The government's modernisation agenda for public services is worrying many, as Demetrios Matheou reports
Citizen or consumer?
Reform of public services could define the battleground for the next
general election.
Backbench Labour MPs have said the government is being too “timid”
in its reforms, yet urge ministers to resist privatisations or charging
for services, if they wanted to gain much-needed support from trade unions
and leftwing MPs.
They have a point. From its battles with Ken Livingstone over the control
of London’s underground system, to its determination to introduce
foundation hospitals into the NHS, a market philosophy now imbues Whitehall’s
approach to the public sector.
And it is a stance which is leaving the British public – not least
those who voted for New Labour - scratching its collective head.
A number of recent reports have noted the extent to which the language
of consumerism is influencing Labour’s approach to “modernising”
public services.
In a throwback to the Thatcher years, factors such as individual choice
and competition are very much to the fore.
At the same time, New Labour is going much further than the Tories in
the use of advertising techniques – in particular ‘re-branding’
– to put across its market philosophy.
Foundation hospitals are a case in point: a new name for a new kind of
hospital, but one which critics fear is a rhetorical Trojan horse by which
the private sector will invade the NHS.
UNISON, which is campaigning vociferously against the foundation scheme,
is well aware of the wider malaise inherent in Labour’s new approach.
"This growing commercialism erodes the public service ethos,”
says UNISON policy officer Sampson Low. "We are concerned market
mechanisms are being introduced into public services, which undermine
fair and universal provision.
“Private companies,” he adds, “with no track record in
public services, but which are good at winning bids, seem to be prospering
in this new environment.”
One of the most compelling of the new reports comes from the influential
left think tank Catalyst.
Written by Catherine Needham of Nuffield College, Oxford, Citizen-consumers
argues not only that market-style policies have limited validity in the
public sector, but that attempts to win over the public by emulating the
attractions of the private sector may well have the adverse effect of
eroding public identification with tax-funded services such as health
and education.
The Catalyst pamphlet argues that New Labour has intensified a trend
begun under the Conservatives, whereby voters and public services users
are treated as if they are private consumers, to whom government policies
and services must be marketed and sold - as if government itself were
a private corporation.
In a wide-ranging analysis of the government-citizen relationship under
New Labour, the report finds that:
- government communications are increasingly promotional, as seen in
Alastair Campbell's reforms to the Government Information Service, energies
devoted to departmental "branding", and controversies over
"spin", distortion and misrepresentation in government-provided
information
- government consultations now "mimic commercial market research"
in their reliance on "opinion polls, feedback forms and satisfaction
surveys". They also ask respondents “to report their experiences
as service users and not to consider wider community, policy or budgetary
implications"
- the government's agenda for public service reform is explicitly focused
on the maximisation of "customer satisfaction" and prioritises
the expansion of individual choice and complaint over more democratic
ways of engaging users and making services more responsive
Based on extensive research including interviews with civil servants
and local government officers, as well as analysis of key policies and
public statements, Needham confirms that the culture of consumerism and
customer-relations has penetrated deep into Britain's public institutions.
She quotes a Department for Education and Skills official saying "we
see our work as being driven by our customers who are young people";
and a city council head of communications declaring "We have to move
to a position where the corporate communications department is thinking
'customer'."
Needham argues that New Labour’s philosophy represents a “fudge
on the relationship between the state and the market, which calls for
a synthesis of the best of both, without critically engaging with their
fundamental contradictions .”
Ultimately, she argues, attempts to appeal to citizens as consumers will
be self-defeating – damaging the sense of shared values and collective
goals upon which the democratically approved, tax-funded public services
are founded.
"Consumerism is a model that prioritises the individual over the
community, encourages passivity, downgrades public spaces, weakens accountability
and privatises citizenship,” she says.
“It may also be a problem for government. If the nature of consumer
demand is that it is limitless, the result may be a citizenry that expects
public services to match their private sector equivalents, without recognising
the constraints that limit public provision.”
The report suggests that there is an emerging debate among Labour policymakers
and intellectuals, who question this over-emphasis on consumerism.
For now, however, Needham concludes that: "Rather than delivering a satisfied and pliable citizenry, consumerism may be fostering privatised and resentful citizen-consumers, whose expectations of government can never be met.”
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