The shape of the new Labour government's public and social policy intentions is now emerging. There is recognition that a series of intractable issues cannot be resolved in isolation. The causes of social exclusion, criminality, unemployment, poor health, low educational attainment, poor housing and welfare dependency, are interlinked and multi-faceted. The Prime Minister has frequently talked of the need to keep the bigger picture in mind and called for “joined-up solutions for joined-up problems” (The Times, 9 December 1997: leader column referring to the Prime Minister's launch of the Social Exclusion Unit the day before). After a year in government he has reiterated the point yet again. Writing in The Observer he says,

The logic and need are compelling. However, the history of previous attempts to coordinate policy, together with both the growth of scale and the establishment of very different managerial and professional cultures across the agencies of delivery, do not suggest this will be easy. It will require a major shift towards lateral working across different agencies in partnership with local neighbourhoods. While the new rhetoric is being advanced in every quarter, it is likely that the reality of implementation will be strongly resisted. There are two central reasons for this. Firstly, a great many people have an enormous investment in the power bases, career structures and the management, political and professional cultures of the status quo. These are essentially hierarchical and asymmetrical in relation to the horizontal and self-generating linkages required for change. Secondly, this status quo is reinforced by the historical emphasis on cure of the presenting problems rather than prevention in the first place. It is a Fordist rather than a quality approach. Making the switch towards longer-term prevention is likely to prove very difficult in many areas of provision.