12 September 2003
A Conservative government would dismantle the 'command state' constructed by the Labour party and radically decentralise public services, according to a policy document setting out the party's reform agenda.
Total politics: Labour's command state, which was due to be launched by Iain Duncan Smith on September 11, argues that there are four pillars supporting state centralism that must be destroyed if public services are ever to improve. The plethora of targets imposed from Whitehall, the Treasury's stranglehold over funding, the bureaucratic audit and inspection regime, and rigidity in workers' pay and conditions are all suffocating local services and throttling improvement, it says.
Under a Tory government, by contrast, there would be more locally raised finance, although the document does not commit the party to specific policies, such as a local income tax.
It also indicates that central funding in areas such as health and education would be replaced by direct funding to the individual, heralding an era of 'patient passports' in the NHS and state scholarships for schoolchildren.
The reform programme sets the stage for the party's autumn conference next month in Blackpool and will be the platform on which the Tories fight the next general election campaign.
David Davis is chair of the shadow Cabinet decentralisation committee, which has been examining the party's public service policies. He said the Tories' vision of decentralisation would give meaning to the 'fine words' bandied around by politicians.
'Public services and local communities are being stifled by
a command state that forces frontline professionals to deliver the sort of services bureaucrats, rather than local people, want to see,' he said.
'Through clearly identifying the four drivers of state centralism, we are highlighting key policy levers: using these levers to end state centralism defines our project in government. That means pushing real power away from the centre and back towards the front line.'
Other reforms include sweeping away targets and inspection regimes, and replacing them with locally set priorities and a 'lighter system of oversight'.
The document also pledges to free individual service providers to negotiate staff pay and conditions, and to allow employers to respond to local labour market conditions.
Such a move would be sure to provoke furious opposition from the public sector trade unions.
PFsep2003
