Earlier reforms of government such as contracting out have failed to address wicked issues such as crime, ill health, and poor education. The reason for the failure is that government is still organised against a 19^th century model of separate departments spending their own budgets. This analysis is set out in a report by Demos, the independent think-tank. The author, Perri 6, argues that without radical reform, fundamental problems that cut across departmental boundaries will not be properly addressed. Agencies will continue to shift problems on to others, schools will go on excluding pupils who will commit crime and mentally ill people will be dumped into the community.Currently budgets are divided into separate silos for health, education, law and order, etc. The horizontal links between the professions, such as police, teachers, doctors and nurses, are weak. Improving these arrangements is unlikely to bring any substantial improvement The report urges the Government to take an holistic approach to achieve greater integration across the public sector. This would involve a fundamental re-think of structures and processes, moving the emphasis from functions and services towards a focus on solving problems.

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