead us to very different service designs:An older society is reshaping demand for public services everywhere but also needs us to reshape what a working lifetime looks like.Unpaid care is now a second job, hidden inside the system.The state is becoming computer-mediated on both sides but digital exclusion remains a real issue, so assisted routes stay, but they are the exception to design around, not the default.Flexibility has become an embedded privilege which higher paid workers can take advantage of, while public services still largely assume a working day and for users to organise around services.Renewing the state must happen with shifts like these as the starting point and that needs to be across the whole of government, not just the part of the system that we occupy.What does this mean for local government? There is a risk that taking advantage of new technologies takes this whole debate down a path where scale is about volume and reach and not depth.I think local government needs to focus on our centrality to the reality of people's lives:We are the part of the state that is in constant contact with people's lives, not just through universal services like libraries or waste, but in our work on housing and care.We are the interface with the voluntary and community sector and the safety net it provides.We are closest to the everyday economy of towns and high streets which is a vital foundation for good growth.We hold the things that enable prevention and we should be the part of the system where we anchor a relational state that is able to weave in and around people's lives as they need it. This means having the capacity to create a depth of relationship with citizens and not just serve customers at scale.Rather than the bottom of a hierarchy, which is a fear we all have with strategic authorities being so central to the narrative, we need to focus on our role as the foundations of the state and our relevance to the communities in which people live their lives.Let's reject the idea that ‘strategy' can be owned by one part of a system of government when it is needed everywhere.Strategy without insight is just words and scale without depth lacks relevance. We offer both of those things and we should be confident in saying so.Catherine Howe is chief executive of Dorset Council

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REWIRING LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Local government: Taking the lead

By Dr Catherine Howe | 22 October 2026

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