Spending cuts – now you’re talking
I have been a doing a few interviews on George Osborne’s announcements today about the spending review. This seems to be on the back of my role in the Big Conversation, a process I developed and managed when I worked for Tony Blair.
I have been happy to admit that the BC wasn’t a proper process of deliberation but an attempt by an unpopular leadership (in the wake of the invasion of Iraq) to show it was listening to its Party and the public. The main innovation – which now seems to be copied by everyone – was to move from a form of public meeting in which the big cheeses sit on the platform and the hoi polloi in rows in the hall to one where the ministers and the public sat round tables together having something approaching a proper conversation.
Which isn’t to say nothing came out of the process: A recurrent theme in the meetings was the need to help parents balance work and family life. This made an impact on ministers resulting in stronger commitments in the subsequent manifesto.
Today, I have been making three points about the Coalition’s commitment to consultation:
1. I applaud the aims. When I was in Downing Street I argued fruitlessly for public consultation before the spending reviews. Of course, it would have been much easier then as the decisions were about extra money not cuts, but the Treasury was reluctant enough to hear to the views of Number Ten let alone the wider public
2. There are two big problems with consultations and both may be even greater when it’s spending cuts under discussion. The first, which I have spoken about many times before, is that public opinion doesn’t add up. In the phrase of Ben Page from IPSOS Mori ‘the British people want Swedish welfare on American taxes’. The second is the tendency for the debate to be dominated by special interest groups shroud waving about the impact of cuts on their sector. This doesn’t necessarily make for a particularly informative or balanced debate.
3. If the Coalition wants to be really radical and to grasp the opportunity of getting public endorsement for tough decisions it should undertake a proper process of deliberation, such as is seen in the best forms of participatory budgeting. These involve members of the public spending time getting to know the figures and the kinds of choices policy-maker face. On the whole, the public come up with solutions which are sensible, and usually not a million miles from the ones being considered by the policy makers. The risk, of course, is that the participants opt strongly for policies opposed by the Government; higher tax rises rather than spending cuts, for example. It is much more difficult to dismiss views which have been arrived at through proper deliberation.
As I say, I spent years in the Labour Party and Number Ten trying to get officials and ministers to use proper, robust forms of deliberation. But I made very little progress. I was momentarily excited when Gordon Brown, upon taking office as PM, announced he would be holding ‘citizens juries’. But they soon turned out to be nothing of the sort and in fact closely resembled…yes, the Big Conversation.
So, I would be deeply impressed if the Coalition was willing to use proper deliberative methods of public engagement but also I have to admit very surprised.
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Comments
5 Comments on Spending cuts – now you’re talking
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Shane Carmichael on
Wed, 9th Jun 2010 12:18 am
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Lunchtime list for June 9th « Talk Issues on
Wed, 9th Jun 2010 9:53 am
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carl allen on
Wed, 9th Jun 2010 10:23 am
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Rich Watts on
Sun, 13th Jun 2010 2:59 pm
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Deliberative Democracy, a beautiful echo and another appeal to Lambeth Labour « A Life in Beta on
Sun, 20th Jun 2010 5:43 pm
Interesting piece. Lambeth are currently attempting to run a public consultation on their much hyped “co-operative council” model. I offered them v similar advice to this just over a week ago which you might be interested in: http://bit.ly/9nwUOz
[...] Spending cuts – now you’re talking – Following the Chancellor’s announcement on spending cuts consultation, Matthew Taylor – the man behind the Big Conversation – passes on some lessons from that experience [...]
Consultation is not a substitute for analysis of an issue.
Much to my consternation, many in the three sectors (public private and third) have become incapable of analysis after years of substituting consultation for analysis.
And consequently many who are consultation experts believe themselves to be expert consultants on many subjects … just one side effect.
I think your analysis is right, and the question that people keep asking me when I advocate a similar engagement / deliberation approach in social care (my current field, and where the ground for this sort of thing is currently pretty soft) is virtually much the same as the major criticism of the Big Society: but who is going to take part?
In my view, this question ignores the responsibility of those making decisions to equip people with the knowledge and skills to be able to take part. It’s an investment I consider worthwhile for very many reasons; decision makers in particular should consider it worthwhile because it could mean for them less of a proportion of the blame.
On the associated topic of Participatory Budgeting, or PB, a colleague of mine recently noted that it’s all very well, apart from the fact there will be no Bs for people to P in!
[...] he was Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to the Prime Minister) posted an eerily similar piece to his RSA Blog on the challenges of Government run “public consultations”. And he’s a man who [...]
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