It’s not easy for someone of my political generation to accept, but Michael Howard got some things right. His shadow cabinet structure in 2004 created what many commentators thought was something of an oddity – a shadow minister for the public services. He was actually ahead of his time.
His mistake was his failure to persist with this idea. Having somebody with this unique power around his shadow cabinet table could have led to the type of policy formation that only gets stilted in the traditional departmental silos of Whitehall. Instead, he eventually did as all opposition leaders eventually do and aped the structure of the prime minister’s cabinet.
By seeing through his original idea, the role should have morphed in to the position of ‘minister for public service reform.’ As well as stilted policy formation, the traditional silos of government departments can lead to the fragmentation of the really big ideas.
Beyond the current response to the financial crisis, the government will want to think about how to regain the political initiative by thinking about this fleeting 2004 model. By adding to the big public sector portfolios around the cabinet table – adding to the portfolios of health, education and transport – a cabinet minister for public service reform, it could bring together true local empowerment and enhanced public services.
The traditional shape of ministerial departments can leave empowerment through local government and real public service transformation on the ground looking fragmented. This has in turn led to public service reform being caricatured as a battle between national and local, a battle between government and trade unions and a battle between Whitehall officials and frontline practitioners. We often see the debate raging about big state versus little state on the issue of public service delivery, but too often the debate about local empowerment is in an entirely separate place, too often focused on measures such as ‘community kitties’ and ‘prize draws’ to encourage people to vote.
The government’s overarching intentions on improving public services and enhancing local accountability are fundamentally good but we must do more to link our narrative on local empowerment to public service reform. The next step is to make them more joined up. Howard’s flirtation with changes in the machinery of government in 2004 provide a tantalising hint of what may have become the means, although not the policy solution to connect the empowerment agenda to the transformation of public services.
Why does it matter? The next comprehensive spending review is already tight, and the economic crisis will only make it tighter. So if the question is how can we continue to improve public services after a decade of investment which is now inevitably cooling, the answer is through real empowerment of local councils. The order of events is important here: empowerment of the local council can lead to local transformation of public services and then in turn to greater participation.
The New Labour fashion since 1997 has been to focus on the machinery of local government to deliver change. But transformation has not been delivered by calling a leader a mayor, or calling a committee a cabinet. Real local transformation will involve conveying new powers and not new titles. The success of the mayor of London has related to the unique powers to deliver change – no other local authority leader has the powers the London mayor has, regardless of his title.
Transformational local government means the centre showing a willingness to let go, for local leaders to have power to truly shape communities by supplementing the public services. This would require a ‘reform of public services’ bill in a Queens speech. Not separate Home Office, education, transport or health bills. But one bill that truly encourages local leaders in local councils to innovate – not just with capital investment which they negotiate with developers, but with revenue.
Recently there was a spate of regional media stories expressing concern at the tens of millions of pounds being stockpiled by local authorities, in the shape of section 106 (or planning gain) monies. This happens everywhere. A developer comes to town, a deal is done for a worthy project such as a playground in return for a brand new Tesco superstore. Then a few years later the section 106 money may actually get spent if officials can remember where they left it and if no other pet capital project has come along in another part of town.
Government has experimented with other ideas such as BIDs (Business Improvement Districts), but these require complex referenda involving local businesses. The community infrastructure levy, which is stuck in parliament at present, is predominantly about big one-off capital projects – a new road or improvements to a railway station for example. All of these are worthy additions, but local leaders hanker after simplicity that enables them to negotiate directly for their community and to cut out Whitehall and its representative bodies on earth.
True imaginative empowerment of local people means giving their locally accountable leadership power to do better, quicker and more transparent deals than that. Local communities know what public services they have and where the gaps in provision are. They know where there is a shortage of GP provision, or lack of nursery places. They know where they need a new bus service but haven’t got the funding and they know where children have special needs and could do with extra teachers in the classroom. Local council leaders should be able to go beyond shallow section 106 agreements and do real deals directly with developers such as the big supermarkets in order to generate revenue to fund, for example, a health centre as part of the supermarket development. They should have the stated power to directly negotiate for an after school club or indeed the dentist or bus route funded by the development. And crucially, for the new Sainsbury’s or Ikea to fund the service in perpetuity as part of their branded contribution to that local community.
Doctors, dentists, health centres, busses, Post Offices and nurseries are just a few of the public services local authorities could then directly create or supplement through the deals that they do. Whether the developer chooses to provide the revenue straight through the NHS primary care trust for let’s say a doctor’s surgery, or through the private or third sector, should be a matter for them to negotiate with the local council leadership. Likewise, whether the bus service is provided through a county council or directly through a private contract should not matter as long as the service is supplementing and growing public services and free in the case of health provision to the patient.
This goal is to enhance our public services at a time when expenditure from the centre is reaching its limits. The goal is also to empower local leadership in transformational local government. To see direct returns from those most accountable can only be good for local participation. And perhaps this will provide a more direct means for businesses and developers to show that communities count to them – a new opportunity for them to show that corporate social responsibility is about a more hands-on approach to improving our communities. It’s hard to put a value on the relationship between a business and a consumer, but this can only strengthen it.
The system would need a regulator to ensure that the deals done locally stick. But if the most local form of democracy – our councils – are to truly empower communities, they need the powers to make the difference.
I doubt any of this figured in Howard’s mind in the 2004 shadow cabinet reshuffle. In any case, machinery of government in isolation cannot deliver these changes. But coupled with the right policy instruments, our town halls could be revitalised and the empowerment agenda could be tied in to shaping, growing and reforming our public services.