There’s something much more worrying than the often-heard notion that the public don’t trust politicians: politicians who don’t trust the public. I went into politics to pass power to the people I grew up with, and that I now represent.
Giving people greater control over the circumstances of their own lives remains our guiding purpose when reforming public services.
We haven’t been as clear as we might have been about that purpose. We’ve tended to sound too technocratic, and to speak in a language which sounds clever in seminar rooms but means nothing outside of them.
Sometimes we’ve been fixated on the methods and, in the process, lost the point – it’s like we’ve brought clean water to a city, and then spent our time talking passionately about the pipes and the filtration system, instead of about what’s actually changed.
Every part of the reform programme should be a way of extending power to ordinary people.
More choice about who carries out health treatment, where, when and how; a greater say in designing the service in the first place; more use of the information about whether citizens are actually satisfied or not; and giving individuals personal budgets, and the freedom and support to use them. Every one of these reforms has a common aim: a shift of power, from the provider to the citizen.
Deep down, I think politicians are divided on how much they trust the public. If we give power to ordinary people, do we believe they’ll use it well? Indeed, it is people in constituencies likes mine – who get sicker at a younger age and where too many leave school – who have most to gain from more personalised services. As the prime minister has said, unlocking people’s talent and aspirations is key, and this requires real reform and empowerment.
The people I represent are perfectly capable of making decisions about their own lives. That’s why I don’t buy the objection that giving power to people will produce two-tier services. Yes, it would if the choices of the poor were systematically worse than those of the rich – but I’ve got a higher opinion of people than that. The left is supposed to be optimistic about people.
What drives me is to transfer power and thus to make services better. I don’t much care who the provider is as long as the service is free to the user.
Too often, we have balked at tough action to eliminate failure – but when people are left with no option other than to use a failing service, nothing can be sacred and we need to consider breaking traditional patterns of service provision.
We also want to understand better what people think of the service they are getting. One way of doing this is gathering detailed satisfaction ratings, and in return, perhaps sweeping away many of the process targets. There will always be a need for targets to monitor the use of public money, but we need to focus them on the end result that we all care about rather then micro-managing professionals in their job.
Moreover, satisfaction ratings could be published on a regular basis for all public services in a local authority area, giving local people the chance to monitor progress themselves. Incentives to improve could be built into the award of public funds. But the centre would reserve the right to step in on failing services.
Of course, as we reform our public services there will sometimes be conflict between providers and citizens. But most of the time there is no real conflict. I have met a lot of frustrated entrepreneurs in public service. They want to innovate, to change the way they work and provide the better services they know are possible. Most of the time, they are hampered by direct regulation or by a culture of risk-aversion. We should remove those barriers, and give people the green light to innovate and to do things differently.
That’s why a big part of the reform story is to give greater control to institutions too, to let their managers get on with the task of running them, freed, as far as possible, from central interference.
We are too prone to think we know better. In the end, if we don’t trust the public then we should not be surprised if they do not trust us in return.