[p2p-research] stuff that might be relevant on the commons, the public sector and the unions... public services 2020 in the UK

[Michel Bauwens]

dear Hilary,

is your text republishable on our blog as well?

Michel

                2020: Public service reform ... but not as we know it!

'Anyone who thinks the spending review is just about saving money is missing
the point,' said a Treasury official as David Cameron announced the
government's first round of cuts in public spending. 'This is a
once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the way that government
works.' [i]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_edn1>The
need to transform the public sector is not in question. What is
contested however is the character of the transformation.

Ever since Mrs Thatcher, the political orthodoxy shared by  New Labour and
the Conservatives, has meant for transformation read 'marketisation.'
Marketisation can take many forms but the driving assumption is that the
market, and specifically the capitalist market, is the only way to make  public
services 'efficient' - another contested concept.

*Another concept of efficiency*

This essay is about making public services *socially* efficient, The
emphasis on social efficiency does not mean taking public money for granted;
rather it means allocating taxpayers' money with the the goal of maximising
public benefit, as distinct from maximising profit. The appropriate means of
improving the ability of public services to meet this social goal is not the
market but rather the deepening of democracy beyond the periodic election of
politicians formally to 'run' the public sector. There is much to be done to
strengthen the link between the citizen and the elected politician.  But the
specific importance of democracy-driven change as distinct from market
driven change is to introduce democracy, i.e the real-life public, at every
level of public administration.

The participation of citizens in public decision making is a familiar idea,
though more as a promise than a reality. What is less explored is work place
democracy, genuine collaboration – co-labouring – between staff and
management to turn the capacities and commitment of  public servants – who
are also themselves citizens and neighbours - into a force for improving the
common good.

There's no doubt that if  the Tories were to have their way, public services
by 2020, especially local government would be fulfilling Nicholas Ridley's
dream of public bodies meeting simply to agree broad policies and allocate
contracts. This is being announced as all part of the 'big society',  but in
reality it will mean that services would be delivered by private companies
and national charities, with the occasional gesture towards a  local
voluntary group[ii]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_edn2>.
The public sector debt is being used  as the occasion for finally
dismantling the public provision of public services – what the Tories like
to call euphemistically 'the small state'- and crushing public sector unions
in the process.

*Beyond small state versus large *

The Tory mantra of 'small state' implies that the alternative is a 'big
state'. The background narrative to this and to the consequence which is, as
the Daily Telegaph put it, 'These (private ) companies (Serco, Capita etc)
are gradually assuming the day to day running of
Britain[iii]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_edn3>'
goes back to the response to 1970's  'stagflation' and what seemed to  be
the breakdown of the Keynesian model. Mainstream political debate, or rather
media presentation of it, presented the alternatives as either state
socialism or the unregulated market. The admitted failings of the public
bureaucracies got wrapped in the narrative of the collapse of the command
economies and no distinct vision of democracy- driven reform of public
services was pressed within mainstream
politics[iv]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_edn4>
.

It is now, sometimes in response to privatisation, that we are beginning to
see alternatives emerging. They hold out a different vision for 2020.

*Workplace democracy – an experience from which to generalise*

I will focus simply on one dimension of these alternatives: democracy in the
day to day management of public services and in particular the potential for
public service unions, working with management, politicians and citizens
successfully to lead public service reform.  I will draw out the wider
lessons  of an exemplary case of a trade union instigated but management and
politician supported, of publicly led public service reform.  It began with
a case of a hopelessly out of date and grossly over expensive IT system at
Newcastle council. Other council departments depended on the quality of
these strategic services. The end result of a hard-fought struggle against
the privatisation led by the city council branch of Unison, was staff and
management partnership in a five-year programme of modernisation of the
council’s IT and related services. The transformation brought
significant  improvements
and savings. The savings were allocated to care for the elderly. It also
made the council's services qualitatively more accessible and responsive to
the public, and at the same time it avoided compulsory redundancies, and
involved the investment in high levels of staff training and
development.[v]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_edn5>

If we generalised from this experience how would public services be managed
in 2020?

*Democracy led services 2020*

First, the encouragement of and support for staff would be systematic in the
way the service was managed. This would  enable constant improvements  and
create the ability at all levels constantly to learn from mistakes and from
feedback from citizens and elected politicians.

This focus would have several dimensions: first traditional hierarchies
would be eliminated, also some supervisory layers, in order to push
initiative back to the frontline where it could be especially effective.
Second, there would be an approach to leadership which emphasised support
rather than control. 'You don't become unbureaucratic, bureaucratically,'
says the director of the transformed Newcastle's IT services (called City
Service). If this seems common sense, all too often, managers or consultants
– in both the private and public sectors – draw up 'transformation plans'
without much thought on involving, galvanising and supporting the people who
will deliver the changes. Belief in the capacities and ingenuity of staff
would underpin a collaborative, problem-solving approach.

*Shared vision and an active public service ethic*

A precondition for this decentralised system of management in which staff at
the frontline have considerable autonomy and responsibility will be a shared
and constantly renewed commitment to maximising public benefit and opening
the administrative process to citizens feedback and  direct involvement.
Such a shared reference would help avoid drift.

 It would also bring to the fore a public service ethic that normally lies
dormant. The ethics of public service can be a lot more dynamic than the
familiar formal, and often inanimate, features of public sector culture.

*A strong union voice *

There is now widespread talk of ‘empowerment’ with regard to public service
workers but mention of 'trade unions' is taboo. But by 2020,  democracy-led
reform would mean a recognition of the necessity of a well organised and
democratic trade union

for realising the creative involvement of public servants at every level.

Trade unions with an active membership and a strategic commitment to public
service reform would be indispensable. The unions would place a high
priority on communications, education, membership involvement and the
development of a new generation of leaders. Negotiated time off for training
for union members and staff would be essential, through extensive ‘workplace
learning’ schemes and the like.

The important point here is that where  a union organises and represents its
members so that they feel secure, and in some sense protected, staff are
willing to take risks and

contribute to changes that sometimes transformed their

working lives. This entails that although management and unions will work
together, the union will escalate an issue to a

point of conflict if agreements, including those concerning

employment conditions, were broken.



*Autonomous driver of change *

There would be some kind of institutional means, a special team for example,
with autonomy from day-to-day business, for maintaining an overview of the
service and clearing time for reflection and problem-solving. This would
keep the vision in focus and alive. The flexibility and collaborative
internal relationships possible in such an internal team will something an

outside contractor could never supply.



*Transparency, contestability *



My vision of public services in 2020 would include proportional
representation in local government across the UK and also at Westminster. No
longer could political parties so easily take voters for granted. I would
also imagine stronger powers of scrutiny more generally.One weakness of
change driven by threat, change in an

atmosphere of tension, is that people are scared of asking

questions and sharing knowledge.

By contrast the democracy led public services of 2020 will build into their
very being, processes of contestation, including self-contestation. The
process will be helped considerably by a collaborative ethos made possible
because staff feel relatively secure. This insistent questioning will
produce an unusual degree of transparency. This will in turn contributed to

the democratic follow through and the genuine account-

ability of public officials to elected councillors and the

public. To complete the circuit back again to the people, there would in
2020 be proportional representation in local government across the UK and
also at Westminster. No longer could political parties so easily take voters
for granted. Powers of scrutiny of executives locally and nationally would
be radically strengthened.



This model puts the elected public body in the lead, but embedded in a daily
democracy which is now the exception rather than the rule. But in many
services the social and co-operative economy, voluntary sector and community
and user organisations would play an important role as sources of innovation
and collaboration, within this public led framework.  There would also be a
pragmatic relationship with the private sector for specific tasks that could
not be performed through the public or voluntary/social sector. Here the aim
would be to take the most useful and efficient tools of business practice
developed in the private sector and adapt them for social goals and
democratic accountability.



*A foundation stone: the social character of knowledge *



There is a fundamental benefit to this democracy led model. It takes us back
to the flaw in the model of marketisation. It lies in a false understanding
of knowledge: the justification of the market as the universally more
efficient means of allocating resources, assumes that tacit, practical
knowledge – as distinct from the knowledge summed up and codified in
scientific laws – is exclusively individual. Hence the conclusion of pro
market ideologues that the creativity that lies in this experiential
dimension of knowledge can only be harnessed through the private market. Our
2020  model of workplace democracy, shows in practice as well as in theory,
the possibility of *socialising* and *sharing* practical knowledge. The key
is developing forms of co-operative , participative forms of organisation
which gather and systematise this knowledge for the benefit of all. The
result of many minds work together for the provision of common goods is a
lot more socially efficient than the competitive – and increasingly
oligoplistic – profit maximising drive of the capitalist
market[vi]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_edn6>.
And practice proves it.





------------------------------

[i]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_ednref1>
Financial Times Monday June 7th 2010

[ii]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_ednref2>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/14/david-cameron-big-society-conservatives

[iii]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_ednref3>
Daily Telegraph May 1 2010

[iv]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_ednref4>
The Greater London Council comes  nearest to an exception but it's abolition
as ' a modern socialisrn' as Norman Tebbit put it, proves the rule

[v]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_ednref5>
For the full story see Hilary Wainwright with Mat Little 'Public Service
Reform but not as we know it' Picnic publishing with UNISON and Compass  2008


[vi]<https://mail.google.com/mail/html/compose/static_files/blank_quirks.html#_ednref6>
This argument is fully explored in Hilary Wainwright 'Reclaim the State,
Experiments in Popular Democracy. Seagull 2009 (expanded, updated paperback)
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