The news this morning that the Government is to authorise the creation of Trusts to take over local child protection services that are judged to be inadequate raises all sorts of questions. The failure of public services is sadly not new and one can understand why the Government wants to intervene in the face of such problems. Of course removing the responsibility for such services from local democratically elected Councils raises a number of issues. Where does this policy stop? Would the Government intervene if for example the Bins were not emptied adequately? What about if the number of empty homes exceeded national averages. The list goes on, primarily because local Government is responsible for so many services in our communities. Putting to one side the issue of child protection, as a general rule the work of other agencies such as Health, Courts, Prisons are often a great deal less engaged with local people than the Councils are and of course these are not even democratically accountable at a local level. We do need a new political paradigm at a local level, that like these proposed trust includes the involvement of charities and people with skills that have not been forthcoming in the organisation of public services. I find the way in which Councillors hide behind their democratic accountability when they are being challenged over poor services, very depressing and have seen it in all sorts of settings across the South East. However if we are to change the way in which we work, it cannot be a case of simply cherry picking the services that are so badly provided that the Government judges that things cannot get any worse. We really need to have a more consistent approach to all public services, none should be off limits to the wisdom and experience of the voluntary sector and other parts of society What about issues such as the setting of Parliamentary expenses, incomes and judgements over issues such as filibusters and other Parliamentary processes. Asking Turkeys to vote to cancel Christmas is never a good thing. If the Government is prepared to create trusts to replace broken parts of local Government we need the same approach at a national level.