How to reform public services

Politicians are generally wary about telling the public unpleasant truths, so it falls to people like Ben Lucas, the director of the 2020 Public Services Trust , to warn of impending dangers. In a series of recent reports , the trust – a thinktank that draws on not just the usual policy wonks but also civil servants, local councillors and the private sector – has tried to ram home the message that public services need significant reform. We have a much more diverse society, and more entrenched inequality, than in the 1940s, Lucas says – but the services haven't changed to match. The scale of the public deficit, and the increasing burden of an ageing society (which, the trust estimates, could require spending equivalent to another 5% of GDP), add to the problems facing public services. "We face some pretty big choices about the sort of society we want to be, the sort of public services we want to have and the mainstream parties are finding it hard to engage in the debate because they are frightened of some of the consequences," comments Lucas. He says the danger this creates is that by not being straight with voters about the scale of the challenge we face, an incoming government might then find that it doesn't have the mandate to make the big changes that will be required. The trust's recipe for fixing the crisis is threefold. First, citizens will have to make a greater social contribution, Lucas says: in other words, do more to help public services work. That requires a "fundamental" transfer of power from the centre to citizens and communities. And the funding of public services should make clearer the link between the tax people pay and the benefits they receive. Lucas, a former lobbyist and adviser to Jack Straw, also predicts much closer working between government agencies. "The danger is that the traditional Whitehall approach [to making savings] is to identify cuts in individual silos. Whereas we should look to do things better across [organisational] boundaries." But that, in turn, requires "visible" accountability for decision-making. Lucas's answer is an increase in directly elected mayors, despite fears that the mayoral system centralises power with one individual. "People have to be able to see who's accountable for important decisions in the area, and I don't think that can be completely resolved through a committee system, which runs the risk of not being clear enough." Lucas also suggests governments should consider, in some areas, increased user payments. "We are not advocating public services consumerism," he says firmly. But he does want to turn people into active citizens who realise there are responsibilities that go with rights. Weariness and wariness Lucas admits the general public has both "weariness and wariness" about the efforts that have been made so far to get them more involved. "I think people are quite cynical about what they correctly perceive as being a tick-box exercise that public services have gone through in order to 'consult'." But he thinks people are much more likely to want to be involved in and build something at the local level than the national. "People need to see that something happened as a result of their being involved."