08 September 2006
A Conservative government would have more respect than Labour for public service professionals, Tory policy-makers have pledged.
Launching the interim report of the public services policy group – the first report to emerge from the groups set up under David Cameron – co-chair Baroness Perry on September 4 promised 'a new kind of partnership' for public service professionals.
'For me, this the most important of our proposals,' she said. 'It underlies everything that we're suggesting.'
The group said: 'A private corporation which publicly shunned its employees in the way that government has done in recent years would not survive.'
Perry condemned the 'culture of suspicion' that had developed under Labour's public service reform programme.
'Consequently, confidence in the public services has declined and, above all, the morale of the people who work in the public services has gone very low indeed.'
Both she and shadow education secretary David Willetts conceded that the Conservatives had also treated teachers poorly when they were in power. 'But it was nothing, absolutely nothing, like the rubbishing that has gone on in the past nine years,' she said.
'I think a gap opened up between us and the teaching profession,' said Willetts. 'What we're trying to do is to show that the Conservative party is changing, and that we support the authority and expertise of the profession.'
In practice, the commitment was likely to translate into giving staff more freedom in teaching and the management of schools, a reduction in the requirements of the national curriculum and a loosening of the current testing, targets and inspection regime, Perry added.
Willetts told Public Finance that the new culture of respect would involve talking to the unions. 'I'm sure there will be disagreements between us and some of the teaching unions, but I'd much rather have an open door than not,' he said. 'I believe, in general, in dialogue rather than semi-conflict.'
But Nicholas Boles, the director of Policy Exchange, an influential Right-wing think-tank, warned that those in the public sector were not being promised an easy ride. 'There will be some bite – it's not going to be all fluffy,' he said.
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