The CEO o the Australian Centre for Social Impact in his Christmas message touched on themes relevant to inclusion strategies in learning cities in hard times when funding his limited.  He points out that for decades Australia has spent more and more money to address social issues and improve outcomes and has "arguably failed to make much progress and have definitely run out of money". He continues "We have no choice but to work towards improving the productivity of our social dollar". This is seen as involving a stronger focus on outcomes, more cross-sectoral collaboration, and the development of the capacity of social impact leaders'.

Should inclusion policies and strategies be seen in these terms in learning city development, including the PASCAL EcCoWell approach. EcCoWell is based on a more holistic partnershipo approach which should lead to productivity gains. What else is needed in progressing inclusion objectives in hard times?