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The latest book in the series from the Adam Smith Institute and MORI looks at the delivery of public services. The findings of the report highlight the differences between the consumer agenda and the producer agenda. The new survey looks at three services: police, schools and local government and the conclusion from all three is that what they deliver is not what the public want. The public want the police to tackle criminal gangs and organized crime, muggings and street crimes, prevent burglary and recover stolen property. A huge majority of people say that teaching the basics - reading, writing & comprehension - should be a top priority. Local government should concentrate on CCTV, keep council estates in good repair and tackle litter, graffiti and dog dirt. The disparity between what is delivered and what is wanted is clear to see.

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While Labour and Conservative parties talk about the value of parental choice in education, other countries are actively encouraging it. "All state schools could become independant." say's the reports author, former Fabian society research chief Stephen Pollard. Examples are given where the public funding private provision model is successsfully being used. In America the charter schools, which have been set up by local parents recieve tax funding, are non selective and are exempt from much of the regulation on state schools. New Zealand has copied the charter school model replacing the old district bureaucracies with new boards of trustees for each school and abolished zoning. 82% of New Zealanders now claim to be satisfied with their children's education. 97% of low income families are satisfied. Equality and educational standards would both rise if the government stopped running schools and paid others to do it instead.

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A new ASI report suggests that Britain should follow Sweden, Norway, Holland and Belgium in asking people to pay the first £60 of their annual prescriptions bills. This would bring an extra £2 billion into the NHS, cut the waste of 'free' medicines that are never taken, and would allow patients to weigh up whether expensive new medicines – unavailable on the NHS today – were really worth paying for. Is £60 too much? It's only a sixth of what the poorest families already spend on booze, betting and baccy, says author Ian Senior.

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Britain's tax funded health system is no longer the world's envy, but a quaint oddity. It will remain in financial crisis until we bring far more private spending on healthcare. Health costs cannot be met by taxation alone. The Institute highlights three areas where funding could be changed. The first is competing funds where 'NHS tax' contributions are paid into a number of 'social insurance funds' of their own choice. The second is charges where there should be co-payments for some minor services, as already happens in Europe. The third is cost, taking the responsibility for healthcare funding out of central government and handing it to private or non profit social insurance funds, will increase what we spend on healthcare.

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Professor Alain Enthoven is one of the world's leading health policy analysts. In this paper for ASI, he reflects gloomily on the prospects for real improvements in NHS delivery unless there are more radical reforms than the politicians are contemplating.

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The regulation of clinical practice must focus on the clinical service standards that are delivered to patients, and not on protecting professional self-interest. It must be accepted and trusted as such by the public. We envisage therefore a single regulatory authority that is independent of the healthcare professions. It should be dominated by lay representatives, and perhaps chaired by a lawyer rather than a clinician.

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A critique of what the author calls the 'dangerous delusions of corporate social responsibility and business ethics'. Should we ask more of our business people than that they conduct their affairs as openly and honestly as anyone else?

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The Big Turn Off analyses the attitudes of young people to government, citizenship and community. It shows that only a small proportion of young people share the government view that citizenship means volunteering to do things, challenging the law if they think it wrong, or being active in the community. They have little time for government, be it local, national or European, thinking it largely irrelevant to their lives.

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Simpler Taxes is an indictment of the nation's tax system, which imposes huge costs upon the economy. If taxes were overt, people would realize the huge gap between what they are paying and the services they receive in return. Exploring how globalization and the Internet are making it ever more difficult to levy traditional taxation, Braestrup concludes that governments must, in effect, compete for the loyalty of their citizens with attractive tax regimes. His proposal for Britain is that complex and obscure taxes should be replaced by visible ones which are easy to understand, and whose rates are lower.

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Up to now, access to justice has been the privilege of the wealthy and the minority who are sufficiently poor to qualify for civil legal aid. Most other people had no access to civil justice, a factor which has brought the civil justice system into disrepute. The government is presently undertaking a major and long-overdue reform of the civil legal aid system in accordance with the Access to Justice Act 1999. Reforms enacted on 1 April 2000 abolish legal aid for most civil claims. Instead, it is expected that cases will be funded by the conditional fee system - popularly known as "no win, no fee". In this system the lawyer agrees with his client to charge an additional success fee if the claim is successful, but may charge nothing if the claim fails. It is an example of payment by result. These reforms effectively represent the privatisation of access to justice. The civil courts are increasingly accessible to anyone with a meritorious claim.

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