Serving an ageing population: collaboration is key

As US society ages, pressures on local government planning and service delivery increase. We conducted a national survey of 1474 US local governments in 2013 to measure the range of services local governments provide and how these relate to local planning processes, public engagement and local government attitudes and motivators. We differentiate measures of public engagement and cross-agency collaboration, and control for built environment, demographic structure, socio-economics and metro status to explain what differentiates communities that provide more services. Our regression models find communities with more cross-agency collaboration (for service delivery, information and trust) and more engagement of older adults and families with children, provide more services to meet their needs. Capacity constraints do not differentiate level of service delivery. Local governments with conservative councils provide fewer services for children and seniors. Communities with increasing senior populations, and suburbs with increasing child populations provide fewer services targeted to their needs.