Public Service Reform (Tory/Labour vs Lib Dems)

There is much that politicians say that we may all agree on

We wish to change politics itself, to bridge the gap between governed and government and to try to address the deep seated and damaging disaffection with politics which has grown up in recent years

Tony Blair 1996, 14 May, Speech to Charter 88

Real change is not what government can do on its own, real change is when everyone pulls together, comes together, works together, when we all exercise our responsibilities to ourselves, our families, to our communities and to others

David Cameron, 11 May 2010, First Speech as Prime Minister, at 10 Downing Street

But as politicians look for words in speeches which they think we want to hear, they look around to create the action we want to see. There is a debate going on about how to manage public services which was on the fringes of the General Election campaigns. There was talk of forming easycouncils (Tories)  and John Lewis Style Councils (Labour). There has been debate for a while about how to create more responsive public services through offering more choice.  But the issue of forming responsive services has dominated the debate for years.

The UK was supposed to have moved on from the New Public Management (NPM) in government

In the UK … NPM has been challenged since the turn of the century by a range of related critiques such as Third Way thinking and particularly the rise of ideas associated with Public Value Theory which have re-asserted a focus on citizenship, networked governance and the role of public agencies in working with citizens

However, the previous and present government continues along agendas which look remarkably similar to the NPM agenda which relies on the theory of marketplace and on a business-like culture in public organizations. NPM favours massive socialization of business management practices in the public sector to provide governments with better tools for policy implementation, moving decision making closer to the service recipients and restructuring government  to emphasise results rather than processes which all parties seem to want to achieve. These are even the aims for the Obama administration.

However, such an agenda was opposed by the Liberal Democrats at one stage who were concerned that the choice agenda would not produce the results we wanted and this has again been looked at here.

So it is not surprising that Labour and the Tories are looking to business for answers to their questions if they continue to be stuck in NPM thinking. Yet this creates inconsistencies which they fail to see. The Labour Government had a Respect Agenda which sought to get citizens to take up their responsibilities in society, and this is reflected in Cameron’s comments above. The issue is that if you produce services based on the choice agenda, bringing in business practices to make services more responsive, you are giving the people the power of ‘exit’ i.e. you can choose to go somewhere else. This restricts and discourages the productive political voices of the people as they use the passive power of ‘exit’ rather than the progressive power of their ‘voice’ to improve services. This approach therefore ignores the active roles of citizens and their obligations in the community. This is neatly put by the Cabinet Office

User choice is an effective instrument for promoting quality, responsiveness, efficiency and equity in public services. It is in many cases more effective than alternatives, such as voice mechanisms

Responsive services are nice and may meet some people’s needs some of the time but it does not reflect a modern society where people want more say in how things are run and want their voices heard. As politicians look around to create the action we want to see, they fail to see that we are the action we want to see.

I have written about collaboration here and here and this will be a defining issue. Moving from responsive services run by government and public administration (G&PA) to collaborative services between the G&PA and citizens and other social players. The Tories continue to look towards business as do Labour.

The Lib Dems can take some learning from Business but should not define how we want our country and services to be run based on them; we are not a business. We are people in a country where we feel we have little say in how our country is run and our services provided and we would like this to change. We can be on this side of change by embracing a new collaborative way of working with citizens in running, managing, and reforming the services we use if we understand there is an alternative and listen and support the people.