In their haste to write stories about Labour’s lack of ideas, the commentariat are ignoring an important discussion developing in the party about the role of the state and the importance of giving power away to individuals in their communities. Consensus is building in the party that a return to mutual models of ownership in public services could provide a distinct break from monolithic state provision on the one hand, and the ‘easyCouncil’ model of the Tories on the other. The co-operative movement has been ever-present in the Labour party, but until recently has only been noticeable through its sponsorship of Labour candidates. Now with a push to convince government to remutualise Northern Rock, and a commitment to create 200 co-operative schools, it feels as though the mutual moment may have arrived.
The idea of locating power within communities, and particularly the ownership of local services such as libraries, parks, health centres etc – which is as old as the hills, think GDH Cole and RH Tawney – has suddenly been given a new lease of life, notably by Tessa Jowell, minister for the Cabinet Office. She has suggested that giving public sector staff and users a greater stake in the running of their services could form a central plank of Labour’s manifesto, and Progress agrees. New Labour has achieved a great deal through the use of central targets, but many of them have outlived their usefulness, and in some cases have proved counter-productive, simply reinforcing the inhuman, bureaucratic nature of public service delivery. As the government rightly moves the most important targets into entitlements, Labour needs to think how continued improvements can be made in public services, but concentrating much more on staff and users as potential co-producers of services.
There is plenty of left-inspired intellectual underpinning for the shift from top-down state solutions, to bottom-up community ones. As David Marquand wrote in A Language of Community in 1990: ‘Centre-left communitarians will therefore seek the widest possible diffusion of responsibility and power – not only in what is conventionally thought of as the political sphere, but in what [John Stuart] Mill called “the business of life”, at work, in the school system, in the health service, indeed wherever discussion and debate can help to determine collective purposes, and in doing so, to give the participants a chance to experience the disciplines of collective choice.’ In this vein, there is a read across from our concentration in the last six months on the need to devolve political power through electoral reform, primaries, strengthening select committees, introducing more elected mayors, and the greater mutualisation of public services. As we seek to break up the monopoly of power the executive has in our democracy, so we should also allow power to be given to the public in their day-to-day dealings with public services.
Some on the left will claim that this is privatisation of public services by the back door. It is not, and if anything it could form a bulwark against a potential Tory government hellbent on handing services wholesale to the private sector. But there is a debate to be had in the party about state socialism versus community socialism. Leaving everything up to the state is lazy, it requires Labour activists to do very little to advance their cause with the public and assumes that the least well off will always be unable to improve their lives without the state doing it for them. Community socialism is not for armchair supporters of the party, it demands active engagement on everything from your local Safer Neighbourhood Team panel to membership of your local park.
Such a push towards local solutions would be best supported by an invigorated local government sector. Dare we say it, but a dash of municipal socialism alongside the far more professional approach to council management which has developed in the last decade, could help to make the spread of mutual models a reality. New Labour has distrusted the capacity of local government to achieve its aims for too long, but it makes sense to use the next five months to increase freedoms for local authorities not least because Labour should be aiming to improve its control of local government in the next five years.
As Labour faces an uphill struggle to win the next election it seems counterintuitive to let go, but unless we find ways of binding the public in to their public services and amenities, the long march towards political nihilism will continue. It goes without saying that people care much more about the future of their local school, leisure centre or GP surgery if they have a personal and/or financial interest in it. By taking a leaf out of our early history, Labour can find a modern narrative for citizen involvement in public services and perhaps it could start our reconnection with a public who wonder what we stand for, and why we want power in the first place. To paraphrase Bevan, Labour should be winning power to give it away.
HALLELUJAH!
Finally we’re starting to get somewhere with good solid, practical proposals for a 4th Term.
I’ve written to councils and Government Depts since the late 1990’s about this sort of thing and its about time the penny dropped.
Given the Tories have drawn out the usual suspects to join them with “Cameron’s £20bn plan for green homes” reported in today’s Guardian. Given the DWP annual budget is approximately £190bn now use this via a ‘Community Discount Card’ so that low income people can get discounts that they couldn’t otherwise capture but share this discount 50/50 with local Not-for-Profit organisations to help aleviate poverty and conduct benefit take up campaigns. These Discount Cards would identify with each community but in practice be the same special purpose vehicle to secure maximum discounts to pass on to local areas, towns, cities via Social Enterprises in the form of a mutual organisation. Thus helping the poorest help themselves along with those not poor at all also helping while helping themselves in the process. This would include all daily purchases especially for energy which could establish local Domestic Energy Service Companies to reduce energy consumption as well as bills. This would of course be paid for by using market forces that are far more powerful than even that of Tesco and M&S. Take the DWP budget out of the economy and see where Tesco’s share price would go. Or go one better and break up large supermakets but not by focusing on their stores but by using their database of customers so this could be used to ‘negotiate’ substantial discounts. The DWP is currently punching below its weight in the market place by distributing its budget amongst the most financially weakest members of society. This need not be the case but it needs…………yes, you guessed it, REGULATION to get the job done. We should not shy away from this.