In fact, the piece paid scant attention to the views and abilities of the people who design and deliver public services, focusing on how private and voluntary sector organisations could play a greater role. The wider debate about the Open Public Services (OPS) agenda lacks focus on staff and user engagement.
It’s no surprise the TUC has a rather different take on the government’s public service reform agenda to the CBI. But it seems both organisations are frustrated by the government’s narrow agenda and the lack of imagination it demonstrates.
The focus has been on competition, commissioning, multiple providers and an individualistic model with a consumerist choice agenda. At its heart is a failure to recognise the collective nature and ethos that underpin public services – they are not commodities, but public goods that benefit society as a whole. That requires integrated, high-quality public services regardless of postcode. It means democratic accountability, value for money and a well-trained, empowered and valued workforce.
A Telegraph article by the prime minister published on the same day as the OPS update proclaimed that “brick by brick, we are tearing down the big state”. This tells a story of mistrust of the professionals working to deliver public services fit for the 21st century.
It fits with the tone set over a year ago, when David Cameron referred to civil servants as “enemies of enterprise” and “bureaucrats” – hardly the language of motivation and empowerment. It is difficult to imagine a FTSE100 chief executive talking in these terms about the staff that they need to deliver their vision.
Such a fundamentally market-based approach has little space for staff and user voice. Although ministers have talked of empowering staff, this has been in the context of specific, troubled initiatives around employee-owned mutuals. Detail has been thin on the ground about how the move to transform public services into mutuals will be achieved, and how it might result in the benefits the government claims. The evidence so far shows that fledgling mutuals have been taken over by private companies or defeated once services go out to tender. We’ve also seen organisations that stretch the definition of a mutual – top-down, driven by employers, and not supported by staff. At the same time, the Work Programme has shown that creating a market in public services leads to domination by private interests rather than a flourishing of employee-owned and voluntary sector providers.
The ‘level playing field’ for different providers promised by the OPS update would ensure this trend continues, with the legal and financial muscle of big corporations set against in-house public sector lawyers or small mutuals and co-operatives in costly legal challenges.
The government’s vision also lacks any recognition of the importance of investment in skills and capacity in the public sector workforce. In contrast, the Welsh and Scottish governments make explicit reference to partnership with the workforce and investment in skills.
Prospect’s recent report, Government That Can Needs People Who Know How, sets out an alternative vision: one of raising standards of professionalism, valuing specialist skills, and co-ordinating policymaking across departments and professional bodies. The report argues that civil service reform by successive governments has been driven by cost concerns at the expense of a clear, long-term strategic vision.
The wider problem is a failure to engage with staff and trade unions to develop ideas about how to deliver real efficiencies. Genuine engagement could harness pragmatic ideas like those set out by Prospect and encourage cross-departmental working, building on staff experience to integrate services more effectively. It could use staff expertise to develop long-term preventative work, such as quality provision in early years care, public health and youth services.
A market-driven model takes services further away from users and disempowers staff. Inflexible contracts bring complexity, transaction costs and opacity. Unions support a different approach to put staff and users at the heart of service design, recognising that flexibility, efficiency and innovation can be delivered in the public sector, if only it is given the chance.
Brendan Barber is TUC general secretary