Redefining the relationship – Is now the time for a new public service settlement between citizen and state?

The tension between managing decreasing budgets and increased demand for ‘people’ services such as adult social care and health is beginning to create real problems for both providers who are put in an impossible position of demand overtaking available resources, with increased expectation from a public who in response feel disempowered and as though they are left to fall through the net of different arms of government.

Equally, traditional service delivery with a one size fits all approach doesn’t fit with the modern world. Today the consumer is king and information and knowledge is available to a far greater audience than ever before. If the printing press was a social revolution the internet, 24 hour news and social networks mean that knowledge is in the hands of far more people than ever before.

But in itself information isn’t power at all; it’s just ‘stuff’. Real empowerment is having the ability to access information, understand what’s presented and then use that information to make informed choices.

On that basis then we are only very early into a modernisation journey. Yes we have opened up public services and they are far more transparent and accountable than ever before; but all that means is that we’ve found a way of explaining where we are now; not a way for users to define the service they want for the future.

We haven’t empowered most residents as users of public services, we’ve just informed them.

Whilst I do think it can be a dangerous journey to set public services based on need and demand around ‘customers’ in a transactional way – since the relationship between citizen and the state is and should be reciprocal – I do think we need to step back and look at how people live their lives today and what it is fair to expect from public services.

Can you imagine going to book a holiday to be told there was one destination, one choice of hotel, one choice of evening meal, oh and if the airline delays the flight that’s tough, the airline is under pressure after all.

We wouldn’t accept that and there is no reason why those receiving public services should either.

In reality you would probably book online in the comfort of your own home at a pace you are happy with. You’d take time to go on Trip Advisor to find out if you are making the right choice of hotel, not just trusting the bias view of the hotel owner or agent benefiting from referral fees (sounds a bit that to the modern NHS patient choice system). And if you did have cause to complain about the taxi you would expect decent customer services, for the problem to be put right quickly and for the ability to share your experience with others, back on Trip Advisor on the return home.

So maybe the new form of local government is as a ‘public service agent’ coordinating all public services so that you get a package of services tailored to your needs moving beyond just council run services.

But equally the empowerment through access to real information, understanding and the ability to make informed choices must go hand in hand with a recognition that some have unreasonable demands on public services. With that then we also need a new settlement between national and local government.

Is now the time for a new public service settlement between citizen and state?

Jim McMahon is the Leader of Oldham Council