This report covers all public services except the NHS and non-Governmental state-funded organisations, the activities of which are covered in other sector reports included in this series. The basic Government policy objectives framing the activities of public sector agencies are: maintaining a stable economy; promoting productivity and enterprise; building a fairer society including removing child poverty; delivering high employment and making work pay; delivering high quality public services; protecting the environment. Massive expansion and reform programmes implemented by the Government have been a contributory factor in insulating the UK from economic downturns experienced in countries in mainland Europe and elsewhere. There is however widespread concern that investments have yet to deliver improvements promised and that state machinery is top heavy with bureaucracy. Since the other main props are the UK economy at the present time are retail spending – with its voracious appetite for credit card debt and imported consumer goods – and house prices that are rising at a rate generally considered to be unsustainable, there are obvious concerns over the effects that an economic downturn would have on the financing of current and planned Government expenditure.