A senior government minister has called for greater personalisation of local services. Cabinet Office minister, Ed Miliband, told a conference held by the Demos think-tank that enabling people to decide their own services was ‘the historic part of our mission for public services'. He said: ‘We profoundly still under-estimate the impact the user has. ‘We still operate a delivery model of public services. It's not what's delivered to people but how. ‘I think we are in the foothills of what we can achieve in this area. Part of the challenge for us is giving more autonomy back to public service professionals.' The minister said individual budgets for social services users was just the beginning. He added the Sure Start programme was a model which could be extended to areas such as personalised tuition. The minister said decision-making should not shift from Whitehall to town halls. ‘This is not a plea for more people to stand on committees. It's about strengthening local democracy,' he said.
