Four ways to run a service
Health, policing, councils and fire compared.
Around four hours on four ways to run a service: NHS Wales as a different model, policing governance and reform, local government's history and models, and fire and rescue, compared across the public sector.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 4 hours 30 minutes
- Where
- Serving the public
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Officers, managers and board members who work with health, police, council and fire partners
Overview
Partners around the same table often work to very different rules. This course, taken from Knowing the public landscape, begins with NHS Wales, where seven Local Health Boards plan, commission and deliver care under direct Welsh Government oversight, compared with England. It then sets out the roles of Police and Crime Commissioners, chief constables and Police and Crime Panels, including the November 2025 announcement to abolish commissioners. Local government follows, from nearly two centuries of reform to the three governance models and the Folkestone and Hythe case. The last section covers fire and rescue's three governance models and a comparison of elected, appointed and ministerial models.
Aims
The goal is to help leaders compare how health, policing, councils and fire are governed, anticipate where a partner's rules differ from their own, and work across the border between England and Wales with care, knowing who decides and to whom they answer.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Compare who commissions, who provides and who is accountable in the split English NHS and the directly run Welsh system.
- Distinguish the powers of the Police and Crime Commissioner, chief constable and Police and Crime Panel, and assess what announced reforms mean.
- Explain why fire and rescue duties stay the same under every governance model, and trace the accountability chain before raising a concern.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Describe how NHS Wales is governed, from the Welsh health minister and Director General to the seven Local Health Boards, national bodies and the Joint Commissioning Committee.
- Explain the separation between elected accountability for direction and resources and the chief constable's operational independence under the Policing Protocol.
- Explain the scale and breadth of what English councils deliver, using the four service categories of caring, educating and housing, shaping places and everyday essentials.
- Distinguish two tier, unitary, combined authority and parish arrangements and identify which council delivers a given service in each.
- Distinguish the combined fire authority, single authority and commissioner led models by who governs and how directly each is accountable to the public.
- Compare the accountability models of local government, policing, NHS bodies, NHS England's functions and fire and rescue.
- Compare who commissions, who provides and who is accountable in the split English system and the directly run Welsh system.
- Distinguish the powers of the Police and Crime Commissioner, the chief constable and the Police and Crime Panel, including the precept and the appointment of the chief constable.
Built from 3 parts.
4 hours 30 minutes of learning.
- 01Health and policingThe NHS in Wales and policing governanceBitesize · The Public Sector2 modules
- 02How councils came to beTypes of local authority and council structuresBitesize · Foundations of Local Government2 modules
- 03Fire and the council differenceFire and rescue governance and how local government differsBitesize · The Public Sector2 modules