The challenge for RPG is to bestow trusteeship on internal and external agencies
engaged with PSOs, through longer term stable relations rather than ad hoc
contracting processes. The discretion of public professionals appears to be central to
this process but in an era when their distinctive skill-base has been eroded how candiscretion be re-created and re-activated?. One possibility is the incorporation of their
professional associations within the standardisation and regulation of services so that
the shift from guardianship of public administration to trusteeship incorporates
professionals more directly into these governance structures, underpinned by their
subscription to the revival of public values.