The Open public services white paper is full of ‘new’ policies that have been around for ages. It rehashes failed ideas and rubbishes the public sector at almost every opportunity
The long-delayed Open public services white paper finally arrived, although few noticed as it was drowned out by the noise over Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
Launching the white paper on the day care home provider Southern Cross collapsed was also devastatingly unfortunate for Prime Minister David Cameron. Here was an example of the ‘mixed’ provision of publicly funded services, and it had undoubtedly been ‘innovative’, engaging in all sorts of weird and wonderful property deals that made its owners rich and ultimately spelt its doom.
The first, and probably only, surprising thing about the white paper is that it appeared at all. Why two parties – Tories and Liberal Democrats – should think it necessary or desirable to have a common statement of principle is somewhat baffling, especially as we are constantly told (by at least some) that the coalition is a matter of necessity, not desire.
Still, here it is – a ‘comprehensive policy framework’ (which is littered throughout with liberal use of get-out clauses such as ‘wherever possible’, ‘no one-size-fits-all policy’, etc). It contains only one really new idea – that of public service ‘mutuals’ – which deserves an article all of its own.
The coalition keeps claiming lots of ‘new’ policies that have been around for years. For example, it announced in the March Budget the publication of Whitehall departmental plans, claimed as a ‘first’. Departmental plans have been published since the early 1990s,
and with a lot more detail than appeared in March.
The white paper sets out five principles: choice, decentralisation, diversity of provision, fairness and accountability. What is striking is that there is absolutely nothing new in most of this. Indeed, some of the ideas have been tried, tested and in some cases dropped, years ago.
What is new is that some ideas are being pushed way beyond anything that has been done before and others are being propelled forward with no evidence to support them at all.
Let’s start with ‘choice’. This is supposedly giving ‘people direct control over the services they use’ (it goes without saying ‘wherever possible’). This is clearly not really choice but a form of ‘users’ control’. Putting users totally in control of something they do not pay for, directly or wholly, but which is funded out of general taxation, is a recipe for disaster. Only where services are used ‘by a community collectively’ does ‘control over a service need to be exercised by a representative body’.
Really? The truth is that ‘free at the point of delivery and paid for by taxpayers’ services all have to balance the interests of payers, users and workers.
Decentralisation in the white paper involves the control mechanisms both of and within public services. External control of services is to go down to ‘neighbourhood’ or ‘community’ organisations. Internal decentralisation means passing power to those who run services, who are magically transformed from ‘bureaucrats’ (bad) to ‘professionals’ (good). How you empower both ‘users’ and ‘professionals’ at the same time it fails to explain.
It’s not as if we haven’t been here before. Back in the early 1980s, this sort of neighbourhood decentralisation was all the rage. Councils such as Tower Hamlets and Islington in London attempted radical devolution to local committees and to combined services operations.
Where are they now? Gone, largely because they proved unfeasible for a host of reasons. They cost more than centralised services; in some cases, laxer controls led to corruption and other malpractices; and, ultimately, the local authority was still the legally accountable body that couldn’t really let go.
Opening up services to diverse providers – public, non-profit and profit-making – is also nothing new. It has been tried across a range of services for years, in some cases with success and others with major failures (Southern Cross). The white paper contains no analysis of what has worked and what hasn’t (and there are plenty of examples to draw on) while asserting that it has no ‘ideological presumption’ for any one sector – but it rubbishes the public sector at every opportunity.
I could go on, but I think you get the message. Not much new, some extension to the point of absurdity of previous policies and a lot of frankly ideological tosh in places. In other words, a fairly standard statement of government policy.
Colin Talbot is professor of public policy and management at Manchester Business School
