Title

After a trio of think-tanks put forward their thoughts on decentralisation, Robert Hill asks how bold the next government will be. London buses, so it's said, always arrive in threes – particularly when you have been waiting for one for a long time. And it seems to be a bit like that with serious writing on decentralisation from commentators outside the local government world. Suddenly we have had a flurry of pamphlets from three different think-tanks. "The good news for decentralisers is that, based on the experience of the Scottish Parliament and London mayor, it is possible over time to shift public perceptions of accountability. But for this to be effective responsibilities need to be transferred wholesale and in a well-publicised manner." Least impressive of the three is the Demos offering, Leading from the front. The pamphlet starts with the sweeping generalisation that Britain's public services ‘do not give people what they want, they are expensive to run and public servants are demoralised'. That's rather a sloppy conclusion given that some public services – such as parts of local government and the NHS - are doing very well in terms of outputs, outcomes and public satisfaction. The Demos prescription is not much better than its analysis. It says the answer to public service malaise is the abolition of central audit – ‘in a post-bureaucratic state, staff should look out to the citizens and not up to central inspection regimes'. Well yes, up to a point. But the reality is that, in all service industries, private and public, you need to balance intelligent external regulation with customer responsiveness. The two are not in opposition. When I go to a restaurant, I may be acting on a recommendation or have consulted a good food guide, but I also want the assurance that environmental health are inspecting the premises occasionally. Other proposals from Demos include up-skilling the frontline, pushing budget control down to frontline staff, remodelling middle management and, in an echo of Conservative policy, turning all schools into an academy. The second pamphlet, The Ownership State, comes from Philip Blond of ResPublica, who has been described as David Cameron's ‘red Tory guru'. It argues for a new model of public sector delivery in which services are provided by social enterprises, led by frontline workers and owned by them and the communities they serve. This is not as quite as fanciful as it may sound. Most people in local government are familiar with Greenwich Leisure, a social enterprise which now runs more than 70 leisure centres within London and M25 area. And the NHS is stimulating social enterprises to take over the delivery of community health services as it enforces a commissioner/provider split within primary care trusts. The Ownership State advocates a new power of civil association for frontline service providers to kickstart this revolution. However, it seems a bit naïve to believe that the interests of workers and consumers always coincide – producerism is still alive and well in parts of the public sector! Surely it would be more radical to extend and deepen the policy of giving budgets to individuals and powers to communities. The third pamphlet, Who's accountable?, written by Guy Lodge of IPPR is in many ways the most interesting. Using a specially commissioned survey it helps to explain why Westminster politicians have been reluctant to decentralise. The survey shows that the public by a substantial margin holds Westminster accountable for the overall performance of the health service, the education system and policing. No wonder, then, that ministers and officials get so involved in monitoring performance and react so sharply when mistakes happen. It is their necks on the line. Significantly the one service for which people are more likely to blame the operators than the government for overall poor performance is public transport – with private transport companies being seen as most responsible. Things get more encouraging, however, when people are asked about the performance of services at a local level. Then they do see health trusts, hospital managers, chief constables, head teachers and even parents as being much more responsible. The good news for decentralisers is that, based on the experience of the Scottish Parliament and London mayor, it is possible over time to shift public perceptions of accountability. But for this to be effective responsibilities need to be transferred wholesale and in a well-publicised manner. We will have to wait and see how far the next government, whichever party forms it, is prepared to act boldly on this message. Robert Hill works as an independent analyst on public services

Title

WHITEHALL

Decentralisation: A tale of three think-tanks

SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE READING