DIRECTOR'S CHAIR

摘要

Scarcely a month goes by without another report on the merits of merging health and local government. The arguments in its favour are pretty well settled and furthermore are cross-party - so whatever government is in power, integration will be top of the agenda. Readers who attended the LGA conference in June will recall that integration seemed to be on every speaker's lips, irrespective of political complexion. We can certainly expect ministers and their shadows at the party conferences to extol the virtues of integration as a service-enhancing efficiency issue. Indeed so passionate is the current (Lib Dem) care minister Norman Lamb about the subject that he told a Localis briefing this week his (presumably civil service-written) speech was 'rubbish'and then proceeded to abandon it and speak without notes.