The massive advances in technology commonly referred to as the digital revolution have already had a profound impact on communication, distribution and exchange. They promise far more in coming years not least in the sphere of politics, which has been relatively slow to react to this change. As those at @LabourDigital have argued, the digital revolution poses quite fundamental questions for the British left and other progressives – and certainly around public service reform and the purpose of the state in an era where technology is as much a disruptive force as it is a creative one.
The powerful political theory speech The Power to Create by RSA chief executive Mathew Taylor proposes a new worldview where public policy is centred on the aspiration that ‘every citizen should lead a creative life.’ By this Taylor means something much more than the celebration of artistic self-expression – he aims at a new organising principle of self-determination now enabled by new technological developments: ‘lives of which we are the author, lives which allow us to be the best people we can be.’
Those on the left will be familiar with the ‘equality of outcome’ v ‘equality of opportunity’ debate reframed in the 1990s, to varying degrees of acceptance. But Taylor’s proposition certainly appears much more than a restatement of the traditional ‘negative liberty’ concept of ‘freedom from restraint to act as you will’ and rather one imbued with more recognisable social justice drivers. It implies that the state has a role as an enabler for human fulfilment – not a new idea, but a reassertion of the lofty aims of classical philosophers in their quest for a system of government that could guarantee the elusive goal of eudaimonia – happiness, or more literally the ‘human flourishing’ – of their citizens.
Taking a step further than the debate around ‘wellbeing’ popularised in the early coalition period, Taylor sets out a number of reasons why a new politics for the creative age is both timely and possible. First, he argues, we have the more widely educated population (with the normal caveats) than at any time in our history, the benefits and consequences of which being a steady decrease in deference and an increase in demands for autonomy, choice and self-determination.
Secondly – and crucially for this reviewer – we are beginning to develop the technological capability to push the boundaries of public policy away in a more radical direction. Certainly the rise many-to-many communications, data analytics and the rise of mobile/decline of fixed or desktop are just some examples of new means to redesign services entirely around the user, from end-to-end. As Jon Cruddas alluded to in the question and answer session after his Radical Hope speech on technology, radical emancipation – proposed by the influential ‘new left’ movement in the 1980s, with their corresponding challenge to markets and political conservatism on both left and right – often lacked the technical means to develop the kind of citizen-designed services that could replace post-war state paternalism. If we possess the means to do this now, should we not explore further?
Thirdly, political experimentation is happening already: whether Government Digital Service, ‘big society’ proposals by Conservative authorities or the co-operative council model by Labour councils. However enlightened, technocratic lever-pulling from the centre is an increasingly blunt and anachronistic tool, as it ignores the potentially for locally-led solutions: ‘citizens and communities are not just bundles of need; they are also huge untapped assets.’
This is a lucid proposition but a new era of public service reform, based around the politics of creativity, begs a number of questions which, ironically, revolve around institutions; for all the hype about the ‘rise of the entrepreneur’, how we organise the state and its relationship with technological innovation has a long history.
A new political settlement for the creative age would immediately have to consider the following three areas. Firstly, that of decentralisation and leadership. The United Kingdom is the most fiscally centralised western democracy with more infrastructure held in private hands than any equivalent nation (by some way). Our local public services are weaker for it. This does not mean all of Whitehall is ill-equipped for the digital revolution. An important central government innovation under the coalition is the Government Digital Service. However, those who believe in locally-developed solutions also need a new political settlement for the ‘middle tier’, be they city-regions, unitaries, boroughs or districts to act as enablers and intermediaries. Leadership needs to challenge accepted norms around the standardisation of service delivery across the country and not lose its nerve when confronted by the glib ‘postcode lottery’ debate played out in the press. Because of the latter SW1 politics – Westminster, Whitehall – often confuses the need for consistency with uniformity. We should aspire for high standards and trust in local public services – and in citizens – to innovate and not be afraid of failure. The mistake of various attempts in 2005 at ‘double devolution’, and then ‘localism’ by all political parties since, were that in practice they more often than not resulted in degrading local functions in preference to a Whitehall-citizen relationship rather than see these locally democratically-elected institutions and accountable as a way of supporting and stimulating individual and community innovation. The political consensus on radical devolution of powers to Scotland in the event of a ‘No, thanks’ vote later this year renders the concept of localism utterly redundant.
Secondly, the question of whether we the digital capability for change must be answered. If human capital is the currency where private firms roll with the punches that globalisation and the digital revolution throws at them, the same applies to the running of Whitehall, local public services and, in particular, our education system. In this space Labour is starting to make some real running. Chi’s Onwurah’s Digital Government Review will pose important questions about the relationship between the citizen and the state: can we be more ambitious in the future than getting transactions online and making the state leaner and think about how people can co-design and co-produce services? Maggie Phibin’s independent UK Digital Skills report, published last week, seeks to ensure that the benefits campaign to increase the UK’s digital skills not just a Tech-City-phenomenon but nurtured shared and driven right across the country, and between generations.
Finally, the resources available must be considered. Dealing with austerity budgets means that wherever you look public service reform is back at the centre of debate across the land. Continuing to ‘salami-slice’ services, while targeting resources just to those in most need (the essential blueprint of the first four years of austerity) will neither help the concept of universal services in its purest form to survive, nor will it enable us to help the most vulnerable in the most effective ways. While necessity is said to be the mother of invention – after a decade of austerity budgets (certainly at a local level) do we have the upfront resource to kick start more fundamental innovation?
The ‘power to create’ also forms part of an important and emerging body of work around the creativity which seizes on the importance of the creative economy and the role of the state in promoting this (see for example, NESTA’s Manifesto for the Creative Economy or at a local level Camden’s Digital Strategy). The relationship between technology and politics and prevailing political thought is a complex one – explored in this excellent RSA post by Anthony Painter – but the history of the turn of this century will be seen in years to come as when digital technologies began to be truly greater than the sum of their parts. In 1945, 1964 and 1997 winning Labour governments had something important to say about technology and society. This is not to say that technology is utmost in people’s minds when they vote – but it is difficult to appear open, forward-looking and progressive if you have nothing to say about it. As Tony Blair argued in this Philip Gould memorial lecture, is it not time to develop a new ‘progressive zeitgeist’ for the 21st century?
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Theo Blackwell is cabinet member for finance and technology policy at Camden Council and a member of @LabourDigital
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