Is the coalition scared or scarred?

By Sarah Hayward / @sarah_hayward

Tessa Jowell is right, there’s very little in the Open Public Services white paper published on Monday. I wanted to read it and for it to make my blood boil – after all Cameron’s been pretty clear in his desire to rip up services as we know them. But while there is plenty to be concerned about it doesn’t have enough substance to really get ones hackles up. Overall this is a sense of a paper from a man without a plan (or men since like all government publications these days it’s fronted by both the PM and DPM).

I’m pretty sure this is a white paper written under the shadow of fear. Burnt by their last foray in to public service reform – the NHS debacle – one or both of Cleggeron simply couldn’t bring themselves to front up a bold, radical vision for public services that their previous rhetoric would have indicated. No wonder it was published under the shadow of Hackgate.

Had it not been buried by the phone hacking and News International issues (that show little sign of letting up, for other news) this document would’ve probably prompted big questions about the administration running out of ideas in just a year.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some real issues with some of the contents and the negative impact the proposals, if followed through could have. But few of the ideas – such as they are – have enough flesh on their bones for you to really get your teeth in to and attack – this seems tactical to me. Can’t have Clegg or Maude having to front up to the house and have to do a Lansley (or should that be a Hunt, or a Spelman?)

They even seem to have built in the ‘pause & listen’ at the beginning. Almost in anticipation of a heap of something nasty falling on their heads.

So, insofar as it goes, what do we know? The coalition has spotted that Blair liked the word choice when coupled with public services. So the coalition use it, a lot, in this document. But they don’t really know what it is or who’s supposed to have it. We’re just supposed to be given it and like it.

It ignores the basic point about consumer behaviour, that as a nation we’re simply not very good at using choice to our best advantage. Very few of us change phone provider, bank or utilities, even when it’s stark staring obvious there are cheaper deals to be had. Most of us just can’t be bothered.

So rather like Luke Akehurst I simply don’t understand the obsession with choice in public services. Most people want a good local hospital or school or park. Because being able to send your kid to the closest local school is in everyone’s interests – yours, your kids, the environment, other road users you name it – everyone benefits.

But there we are. We’ll be offered choice in everything. Except where we’re not offered choice – and the white paper has no answer on this point. What happens in communities where it’s simply not economical for more than one provider to operate – say really rural areas, or areas where there is density of complex need and therefore services are more difficult and expensive to deliver?

Or what happens when it’s not economical for any provider to operate in an area. The only circumstance where it’s conceived that this might happen is in rural communities – but there are other factors that would put off providers, like high levels of deprivation, or a particularly difficult and/or expensive client group.

To deal with this, you’d think that the government might offer comfort. But no. At no point does the phrase ‘free at the point of use’ appear for any of the services cited that currently are free to the end user. And there’s no minimum standards guarantee for users of public services – this is despite there being an entire section called ‘Minimum Standards’. This apparently doesn’t include providing a minimum level of expected service to the people who rely on public services. There’s simply no guarantee about what services will be provided and who will qualify. Without this, there’s simply no safety net.

The words market, privatisation or private sector simply aren’t used in the document, but this is eventually what the final proposals will do. The woolly language about the independent sector (again straight from the Blair copy book), VCS or mutuals is intended to give people in the middle a fuzzy little hug – presumably before the very hard cold iron fist follows through as the private sector gobble up the profitable or cheap to run services and leave the rest to the VCS and public sector and leaving no safety net to those in need.

One of the scariest sentences in the whole document is:

“the job of government is not to specify which sector should deliver which service to which people”.

So in effect the government is contract out the assessment of (and therefore the accountability for) identifying need. Apparently it’s not longer government’s job to decide that your child needs educating, or your mother needs help with her personal care, or your neighbour needs drug rehabilitation. The market will decide and hang the consequences.

The white paper is cautious on how it puts all these things forward, which is why it’s a damp squib of a document, but the consequences will be far reaching for both Labour and the public.

I’m not a fan of the language of public service reform – it’s developed in a very one dimensional fashion. It fails to recognise that good public sector organisations are always innovating and changing working practice to save money or improve services and I think it is more reflective of a political culture that requires constant fiddling.

But public services do need to constantly adapt to changing circumstances whether it’s our schools and universities teaching and researching the latest technological advances, our NHS coping with an aging population or our infrastructure coping with ever increasing demands. People see and experience the these challenges and know that the public sector needs to respond. Labour’s 13 years of investment raised expectations which adds to the pressure to get it right.

The low key nature of both the white paper and its announcement might let the government get away with some very far reaching reforms, that subject all public services to the market regardless of the user need. Labour’s response so far has also been very low key, but we mustn’t let the government get away with it and we must set out a strong alternative vision for public services in the process.