Economic uncertainty, political change, the global war on terror and the ageing population have created an extremely uncertain environment for government leaders. Public security, social services, economic development and efficiency are at the top of the agenda for both governments and industries as they strive to create a new ¿secure economy¿.

Aware of this new situation and the challenge political planning for the new century represents for administrations, Deloitte has published a report analyzing future trends, which is entitled: ¿Serving the 21^st century citizen¿.

The report examines the key challenges facing the public sector in the 21^st century: boosting performance, improving accountability, ensuring and increasing public safety and security and countering terrorism. Other critical challenges include preparing for the impact of an ageing population and making government more effective through innovative partnerships with the private sector and the enhanced use of digital services.

Faced with this new situation, the following five areas of public action are considered of greatest priority for the future: the modernization of government, public security and defence, public governance and accountability, health and welfare, and the development of innovative partnerships.

The report outlines the major issues associated with each of these challenges and offers specific strategies for success, which should be taken into account by today¿s governments in the interests of developing successful programmes that will guarantee real benefits for citizens, communities and industries.

Likewise, when it comes to modernizing governments, the public sector finds that, unlike the private sector, governments must serve all citizens, providing them with essential services that in many cases would never survive in the private sector. However, the administrations¿ basic objectives are similar to those of the private sector: the efficient use of taxpayers¿ money, striving for continuous improvement and delivering the maximum value to citizens and their communities. With these objectives, the success of future governments will depend on the adoption of mechanisms to control the performance of the activities and investments carried out to satisfy citizens¿ needs. It will also depend on governments obtaining greater value in services not managed by the Administration through shared services and privatization; the introduction of competition in public services through innovative partnerships; the promotion of efficiency in civil servants with attractive rewards and incentives; the marketing of public services, and efforts being made to ensure they constitute a source of best practices.

When it comes to security, governments are faced with a dilemma. They are expected to structure their security efforts in order to deliver the maximum value to citizens and businesses, by improving economic competition and the quality of life. In order to do this, governments must plan future strategies that promote collaboration and greater participation by citizens and businesses in security issues. They must promote commerce and help businesses prosper in a secure economy, as well as foster the consolidation of security technologies.

Governments, in addition to responding to citizens¿ needs, exist in order to ensure that these requirements are met efficiently, effectively and fairly. In order to achieve this, public accountability must be managed properly, using control and monitoring processes and systems, which allow the measuring of the results in all areas relative to the executive management¿s overall strategic objectives. This will ensure full transparency for critical decisions and activities, including the preparation and execution of budgets.

In health and welfare, the challenges facing future governments focus on providing incentives for health care providers and pharmaceutical companies ¿ which allow health costs to be controlled ¿ the reform and reinforcement of retirement programmes, the adjusting of immigration policies in order to attract young, skilled workers, and the integration of departments and their supporting teams so as to improve the general efficiency of the public health service.

Finally, it should be borne in mind that the introduction of innovative partnerships is another key aspect of ensuring the success of public policies, which will provide greater added value to public services.

This report aims to constitute a useful guide for the public service. It was developed based on Deloitte¿s experience in the public sector and the description of the sector¿s global vision, its clients and opinion leaders.