Post-war Finland has been built up successfully. Establishing a Nordic welfare state
has been a joint effort that has given us a highly-developed infrastructure, comprehensive services, world-class education and innovation policies as well as, above all, a socially just society. We have succeeded in global competition, but our model for success, based on the ethos and way of thinking of an industrial society, is now under serious threat. The Asian-led second wave of globalisation will result in intensified competition for positioning in value-adding activities, and competition will even be directed at the level of individual tasks. Climate change will force us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to make radical changes to the way society functions. Not least with regard to transport, land use and urban structure. Finnish society is the fastest ageing in Europe. Health care costs are increasing at the same time as ever more educated and better informed citizens demand ever better and more customised services. The national debt and the sustainability gap are growing. We need skilled labour from abroad to replace people who are retiring and to innovate and create new jobs. However, there are no queues of engineers, nurses or road sweeper drivers waiting at the door. That is why we need ever more attractive environments in which to live and work, as well as a more open mind without losing the heart of the Finnish way of life. International and domestic evaluations of Finnish public administration have confirmed what we have long known. Cooperation across administrative areas is weak, and administrative sectors are isolated from one another. There is a lack of jointly constructed vision and agendas at different levels of government, and the Government Programme and the budget framework function too independently of one another.