It’s good to talk

October 4, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Politics, Public policy, The RSA 

A conversation with two Number Ten advisors has added a new dimension to my case for socialised public services. By ‘socialised’ I mean public services which seek to maximise what they add to, and draw from, wider society. Such an approach tends, amongst other things, to emphasise prevention, capacity-building, localism, community engagement and co-design. 

The new dimension concerns the enthusiasm in Number Ten for social interaction. Put simply, it appears that the number and range of social interactions we have contribute to resilience, wellbeing and opportunity. Now, Government policy boffins are exploring how to reform institutions in order that they foster greater social interaction.

This was a point I made at the final RSA conference fringe, which took place with the Conservatives in Manchester today. We had a great panel – Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley, Jennifer Dixon from Nuffield, Ben Page from Ipsos Mori, Jesse Norman MP and Sir Stephen Bubb representing our sponsors, The Social Investment Business (sadly the delegate numbers were not so great, but I suspect this reflects the fact that ordinary Tory delegates are more interested in current Party controversies like leaving the EU rather than public services). 

I suggested to Andrew and the rest of the panel that maximising social interaction was a great goal to set for public services and one right in line with the Big Society. But I also admitted to pessimism about whether such a view would permeate a Whitehall machine still stuck on (indeed in many ways accelerating) a transaction based model of public service reform. The sad truth is that, overall, the most interesting parts of the Big Society project are bouncing off the senior civil service like a tennis ball off a brick wall. Indeed, Ben whispered to me that he has some research showing that of all public sector managers it is Whitehall civil servants who are most sceptical about David Cameron’s big idea (yet more evidence that the Treasury is currently much more influential than Number Ten on domestic Government policy).

There are lots of reasons for the lack of buy-in to a model of socialised public services, but there is one that the champions of this approach need to take to heart. While there are many great examples of more community-centric ways of working (Southwark Circles of Care, the expert patient programme and the RSA Whole Person Recovery project being just three examples), they tend to be small scale and often very dependent on a particular combination of local circumstances and leadership. The question is ‘how might such approaches be scaled up so that they come to represent genuine system reform?’ One thing is for sure; the Coalition’s approach to procurement and it’s somewhat heedless rush in to payment by results won’t (even if they were intended to) achieve such a shift. But what, my dear readers, will?

PS Another reason I am thinking about social interaction right now is a fascinating draft RSA report I read this morning charting how just one large retail store has been able to generate oodles of community engagement and social interaction. I will post again when the report is published.

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Brighton team talk

September 28, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Politics, The RSA 

Just back from Labour conference and the second of the RSA’s 2009 round of fringe meetings. The Labour speaker was Peter Mandelson who was in and out pretty quickly as his conference speech was this afternoon.  Once again it was standing room only – which means of the five fringe events we have done in recent times every one has been full. 

It is fascinating having Robert Chote from the IFS and Ben Page from Ipsos MORI on the RSA platform. Robert knows what must be done to get the public finances back on track and Ben knows what the voters are willing to accept. We could hand Government over to the two of them: the only problem being that – according to the RSA poll – there isn’t any overlap between the two answers!   

I couldn’t help noticing an uncanny similarity between the mood and message in Brighton and the half time team talk given by the coach of my son’s football team yesterday morning. Balham Blazers under 17s were 3-0 down, mainly due to some goalkeeping howlers. The coach said what he had to say. ‘We’ve made mistakes. But we played the best football and we can still win. If we pick up our heads and our game we can still do this. We just have to put the other team under pressure, then we’ll see what they are really made of ’. Some of his message got through but you could see the players found it hard to believe their luck could change. And however much they tried to comfort him, it was impossible to hide that they had lost confidence in the keeper.

I’ve been asked not to use this blog for political commentary so I won’t explore Labour’s message except to say that it is just as predictable as the coach’s. Everyone on the conference floor is pretty much sticking to it and Labour strategists will hope that it gets through to the voters despite all the other distractions.

With Labour adopting a more traditional left of centre perspective it will be interesting to see how the Conservatives respond next week. Will they occupy the fairly large gap on the centre right now left vacant by the other parties (the position successfully adopted in Germany by Angela Merkel) or continue to try to occupy the centre?

By the way, despite a plucky second half performance Balham Blazers under 17s lost 4-1

PS I was, of course, delighted to see that I appear 55th   in the Daily Telegraph list of the most influential people on the British left. An old friend came up to me in Brighton; ‘Matthew’, he said ‘it’s so unfair that you are 55th’. Before I could modestly reassure him that these things really don’t matter to me, he went on ‘no one in the Labour Party has thought of you as being on the left for years’. Too true, comrade, too true.

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Democractic reform: we still aren’t having the right discussion

May 26, 2009 by · 9 Comments
Filed under: Politics, The RSA 

David Cameron’s lengthy Guardian essay about democratic reform is welcome, even if there isn’t much in it that is both new and a concrete commitment. As a long standing supporter of electoral reform, I also supported Alan Johnson’s call this weekend for a referendum on the day of the next General Election – indeed, I advocated exactly this policy in my blog a few days days earlier.

While it is important to debate the rules and procedures of politics I continue to believe that the bigger issue is the content of democratic discourse. My first RSA annual lecture, back in 2007, was about ‘pro-social strategy’. This is what I said:

“The way we do politics not only reflects but reinforces a loss of confidence among citizens and communities about solving problems ourselves. The most disabling aspect of political discourse is the paradox (exploited by the news media) that Government is seen simultaneously as omnipotent and incompetent….

By creating a vibrant debate about common problems, aims and responsibilities,  pro-social strategy seeks to reinstate democratic politics as the process by which citizens give permission to their representatives to act on their behalf.

This shift in thinking is not simply about rolling back the state or taking politicians down a peg or two. The implications for government are not so much about its size but as about its ways of working. The implications for politics are not so much about politicians letting go as about citizens taking hold.’ Pro-social politics’ would not be seen in terms of conflict between us (citizens) and them (politicians). Politics would be about us and us and us.

‘Us’ because it would be about what we as citizens want to achieve and what we need to do to achieve it.

‘Us’ because it would be about recognising the different interests, views and resources of different parts of society and accepting the challenge of reconciling these differences rather than simply asserting our own demands and resenting any attempt by politicians to sort it out.

‘Us’ because this would be a process in which we would need to confront more fully the truth that we each of us have our own conflicting interests, views and aims. The apparent incompatibility of our own individual preferences is a growing characteristic of modern policy problems. For example, we want to fly cheaply and protect the planet, to see our children as home-owners but to protect the green spaces around our towns and cities……”

 As Ben Page from Ipsos-MORI often says ‘the British public demand Swedish welfare provision on American tax rates’. The real problem with politics is not the expenses claims of MPs, nor even the power of the Executive, it is that we are unable to have a grown up conversation about the challenges which politicians can only resolve if we work with them: notably, public spending restructuring, population ageing and climate change.

We the citizens are stuck in a bad place; increasingly unwilling to be governed but not yet willing to govern ourselves. Proposals for reform should be judged by whether they are likely to move us towards a more realistic and responsible  democratic discourse.

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