According to a White Paper ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People’, local authorities in England are to be given the responsibility, backed by ring-fenced budgets and new freedoms, to improve people’s health and tackle health inequalities. Directors of Public Health will transfer to local government, working through new health and wellbeing boards. Detailed proposals for these boards are to follow, but they will exist in every upper-tier local authority and there will be a proposed minimum membership of elected representatives, GP consortia, DPHs, Directors of Adult Social Services, Directors of Children’s Services, and local Health Watch (a new network of independent ‘consumer champions’). Local areas will be able to expand membership to include local voluntary groups, clinicians and providers, where appropriate. A new public health service – Public Health England – will be set up as part of the Department of Health (incorporating the Health Protection Agency),

However the Local Government Association argues that although “We believe public health should be at the heart of all we do” the proposals neither transfer responsibility for the majority of the public health workforce, nor make Public Health Directors accountable to councils.