One way of understanding the idea of a wicked issue is as an issue that escapes the grasp of standard, professional knowledge (Rittel and Webber, 1973). While tame problems can be grappled with within the confines of organised disciplines, a wicked problem may be unresolvable and any conceivable solution will be unique and temporary. It follows that where we face wicked problems, because we do not understand them, we are likely to fail when we first try to solve them.

Thus while professional knowledge is adept at searching for ever more in-depth scientific knowledge about the disciplines that exist, there is both an epistemological and organisational problem when experience, the outside world, presents a problem that does not fall within the boundaries of these established disciplines and knowledge.

This part of the book addresses some of the wicked issues arising from the earlier Policy Press publications, Social Determinants of Health: Social Inequality and Wellbeing and Local Authorities and Social Determinants of Health. These issues include public sector governance, local authorities’ financial decline, climate crisis, housing and homeless, and economic challenges to families which include loss of employment (particularly affecting young people).

One way in which wicked issues map on to organisational endeavour and resource allocation and leadership in the public sector is through innovation and partnering. Local authorities, in particular, have developed new ways of governing and working with others in the realisation that they alone do not have the resources, the knowledge, the capacity or the capability to deliver the outcomes they believe are required – and wanted – in their areas.

As Liddle argues in Chapter 8, this has led public managers and leaders to collaborate and create relationships with a wide range of stakeholders to innovate and develop novel ways of meeting citizens’ needs. Governance form has flexed to follow the novel and complex functions.

The availability of funding is pivotal to implementing public sector activities. This is addressed in Chapter 9, in which Aileen Murphie reviews the effect of COVID-19 on the sustainability of local government. The challenging conclusion is that the scale of the current crisis could mean systemic financial failure across the sector.