A post bureaucratic Barnet?

October 19, 2009 by matthewtaylor
Filed under: Politics, Public policy 

One measure of a political party’s trajectory is how it deals with its electoral vulnerabilities, those weaknesses in its appeal that show up in opinion polls and focus groups. Confident parties on the way up confront the problems, weak parties on the way down brush the bad news under the carpet. That’s why the Conservative conference seemed to me to be more successful than Labour’s. The Tories went to Manchester knowing that a key vulnerability was the charge of a lack of substance, but after a week of announcements, including George Osborne’s public spending hit list, the charge had been buried. The opinion polls suggest the Conservatives may have lost a couple of percentage points for their candour but, when it comes to the real choice next spring, this may prove a price worth paying.

Even before their conference one of the Conservatives’ big ideas was ‘the post bureaucratic state’. This is David Cameron writing last March: ‘What is this idea so big, so bold and so wide in its scope? Well, I can describe it in the terms we’ve been using for several years and explain that we want to usher in a new post-bureaucratic age, where we bring together the opportunities of the information revolution and the deepest values of Conservatism to create a massive transfer of power from central government and its agencies to individuals and local communities’.

Critics of the Conservatives have questioned what the idea really amounts to. Do Michael Gove’s plans to make it easier for parents to set up their own schools, and Andrew Lansley’s to put the central management of the NHS at arm’s length, really represent a fundamental shift in the way government works?

But now the flagship Conservative Council of Barnet (the old stamping ground of Margaret Thatcher) is putting the principles of the post bureaucratic state at the heart of its corporate strategy. The starting point – which chimes with our own thinking here at the RSA – is the lives of the people themselves. The council aims to develop a much deeper and more nuanced understanding not only through conventional methods of public engagement such as a citizens’ panel and customer forums, but through ethnographic research into the day to day lives of its most needy citizens. Barnet also plans an integrated and holistic assessment process which provides a fuller picture of the clients (their capabilities and their preferences as well as their needs) which can be used by a variety of council services and, possibly, in time, by other local services too.

This information provides the basis for a strategy of personalisation involving greater use of individual budgets and client case workers, a role which the council describes as ‘akin to a life coach’. These coaches would be ‘recruited because of their own set of experiences and resilience, which would over time replace the plethora of professionals from different services that those in disadvantage currently have contact with’. Crucially, these workers, who would hold multi agency budgets on behalf of clients, would not be public service professionals but recruited from local communities on either a paid or volunteer basis.

The overall aims of the Barnet strategy are to move from a responsive to a preventive approach (a principle which underlies the restructuring of the council’s strategic capacity around multi-disciplinary project teams), to empower citizens and last, but not least, to save money while improving outcomes.

Barnet’s approach, which is due to be confirmed at the Council Executive on Wednesday, is not uncontroversial. In the short term, rationalisation of central functions will lead to job losses. While the council sees allowing citizens to choose to pay more for better services as an important aspect of personalisation, others will see it leading to second class services for those who can’t afford the fast track. If this local version of the post bureaucratic state is seen to work it could be the blueprint for Conservative strategy nationally and in other local authorities. Ironically, the biggest challenge to Barnet may come from a David Cameron Government. For the authority’s bold approach to social need to pay off will take several years but whether this strategy can survive in a context of deep public sector cuts remains to be seen.

  • Share/Bookmark

Related posts:

  1. Innovation from public service adversity Ben Lucas, Director of the 2020 Public Service Commision,...
  2. Progressive Conservatism: some questions I have been asked by Demos to write a...
  3. Public spending – any light amidst the heat? The RSA has a double interest in the debate...

Tags: ,

Comments

11 Comments on A post bureaucratic Barnet?

  1. Daniel Snell on Mon, 19th Oct 2009 12:31 pm

    2. Pushing out the decision making process out of london has to be the way forward. For too long now, the decisions have been made from central office. No wonder people aren’t bought into the decision making process or politics or self governance.

    Top down governance never works, people have to own and value the process. A time of lack of resource may be the best thing for us all. For the last 10 years it’s been a gravy train, where a number of mediocre organizations and people have creamed central contracts based on their abilities to win the business not deliver or be accountable for it.

    I’m hoping (here’s to hoping) that people and services will be bought on sold on good old reputation.

  2. Matthew Cain on Tue, 20th Oct 2009 2:22 pm

    3. There may be a more prosaic threat facing Barnet. Perfectly sensible proposals such as these can be easily characterised by (usually right-wing) critics . The life coaches can be classed as the PC brigade conducting non-jobs, wasting taxpayers money.

    The challenge for the Conservatives nationally may be in holding together a coalition which includes sensible, right of centre policies with campaigning groups like the Taxpayers Alliance.

  3. David Wilcox on Tue, 20th Oct 2009 2:31 pm

    4. Thanks Matthew – this also makes sense of Barnet’s innovative social media strategy that I heard about from their web manager Mike Godleman recently at a knowledgement management conference. Video here. Looks like a good case of tech supporting policy.

  4. Michael on Tue, 20th Oct 2009 2:31 pm

    5. What Barnet are proposing looks very interesting, genuinely radical – a real transformational shift. Over recent years there has been so much talk about citizen empowerment etc (pick your own buzzwords) Barnet look like they really are going to do it – across the whole range of services, in a planned process.

    It will be fascinating to see how it goes. Ultimately – without trying new approaches in a serious and committed way, we won’t ever know. The people behind it deserve credit for their ambition and willingness to (really) change.

    Anyone involved or interested in this will find the full Barnet document very interesting.

  5. Bookmarks for October 18th through October 21st on Wed, 21st Oct 2009 6:02 pm

    6. [...] A post bureaucratic Barnet? : Matthew Taylor’s blog – "The council aims to develop a much deeper and more nuanced understanding not only through conventional methods of public engagement such as a citizens’ panel and customer forums, but through ethnographic research into the day to day lives of its most needy citizens. " [...]

  6. matthewtaylor on Thu, 22nd Oct 2009 5:02 pm

    7. Yup Daniel. Can’t disagree with any of that.

  7. matthewtaylor on Thu, 22nd Oct 2009 5:05 pm

    8. I agree. In fact most of the Barnet plan could come from any progressive think tank discussing the way forward for public services. The explicitly right of centre bits, if there are any, are the emphasis on cutting costs (but as we now know all parties agree on that) and the lack of concern about having some two tier services (which is a more difficult issue).

  8. matthewtaylor on Thu, 22nd Oct 2009 5:05 pm

    9. Thanks David. Interesting

  9. matthewtaylor on Thu, 22nd Oct 2009 5:09 pm

    10. I agree Michael. The challenge is that the benefits of the strategy are long term and the budget cuts short term.

  10. Rich Watts on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 7:14 pm

    11. The talk of Barnet as an ‘easyCouncil’ has been flippant – I don’t think it is an understatement to think that the vast majority of all top-tier local authorities are looking to see how their transformation initiative works in practice.

    For me, a lot of the principles to be found in social care — a personalised system that responds to people’s choices over what care and support they need; good provision of information, advice and guidance from a variety of sources (including the third sector); and access to high quality advocacy; making the most of the social capital within a locality — are being applied by Barnet to the whole scope of a LA’s services. Furthermore, problems that have arisen because of choice in other policy sectors because of choice / personalisation (e.g. admissions in schools, choice in healthcare) are also being addressed by Barnet.

    It will be interesting to see how it all goes…

  11. matthewtaylor on Tue, 10th Nov 2009 5:48 pm

    12. I agree Rich. There is a lot more to Barnet than extra charges.

Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!





Viagra | Adderall | Viagra Online | Levitra | Free Viagra | Cheap Viagra