Why the abolition of the Audit commission is something to tweet about

By Diana Smith / @mulberrybush

On Friday 13th August, as we approached the end of the first 100 days of the coalition government, something odd happened. For several hours the top trending topic on Twitter was “audit commission”.

Being the top trending topic means that more people are tweeting about this than any other topic. This takes thousands a tweets an hour. It is probably fair to say that the majority of people have never heard of the audit commission, let alone read any of their reports, so why were so many people sufficiently upset by the government’s sudden and surprising abolition of the commission (with the loss of its 2000 highly skilled jobs) to go online and tweet about it?

My own tweet “the audit commission, formed in 1844 as public service was being created, scrapped in 2010 as public service is being destroyed” was later quoted in the New Statesman, and perhaps gets close to the heart of the matter.

When government legislates it is the role of the commission to analyse the effectiveness of the way policy is translated into action. This is seldom a trouble free process. Having read a number of audit commission reports I know that these are rigorous and often very challenging to both the government and the service providers.

The audit commission was a body which fiercely defended its independence, and had a real understanding of the often very complex and interconnected aims of public service. Its 2000 highly skilled and experienced staff are people who understand what public service is and could act effectively as a critical friend, with the constant aim of helping public service improve.

The reasons for the abolition of the audit commission are unclear. Eric Pickles has come out with a folksy statement about the commission having “lost its way”. There are rumours that that Eric Pickles had a long running battle with the commission because their clear recommendation of fortnightly bin collections conflicted with promises he had made to his constituency.

It would of course be dreadful to think that such an important service could be abolished on such flimsy grounds as this, and I am sure this cannot be the case. I think that Eric Pickles dislike of the audit commission goes much deeper than this and points to the heart of the difference in the way that the Conservative and Labour parties view public service.

My own insight into this difference came from a visit to Cannock Chase mining museum. This journey back in time to the start of an industrial society indicates why forms of public service emerged. Mine owners quickly found that their prosperity depended on the effectiveness of their workforce. Bringing together the bands of men who were willing and able to do the unpleasant task of bringing the coal up from underground led to finding ways to look after the needs of these men and their families.

Enlightened mine owners discovered the benefit of providing decent housing and sanitation, to ensure that the men stayed clean and well, schools to provide a workforce capable of carrying out the tasks required, a health service to address the injuries and ailments, a welfare system to look after the sick and widows, cultural activities to improve the quality of life and address the scourge of drunkenness, churches and Sunday schools to guard against immorality and a police force to maintain law and order.

This is the start of public service. It recognises the interdependence of owner and worker, but it is a public service created by owners, with their interests at heart. This is a vision which would be completely understood by many of the existing members of the front bench.

There is one single exhibit in the mining museum which spoke to me of something different; something which I recognise in the best aspirations of the Labour Party vision of public service. The pit bathhouse manager describes the way in which he chooses to manage the bathhouse. He describes the way it works. The men come in and take off their wet home clothes, and hang them up on racks to dry; they go through and put on clean pit clothes. At the end of the day they strip off their filthy clothes, leaving them to be washed and dried, and go through to the bath house where steaming water and clean towels are laid out ready for them. The men choose to buy best quality soap, which he buys in bulk for them. They have a preference for lavender. Then clean and dry they put on their home clothes and head for home. The bathhouse manager has added his own touches too. The bright steamy bathhouse is ideal for growing plants and he has hanging baskets suspended from the ceiling, which he and the men enjoy.

The differences are subtle, but there is the feeling here of the emergence of a service in which caring is central, and the identification with the people receiving the service is so strong that it transforms what could be a basic mechanistic function into something that is genuinely nurturing and kind.

In the run up to the 2010 election there was a lot of disquiet about the rise of the class card. It is of course quite wrong to dismiss someone’s opinions because of the accident of their birth, but it must be the case that it is harder for people brought up in wealth to fully understand what it is that less fortunate people hope for in their public services.

If we approach public service with the mindset of owners the main questions we would be asking when auditing are: is it effective in delivering a productive workforce?, is it value for money? With today’s emphasis on cutbacks and boosting the private sector, we would then ask, is the service really necessary?, how much unrest would it cause if we cut it?, does providing this service offer an opportunity for the private sector?

If we approach auditing public service with the mindset of workers we will ask a different set of questions: Is it a service that we would be happy to use ourselves?, does it give us value for our money?, does it contribute to creating a stronger and more cohesive society?, and if we were to cut the service, how would the effects of this be felt?, could cutting the service cause greater long term problems? If the service has to be cut, are there alternative ways in which the service can be provided?

If we begin from the starting point of owners and workers, owners will wish to provide a service which is good enough for other people, and will always be concerned with the cost effectivness of this service. Workers will always be thinking in terms of a service which is something that they would personally wish to use. This may explain the very different attitude that the parties display towards statistics, the measurement of need, and the measurement of service. For “owners” the bottom line is what matters, for “workers” the quality of the service is central and this makes the kind of detailed scrutiny which the audit commission has provided of fundamental importance.

At the end of my visit to the museum I was left thinking that this is history, and that we are now in a new era. Thinking of ourselves as “owners” or “workers” no longer really makes much sense. The challenges which now face us, both as a country and as part of an interconnected world, are so great that they can only be met by moving beyond the distinction of workers and owners.

George Osborne tells us that we are all in this together, but we instinctively doubt that he understands this. It is too hard for him to move away from the deep rooted need of the owner class to protect their privilege. I see things differently. For me it is very clear that we are no longer in the simple position of creating wealth by mining what lies under our feet. The future prosperity of our communities is something that can only be ensured by making the best use of the skills and resources of all.

My impression is that the Conservative Party doesn’t yet accept this vision of a connected world, and I believe that the audit commission has been axed because its complex understanding of the purpose of public service may not fully be understood by a party that is primarily interested in protecting the needs of the owner class.

If we look at this map produced by the audit commission of the effects of the recession:

It shows that they have a complex vision of the ways in which we will need to counter the effects of the recession. It indicates the need for a greater role for public service. This is not something that this government wishes to hear. This government is prepared to tolerate deterioration in public service, and they may be deeply uncomfortable with a service which has the means of carefully measuring and describing this deterioration.

The government assures us that auditing will still be required and that it will still take place, but it will be done differently. They see a role for the private sector, there is a hint to the audit commission staff to reform themselves into a John Lewis style partnership, which may indeed be the best option for keeping this highly valuable skill base together.

In terms of auditing local authorities the options are far less clear. There is an expressed hope that citizens will step forward to act as armchair auditors, scrutinising the information that will be made available online. Personally I see very little indication that the necessary skills or indeed interest will spontaneously arise, until perhaps the failings of the system have begun to make themselves very apparent.

An underlying theme in all of this is that the carefully considered national guidelines on what public service should deliver will be eroded, and local accountability and local decision making will take over. This will inevitably lead to very wide variations in the quality of service, and will naturally tend to favour the needs of the vociferous middle classes. This is something that anyone who cares about a cohesive society will need to actively guard against.

If we accept that there is a need to bring about some cuts in public service, then how this is done matters a lot. Cuts should be carried out carefully, based on evidence, with the interests of service users at heart. The people who have the skills to do this, are the members of the audit commission. Far from being cut, the commission needs to be given a central role in any restructuring of public service.

The abolition of the audit commission is an attack on the fundamentals of a nationally based and fair public service. I believe it is important to prompt our elected representatives to justify this decision.