How public services are funded and how they are run have been two central questions to dominate news and political conversations.
The scale of problems associated with the NHS, from the crisis in A&E to the scandals revealed in the Francis Report in Staffordshire, have all been about money and staffing.
And yet, as the General Election gets closer these two questions are moving into the background. It seems to me that whilst the headlines are all about poor funding and inadequate staffing levels, both of the major parties are not quite sure what the answers are. They would rather the discussion was focussed on the personalities and the gaffes (as much as they say they would rather concentrate on the issues).
We saw last week with the news that the new Greater Manchester body is to be given responsibility (or share it with existing NHS organisations) for all health spending that the major parties were not sure how to react. In a sense it was a counter intuitive response : the Conservatives who are supposed to be sceptical about the way Labour Councils are run, is in fact, transferring millions of pounds and responsibility for a range of services to an overwhelmingly Labour dominated new authority. And Labour, who are supposed to favour greater devolution, found themselves with their national spokesperson on Health being critical of the proposal. And (predictably) the news followed these two apparent contradictions.
I want to suggest that what they tell us is that neither party is clear (or confident) about what to do next.
The funding crises in the public sector is built in for the next five years. Austerity is not over we are about to move into the next phase – Austerity 2.0. The real discussion needs to be about what we are prepared to fund (both the level and the scale of service) and that avoiding either of those two questions does not help the public conversation.