This week a couple of my old political mates demonstrated how tricky it can be to challenge policy or propose alternative thinking in the heat of an election campaign. Schooled in the rigid message discipline of the 1997 general election, I am naturally loyal and unlikely to speak out in the run up to a general election – especially one as important and close as May will be. However, there is a real danger if discipline and loyalty creates a stultified policy environment in which people are unable to think and develop ideas. This is why I was so pleased to see Liz Kendall and Steve Reed’s pamphlet ‘Let it go’ on people powered public services also emerging this week.
This pamphlet explores the idea of how we can devolve power when in government – not just to other layers of the state, but to public service users and workers.
Through a series of interviews it listens and learns from those getting on with public service reform. We have faced the frustrations of being out of government for the last five years, but in local government and on the front line of public services and the voluntary sector some impressive people have found the space to innovate.
Listening to their experiences has allowed Liz and Steve to draw some important conclusions and develop the lessons which we must put into practice when we return to government.
I urge you to read the whole pamphlet, but some key points for me were:
There is nothing progressive about always wanting to defend the status quo in our public services. ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it – but just give it a bit more money’ has never struck me as the best way to assert our progressive values – to challenge inequalities of power as well as wealth, to equip all and especially the weakest and most vulnerable to fulfil their potential in a rapidly changing world, and to give more people a voice and a stake.
The collective endeavour in which we believe is not only delivered from the centre by a big state. Housing is a good example of where the political choice used to be between unresponsive state provision or the insecurity of the private sector. In my Redditch constituency we developed the largest new build cooperative housing provision in the country. People got decent, affordable homes and a say in how they were built and run at a local and manageable level.
Apart from education, the role of most public services should be to enable people to live without having to use them. I love the NHS and I love the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham which I chair, but I can remember some telling comments when we introduced the government’s friends and family test which asks people whether they would recommend the hospital to others. ‘Why would I want others to suffer my illness and have to come here’, one person remarked.
Ensuring people have the treatment and other support to get out of hospital as quickly as possible and avoid coming in is more important than shoring up one institution. Equally listening to people’s views and voices makes their care better – when we built a new dialysis centre, patients views on everything from when and how they got their dialysis to how they got there and back were crucial for making the centre not only effective, but also better value for money.
Giving more power to the users of public services is not a way of undermining public sector workers. In fact, there can be no meaningful reform without the active involvement of those providing the service. The vast majority of those of us who work in public services come to work to do a good job and to do it in partnership with those who use the services. But too often the systems in which we work hinder rather than help that energy and enthusiasm. We need better ways to support rather than stifle innovation and to reward relationships as well as results.
These are just a few reflections prompted by the excellent pamphlet. Please read it because we must ensure responsible policy debate and thinking continues. In May we do not only need to win the election, we need to start changing things. The detailed work to ensure this happens cannot be left until after Ed is prime minister. At that point new and old ministerial hands alike will find their brain space and time engulfed by the business of government. We will need plenty of strong thinking and powerful ideas for reform in the bag by then. Liz and Steve have made an important contribution here.
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Jacqui Smith is a former home secretary, writes the Monday Politics column for Progress, and tweets @Jacqui_Smith1
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You can read Let it go: Power to the people in public services online here.