Further Evidence of a Need to Change the Status Quo in Public Administration

The New Synthesis project

is an international partnership of institutions and individuals who are dedicated to advancing the study and practice of public administration. While they hail from different countries, different political systems and different historical, economic and cultural contexts, all share the view that public administration as a practice and discipline is not yet aligned with the challenges of serving the public good in the 21st century.

Through their research they have found that to form more effective governance requires an engaged citizenship which will benefit citizens, stakeholders, and public servants alike.

They have been looking at an Integrated Service Delivery, which is a collaboration between citizen, other social players (such as the third sector) and government and its agencies to improve services for individual citizens. They believe that community engagement activity is key which can take the form of partnerships, consultations and contracts. They believe that corporations can support community engagement through administrative structures and processes and through training opportunities and learning tools.

The movement in public management towards Integrated Public Governance and the anticipated increase in the delivery of government services by private and third sector organizations point to the need for collaborative community engagement.

Blair tells why he felt bureaucracy was the answer to the UK’s problems

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‘Bureaucracy’ has shaped the organisation of the public sector and organisational change has been seen as an important part of the solution to a whole range of problems, including poverty, unemployment, housing, health, and education etc. That is not to say that efforts had not been made previously to address some of these problems, but bureaucracy has been regarded as a far superior organisational model which offered greater efficiency and reliability.

It has not been the establishment of government bureaucracies that has defined much of public policy but the idea that professional and bureaucratic responses (rather than political, personal, or cooperative solutions) were necessary to deal with major societal problems.

As Tony Blair points out

We were saying, forget about complex, institutional structural reforms; what counts is what works, and by that we meant outputs. This was fine as a piece of rhetoric; and positively beneficial as a piece of politics. Unfortunately, as I began to realise when experience started to shape our thinking, it was a bunkum as a piece of policy. The whole point is that structures beget standards. How service is configured affects outcomes 

Which basically what he means is that once the legislative and administrative treatment began, the process of professionalisation and feedback set it, by which the professionals uncovered new problems which demanded further legislative and administrative solutions… and so on. This shows how his progressive idea meant progressively growing an ever expanding bureaucracy to form these structures which he hoped created better outcomes – which never happened.

It is sad that he doesn’t quite get the full picture of what he was doing, much like the time when he had no idea of the effect of his own policy when he was confronted by a voter on national TV during the 2005 election campaign  and then failed to fix it despite saying he would as the bureaucratic system wouldn’t allow it.

The world is changing, information is more available and ‘professional expertise’ itself does not carry the same sort of authority and legitimacy as it might have carried in the past. The bureaucratic arrangements therefore no longer fit the environment of public policy. New Labour and Tony Blair did not get this. David Cameron gets it and so called the Tory manifesto ‘An Invitation to Join the Government of Britain’, but failed to grasp the specific concepts to achieve it.  The Liberal Democrats get this but have not demonstrated a clear commitment to it or communicated what a post-bureaucratic government will look like. As a result, all are coming under increasing pressure to adapt to the new environmental conditions, integrate new holistic framings of societal problems and to respond to the loss of public confidence in government.

Partnership and Collaboration with Government: What is your position?

In looking at achieving collaboration between government and the public we have to look at who exactly will want to join leaderships in taking progressive initiatives for the public good?

Vigoda identifies 3 types of people which can help in understanding this:

1. Freeriders – Those who are consumers of public services yet let others do the work of citizenship
2. Watchdogs – Those involved only in key issues that are relevant them personally
3. Activists – Those involved in public life and in citizenship actions for the community

I do not like to classify people so easily as these terms provide a distinct blaming of those who have not found reason to collaborate with the government and public administration bodies with even negative connotations to those who have, with the term watchdog. It implies people are prone to one ‘type’ and so I prefer to see these ‘types’ as ‘positions’ that people take up and can move between depending on that persons circumstances at the time; therefore we have:

1. Those who do not yet see the value in collaborating – Potential partners
2. Those who have found something to collaborate on – Partners
3. Those who find meaning and purpose in collaborating – Partners & Activists

Partners & Activists is the most natural position for collaboration to work with in providing high-quality governing administration. Vigoda states that currently 10% of people take up this position but that “the political and social influence of this relatively small group is immense and must not be underestimated”. However, the partner position still provides a useful base to work with and can provide useful work.

Done well people will find reason to move into a more collaborative position. However, currently our system mostly encourages people to not get involved, or when they do to limit this involvement to that which is personally relevant to them i.e. the freeriders and watchdogs.

Many attempts to get the public involved have been well intentioned but ill thought out and ultimately a negative experience for those who tried to get involved. See Labour’s Big Conversation and the Coalition’s recent attempt neither of which made any real changes to government policy or how things were done. It may not be surprising then to see resistance and skepticism to attempts at moving to collaboration and partnership.

It has to be a change in spirit of government. It has to mean a change in the bureaucratic system to allow for partnership, it has to allow for a voice of the people to make a difference, for them to hold real power and for politicians to fight for this to happen. The people are the strength of a nation and offer its most unique resource. Why do we continue to ignore this?

As Vigoda says, practically and ideologically, this vanguard paves the way for potential social changes, whatever these may be.

Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

- Margaret Mead

Moving to collaborative services: Vigoda’s thoughts

Moving to a different way of running the services that we own and use means we need to know what this means. Vigoda has excellently put together his thoughts on the subject which are worth highlighting. He states that in this new era people have a duty to become engaged in collaborative activities with Government & Public Administration (G&PA) but more importantly that G&PA has the greater duty to create conditions for such involvement by all available means. He has outlined his thoughts on the roles of the different players as follows:

Role of Government & Public Administration:

• Volunteer programs in the fields of health, welfare service, education and security need to receive national support.
• Adequate training programs for volunteers as well as volunteer leadership and management need to be developed and implements by professionals
• Governments will be responsible for coordinating cooperation among different voluntary groups and institutions.
• Governments to establish public volunteers’ committees to coordinate voluntary activity at the local and national levels.
• G&PA to maintain advisory position, providing citizens with sufficient conditions and experience to work out their spontaneous ideas.
• Transform goodwill into effective operations. Investment in the spontaneous behaviour of the people is low cost and economical compared with other reform efforts and thus must be encouraged.
• All programs of citizen’s involvement will benefit from obtaining continuous evaluation by unbiased professionals.
• Educational efforts that emphasise the importance of individual-level and organized entrepreneurialism may start in the very first years of school and create awareness in the very young of the high values of citizenship involvement.

He states that citizens, like other social players, serve as socialization agents of partnership. He has put together a diagram of where we are now and where we should be moving towards by having more formal collaborative and partnership links which can be seen in this diagram:

Role of citizens:

• Active participation in running their lives and managing their communities by individuals, groups or institutions though:
• • Participation in neighbourhood associations or voluntary groups to aid the young, the elderly, or other sections of the population
  • Active involvement in citizens’ committees
  • Involvement in parents’ committees at schools
  • Donating money and time or effort for charity or equivalent social goals
  • Development of community services in various manners
  • Encouraging others to take part in such activities
  • Voice constructive criticism of the public system to encourage a culture of accountability and to provide feedback for politicians and public servants – increasing responsiveness and sense of responsibility
  • Original civic journalism
  • Letters to newspapers, public officials and politicians, radio and television programs
  • Use of computerized media to spread knowledge and attitudes
  • Educational teach youngest to become more involved and to use these methods extensively

He believes that moving to collaborative government/services will be calmer and more effective when the media and academia join in the effort. The positive elements of democracy cannot be achieved without an active, independent and responsible media.

Media role:

• Effective and reliable communication channel between citizens and governments that promotes collaboration and partnership
• Power of media can be used to encourage people’s attitudes and opinions towards citizen involvement and participation in a variety of ways but also to consult on relevant policy decisions
• Encourage public recruitment to collaborative activities by means of educational programs.

Academia:

• Pointing out theoretical considerations, conceptual grounding and practical means for cooperation, managerial science promotes the understanding of mutual social efforts
• Isolating and cultivating the benefits of partnership (and highlighting the advantages over simple state of competition i.e. responsiveness-based interaction)
• Discussion on collaboration takes priority over other issues in social affairs
• Public agenda becomes more sensitive to issues of partnership and their growth value. Managerial and administrative sciences also promote legitimization of cooperation and encourage more individuals to participate in public management enterprises.

Collaboration: The Next Big Step in Government and Public Administration

When politicians say things like ‘government would hand people direct control over how they are governed nationally and locally’ (Conservative)  or that they are making ‘government more accountable to the people and strengthen the hand of citizens against the state’ (Labour). Or even ‘creating a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America’s citizens’ (Barack Obama). It sounds great, but what does it mean?

A good place to start is here. Vigoda has written a great piece on where we are at and what we are facing in terms of government and public administration (G&PA) and their relationship with citizens. He argues that government and public administration has evolved from rulers to managers and that there lies a new frontier in government. It is this new frontier that these statements by our new politicians are trying to grasp but are not quiet able to make the transition to this new way of thinking.

This new frontier is from  G&PA as managers and citizens as customers to a collaboration between citizens and other social players and G&PA. He argues that citizens as clients has worked but a new generation of running public administration is needed.

A better definition of the G&PA relationship must rely on the conception of collaboration and partnership. Such reforms will create a different and more flexible model of governing.

government will continue to govern… but the more authentic the encounters with citizens will be, the less will government be ‘they’ and the more it will be ‘we’

(Postmodern Public Administration. Fox & Miller 1995, 128)

It is interesting therefore to read the Liberal Republic by Demos  which says that

Discussions in political circles about ‘devolving’ power approach the question from the wrong direction. The default assumption should be that individuals have power, unless there is a good reason for consolidating power upwards to communities, local agencies, national government, or international bodies.

They go on to suggest that individuals should control their own health or social care through individual budgets, something which is happening and has been written about on this blog.  Importantly, this is a defining aspect of the distinctive Liberal ethos and they state that:

This will be unappealing to conservatives, who prefer people to live tidily, along carefully signposted paths.

And I would add it will be unappealing to Labour due to their desire for authoritarianism which resulted in sites like this.  In Vigoda’s own words

The new generation of public administration will need a different spirit… one that fosters mutual effort. This movement from a ‘they’ spirit’ to a ‘we’ spirit is perhaps the most important mission of public administration in our era.

The issue for the Liberal Democrats is that they begin to grasp this concept, find a way to communicate it effectively and find ways of implementing it. G&PA must take a step forward and while the Conservatives and Labour may have begun to use the language, it remains to be seen if their philosophy and beliefs would allow them to make this big step. The Liberal Democrats are in the best position to be able to do this in the UK.

So why is this on a solution focused politics site? Well, collaboration is a central aspect to the solution focused approach. It is the relationship where the techniques are used and solutions are found. Solution focused politics offers the best possible way of achieving this collaborative government as argued throughout this site. This will be developed on further posts.