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The Commission on 2020 Public Services published its detailed blueprint for change this week. Mark Conrad reports on its findings which show that while the future is challenging it is also local Informed readers of The MJ will have heard much about the independent Commission on 2020 Public Services' final report since it was published on 14 September. No doubt many headlines have focused on the former Labour government's failure to improve crucial public service outcomes – such as educational attainment within deprived social groups, health inequalities and youth crime – despite hundreds of billions of pounds of investment. Proposals to empower a citizen army designed to improve ‘social productivity' have probably featured highly, too, not least because current ministers will hear echoes of their Big Society agenda. But local policy managers and developers would do well to read the fine detail of the document because, as a wide-ranging blueprint for 21st century public policy, the commission's study is arguably one of the most considered pieces of work in years. Such is the report's underlying pragmatism that even its bold headline claim – that it is high time Britain ‘moved on' from the centralised and top-down welfare delivery cultures embedded by the 1942 Beveridge Report – stands up to scrutiny. Many a minister or think-tank has questioned the continued validity of Beveridge's epoch-defining report published more than 60 years ago. But in the context of a political culture under which cheap, party-led points scoring carries a premium, few organisations or individuals have simultaneously outlined an achievable and consensus-based alternative – not least in the context of the current spending squeeze. That is the strength of the commission's document, officially entitled From social security to social productivity: a vision for 2020 public services. The culmination of 18 months work by the commission – a spin off from the influential Royal Society for the Arts – it has been informed by senior public policy practitioners and thinkers from across the political spectrum, including: former Audit Commission chair Sir Andrew Foster (who chairs the 2020 Commission), Professor Vernon Bogdanor from Oxford University, former ministers Lord Filkin and Stephen Dorrell, Ipsos MORI chief executive Ben Page and former Number 10 adviser Matthew Taylor. The commission has also benefited from local government expertise from the likes of 2020 director Ben Lucas and the Greater London Authority's economic adviser, Bridget Rosewell. The report begins by warning the public sphere to think beyond the zeitgeist of spending cuts and imposed austerity if it is to adequately deliver better public outcomes amid rising demand – and expectations – for expensive services such as social care. But it acknowledges financial constraints must inevitably play a part in shaping future service design. We have reached a moment of ‘discontinuity', the study states. ‘Social outcomes from a sustained period of public spending have been patchy and the scale of future demand is huge. Our existing Whitehall model – based on service silos and top down delivery and accountability – is ripe for change.' It is these silos, top-down approaches and declining public productivity rates that have contrived to deliver ‘disappointing' or ‘shocking' outcomes in education, health and criminal justice – despite a general improvement in the quality of public services, the commission argues. So far, so unspectacular. It's difficult to contest past failures. But the report gets serious with its assessment of how to correct these problems in the context of austerity Britain. The response ‘is not salami-sliced cuts…but a re-think from the bottom up, reflecting the needs, capabilities and aspirations of 21st century citizens'; a greater focus on service quality, easier access to services facilitated by the online and mobile technology revolution and – importantly following initiatives such as the Big Society and Britain's snowballing culture of social enterprise – shared responsibility for achieving improved outcomes. This last point, shared responsibility, is referred to in the report as a culture of ‘social productivity'. It rejects the old, statist models of universal service delivery and the new public management models of consumerism. Instead, it suggests citizens ‘should have a duty to contribute to, as well as a right to receive, support'. According to the report's authors, the move to social productivity requires three ‘profound' shifts to be successful – shifts in culture, power and finance – and it is here that the commission reveals its localist tone. The cultural shift requires public services to engage directly with citizens, families, communities, enterprises and wider society – in partnership – to engender better outcomes. The state, market or society alone cannot achieve this, the authors suggest, so direct participation in service design and delivery by residents is key. An example of how this could work could be the establishment of resident-led mutuals to run services such as libraries, parks and leisure centres that might otherwise close once public budgets are slashed following next month's spending review. This proposal fits neatly with existing government plans for a voluntary army to run library and museum services under the Big Society initiative. But the commission suggests going further. Parents and local communities, they claim, should be free to agree educational outcomes and co-develop curriculums with schools. Radically and perhaps controversially, individual ‘lifecycle' social accounts could also be developed to track residents' tax, benefits and service use – allowing social contributions to be ‘recorded and valued'. It would be easy to dismiss this agenda as a mere extension of the former Labour government's ‘something for something' approach to welfare, for example. But the detail suggests something more substantial in terms of citizen involvement and methods of valuing residents' inputs into society, as well as greater transparency over what a person gains from public services. To facilitate greater citizen engagement and personalised public services, it is argued, Whitehall cannot continue to pull centralised policy levers. Consequently, the commission's blueprint requires a shift in power from Whitehall, through localities and down to individuals. In proposals likely to strike a chord with pro-devolution ministers at the CLG, the researchers claim residents ‘should control more of the money spent on services such as long-term care, health and skills, backed up by choice advisers and mentors'. In addition, neighbourhoods should be able to commission their own integrated services. But town halls are not bypassed. In line with the current direction of health, education and local government policy – not to mention the embryonic Total Place programme supported by the LGA – the report calls for cities and counties to assume ‘primary responsibility' for the strategic commissioning of ‘most public services'. In particular, the study calls for the devolution of welfare services to local control, with city-regions and large counties empowered to ‘set their own living wage' – a move long supported by the LGA. This degree of devolution implies a mature, progressive acceptance that there will be variations in service outcomes across Britain, suggesting it is time to ditch the party-political and national media obsession with ‘postcode lotteries'. This shift in power from the centre to localities and residents also necessitates reform of public services finance. But the commission's report does not simply deal with issues of who, or what tier of government, should pull the purse strings. It also suggests reform of how particular services are funded, ways to ensure that future funding is linked to desired outcomes, and how to achieve improved public understanding of how money is spent. Researchers suggest, for example, that citizens should receive online statements from their personal ‘social accounts' outlining their contributions made and benefits received. Privately, senior Westminster sources acknowledge this could spark a fierce debate about whether government should present individuals' contributions – or the lack of them – in ways that could allow others to make moral judgements about them, potentially stigmatising certain social groups. As well as a roll-out of ‘payment by result' frameworks beyond the NHS, the report also suggests much wider use of ‘co-payment' programmes, through which citizens would part-fund services they receive that carry both personal and public benefits, such as higher education or long-term care. Again, this proposal could divide opinion, with critics likely to argue that excluded citizens or groups would continue to suffer if they cannot fund life-changing services, such as a university education. Many of these proposals highlight the commission's preparedness to tackle the issue of increasingly scarce public resources as town halls prepare for an estimated 25% to 30% cut to their central grant. Indeed, despite its long-term view a sizable chunk of the report reviews the challenges posed by immediate public spending retrenchment. While 58% of the public accept the need for spending cuts, the commission warns, citizens should be presented with ‘real choices' about where chancellor George Osborne's axe should fall. One key recommendation echoes the LGA's ‘offer' to central government: a negotiated autonomy deal, whereby localities accept sizable cuts to public budgets in return for far greater control over how the cash is spent – allowing those ‘real choices' over cuts to be made locally. Bravely, given the political zeitgeist, the report even makes the case for ‘more initial investment from the state' to fund early intervention programmes – in youth justice and public health policies, for example – to build ‘social capacity' in areas of multiple deprivation. It remains to be seen whether coalition ministers have an appetite for this following the spending review, when the real turf war over how sector budgets are spent will begin. But amid snowballing support for Total Place-style spending programmes, allowing local managers to pool resources from across a range of public sector budgets, the potential for increased investment to fund early intervention programmes does exist. The commission certainly warns against austerity measures simply being used to reinforce existing, and inefficient, public spending silos. It even suggests key coalition reforms, such as GP-based commissioning, could ‘unwittingly entrench service silos and undermine efforts to integrate and streamline public services'. It will take a generation of strong political leaders to oversee radical shifts in public service spending in the current financial climate – not least because some services will face the axe – but a final section of the study deals with how to nurture strong and accountable leadership. With the winds of change finally blowing towards devolution of policy control to localities, the commission warns reforms must have genuine local political ownership, so that responsibility – particularly for local public service failures such as another ‘Baby P' case – ‘isn't simply passed up to ministers when the going gets tough'. One suggested answer is strong ‘city and county mayors' directly responsible to local voters and acting as ‘catalyst, funder and regulator of public services'. What is clear is that the commission's study recognises the huge challenges facing the public sector are essentially local in nature, and that the response should be similarly devolved. The report concludes: ‘It is at local level where the consequences of the fiscal crisis and social change will be most acutely felt. This provides an opportunity to break with our grossly over-centralised political culture and to meet the imperative to cut with a very different approach to local participation, decision-making and control.' Coalition ministers, who tell us they are committed to working closely with local government, now have an opportunity to realise many of the commission's ambitions.

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WHITEHALL

Time to retire Beveridge and his welfare model

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