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This case study reflects on issues raised by four case studies in the ‘mixed economy’ of community care (published in earlier issues of this journal). It connects these with wider policy issues arising from new patterns of delivery of local public services. The ‘local governance’ agenda reinforces the need for collaborative approaches with the private and voluntary sectors. However, in the context of market forces and conflicting values, ‘partnerships’ are fragile, service quality can be undermined by technical and financial contractual considerations, and it is all too easy to exclude ‘citizens’ from service planning. Finally, although British central‐local government relations are often antagonistic, the local implementation of community care legislation demonstrates yet again the pragmatism of local government and its ability to take on and develop the new role of democratic ‘enabler’.

Contends that public service quality is necessarily a democratic concept. Because the public generally has no choice and/or is disempowered, dependent or excluded in relation to the services it is entitled to, quality, both in its technical and non‐technical dimensions, must be defined through bargaining. Different groups, including citizens and communities as well as individual consumers, need to be empowered to make their needs and desires known. For this, a new kind of organizational infrastructure and culture are needed. These look remarkably like those being developed in current models of decentralization. The key elements in both quality and decentralization are the three building blocks of front and back line (or centre), and, most importantly, the public. The service chain connects them. It is the maintenance of this chain which now needs to be the concern of front‐line managers, to sustain democracy and ensure a holistic and integrated response to need and quality development. Some recent research on decentralized managers reveals the kind of integrative, boundary‐crossing skills which will be relevant, indeed essential, in future quality developments.

Describes a study of three community nursing services provided by North Staffordshire Health Authority, which was carried out during the summer of 1991. Both the type and focus of quality measurement reported here are fairly unique. While the development of quality measures is yet at an early stage, most measures to date are quantitative. These can inform about volume of use of a service, but not its quality. The measures designed for this study were qualitative. These, when combined with quantitative data (statistics, routinely collected), yield much richer and more complete information as a basis for decision making in service planning. Quality data on the use of community services are also under‐represented in the quality literature — most studies to date have used hospital patient services as their source for data collection. Goes some way towards redressing the imbalance.