A think-tank paper reported on a series of seminars which explored the relationship between individuals, markets and the state in meeting the interests of the public - including issues such as the definition of public interest; the conditions necessary to promote the public interest through the activities of government and the markets; the respective roles of markets and government in securing opportunity and security for all; and the moral and practical limits of markets.
Source: Ben Shimshon (ed.), Civilised Capitalism, Smith Institute (020 7592 3618)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2004-Dec
A think-tank report said that the government had 'misused' the private finance initiative (PFI). Some PFI projects had been classified so as to exclude expenditure on them from government spending. Some schemes were said to have gone ahead as PFI projects not because they offered better value for money for the taxpayer, but because of the convenience of PFI in terms of government accounting. The PFI was creating a 'mortgage' on the public sector: the government was committed to pay over 110 billion between 2003-04 and 2028-29 for PFI projects.
Source: Philippa Roe and Alastair Craig, Reforming the Private Finance Initiative, Centre for Policy Studies (020 7222 4488)
Links: Summary (pdf) | CPS press release (pdf) | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Dec
A think-tank report said that public services had not yet been adequately 'reinvented'. The alternative to reform was not equal provision, because the starting point was variation by social class the welfare state was itself a 'site of capture' by the middle class.
Source: Philip Collins and Liam Byrne (eds.), Reinventing Government Again, Social Market Foundation (020 7222 7060)
Links: Link removed
Date: 2004-Dec
A report presented the main findings of a series of seminars on the future of the private finance initiative (PFI). The seminars looked in detail at the markets for PFI and how these could be improved, including: how the public sector could improve PFI procurement practices, how the market in PFI contracts could be developed, and the future of the PFI and its optimal scope.
Source: Ann Rossiter (ed.), The Future of the Private Finance Initiative, Social Market Foundation (020 7222 7060)
Links: Link removed
Date: 2004-Dec
A series of articles examined aspects of the government's strategy for public sector reform.
Source: New Economy, Volume 11 Issue 4
Links: Table of contents
Date: 2004-Dec
The head of a leading charitable group said that donations to charities could fall if more charities began providing public services - as a result of doubts as to whether some charities were really independent, or had simply become agents for the delivery of government priorities.
Source: Speech by Stephen Ainger (Chief Executive of Charities Aid Foundation), 11 November 2004
Links: Text of Speech | CAF press release
Date: 2004-Nov
A report said that charities were well-established providers of essential public services, such as housing and social care: but poorly written contracts between government and charities were placing services at risk and wasting public money.
Source: Surer Funding: The ACEVO Commission of Inquiry report, Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (0845 345 8481)
Links: Summary | ACEVO press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Nov
A report said that 26 per cent of the increase in National Health Service income between 2000 and 2003 had gone towards paying private finance charges for new hospitals.
Source: Pam Edwards, Jean Shaoul, Anne Stafford and Lorna Arblaster, Evaluating the Operation of PFI in Roads and Hospitals, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (0141 582 2000)
Links: Report (pdf) | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Nov
A report advocated 'community service agreements' as a new way of delivering public services. The agreements would set out the resources local communities could mobilize, and the actions they could take, in return for commitments from outside agencies to new resources and service improvements.
Source: Matthew Pike, Can Do Solutions: Community service agreements - A new approach to public service delivery, Scarman Trust (020 689 6366)
Links: Regeneration & Renewal report
Date: 2004-Oct
An official report identified examples of 'regulatory creep' in a number of areas, including health and safety, food regulation and anti-money laundering regulation. It called for greater clarity, consistency and better communication to make regulation less burdensome.
Source: Avoiding Regulatory Creep, Better Regulation Task Force/Cabinet Office (020 7276 2142)
Links: Report (pdf) | BRT press release | BCC press release
Date: 2004-Oct
The Welsh Assembly government began consultation on a strategy for public services and the way they were designed and delivered in Wales. The overall aim was to make public services more efficient, and more responsive to needs.
Source: Making the Connections: Delivering better services for Wales, Welsh Assembly Government (029 2080 1435)
Links: Report (pdf) | WAG press release
Date: 2004-Oct
A report by a committee of peers expressed dismay that the government had not identified those services it provided to United Kingdom citizens which might fall under the designation of 'services of general interest', so that Parliament might assess the potential significance of the European Commission's approach in this area. (Services of general interest are provided by public authorities: they include some, such as utilities, to which the principles of the internal market are applicable.)
Source: Services of General Interest, Twenty-Ninth Report (Session 2003-04), HL 178, House of Lords European Union Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report
Date: 2004-Oct
A report used 10 case studies (across the National Health Service, local government and central government) to examine the practices that employers were using to involve the workforce in public services reform. It concluded that while there was growing evidence that organizations were transforming the way they involved staff in reform, there was scope for improvement.
Source: Trade Union and Employee Involvement in Public Service Reform, Office of Public Services Reform/Cabinet Office (020 7276 3600)
Links: Report (pdf) | OPSR press release
Date: 2004-Sep
A think-tank paper said that there was no level playing field between the private finance initiative and conventional public sector procurement when deciding how to finance new public buildings, with the potential for assessments to be biased against conventional procurement.
Source: Tim Gosling (ed.), Three Steps Forward Two Steps Back: Reforming PPP policy, Institute for Public Policy Research, available from Central Books (0845 458 9911)
Links: IPPR press release
Date: 2004-Sep
The Audit Commission published the first part of an in-depth study into widening choice in public services. It said that opinion research confirmed that the public strongly favoured choice. Moreover, increasing choice and customer responsiveness was vital to improving public services. But in order to provide value for money for the taxpayer, there was a pressing need to understand in more detail the relative cost and fairness of different ways of providing increased choice. People were reluctant to pay more in taxes for the extra capacity needed to make real choices possible.
Source: Choice in Public Services, Audit Commission (0800 502030)
Links: Report | Audit Commission press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Sep
A manifesto for consumers called on the government to tackle social exclusion and consumer disadvantage; put consumers at the heart of public service reform; create the environment for empowering consumers in the market place; and encourage the development of healthier and sustainable choices for consumers.
Source: Consumer Futures: An NCC agenda for government, National Consumer Council (020 7730 3469)
Links: Manifesto (pdf) | NCC press release
Date: 2004-Sep
A new book by policy specialists in the opposition Liberal Democrat Party proposed the rejection of nanny state liberalism, a cap on public spending, support for stable and secure families, and a tougher prisons regime.
Source: Paul Marshall and David Laws (eds.), The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism, Profile Books (020 7404 3001)
Links: Summary | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Aug
The government said it welcomed a report by a committee of peers on the role of regulatory authorities.
Source: The Regulatory State: Ensuring its Accountability - The Government's Response, Twelfth Report (Session 2003-04), HL 150, House of Lords Constitution Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Date: 2004-Jul
A report examined the potential to improve public services by enabling people to use their skills and capabilities to the full. It said that involving people as actors - in teaching skills or in providing support to others, rather than treating them solely as recipients of training or service delivery - had 'dramatic positive effects'.
Source: Sarah Burns and Karen Smith, Co-production Works!: The win:win of involving local people in public services, New Economics Foundation, available from Central Books (020 8986 5488)
Links: Summary
Date: 2004-Jul
A report said that the voluntary sector should seize every opportunity to influence the modernisation of public services: it was in an ideal position to both supply public services and find ways to improve them.
Source: Adding Value to Public Services, RNID (0808 808 0123)
Links: Report (pdf) | RNID press release
Date: 2004-Jul
A report said that the structure of private finance initiative projects in the National Health Service made it difficult to evaluate whether the 'risk premium' (extra spending in return for the carrying of risk by private contractors) was justified. The government s claim that the higher costs of private finance were due to risk transfer was 'largely unevaluated' for central government projects.
Source: Allyson Pollock, David Price and Stewart Player, Public Risk for Private Gain? The public audit implications of risk transfer and private finance, Unison (0845 355 0845)
Links: Report (pdf) | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Jul
A trade union said that it had won agreement from the government to end the 'two-tier workforce' across all public services. The agreement would end the exploitation of low-paid workers by private companies which took over public service contracts. (A government promise to end the two-tier workforce was made in 2001, and implemented in local government in 2002.) The union also said it had won major changes in the way the private finance initiative would operate: public service workers would no longer be required to transfer out to private companies in private finance initiative schemes.
Source: Press release 21 July 2004, Unison (0845 355 0845)
Links: Unison press release | Guardian report (1) | Guardian report (2)
Date: 2004-Jul
The Prime Minister said that the government was proposing to put an 'entirely different dynamic' in place to drive public services: one where the service would be driven not by the government or by the managers but by the user - the patient, the parent, the pupil and the law-abiding citizen.
Source: Speech by Tony Blair MP (Prime Minister) 23 June 2004
Links: Text of speech | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Jun
A think-tank report said that most of the cost savings achieved by private companies taking over public services were achieved not through managerial innovations but by cutting the terms and conditions of the staff who worked in them.
Source: Sanjiv Sachdev, Paying the Cost?: Public Private Partnerships and the public service workforce, Catalyst, available from Central Books (020 8986 4854)
Links: Report (pdf) | Summary | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Jun
A think-tank report said that the government's attempt to deliver more efficient public services would be undermined by the creation of a demoralised workforce, unless 'bureaucrat bashing' stopped.
Source: Louise Horner and Alexandra Jones, Living on the Frontline: A future for the civil service, Work Foundation (0870 165 6700)
Links: Report (pdf) | Work Foundation press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Jun
A think-tank report said that choice in health and education was not just a theoretical construct: it was the necessary complement to reforms that removed 'centralised state bureaucracy' from schools and hospitals, and gave professionals the freedom to run the quality of services that parents and patients wanted.
Source: Norman Blackwell, Better Schools and Hospitals: Why parent and patient choice will work, Centre for Policy Studies (020 7222 4488)
Links: Report (pdf) | CPS press release (pdf)
Date: 2004-Jun
The Cabinet Office published its departmental report for 2003-04.
Source: Departmental Report 2004, Cm 6226, Cabinet Office, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2004-May
A report by a committee of peers said that the increased emphasis on the accountability of regulators in recent years was to be welcomed and should be strengthened.
Source: The Regulatory State: Ensuring its accountability, Sixth Report (Session 2003-04), HL 68, House of Lords Constitution Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report
Date: 2004-May
A report looked at people s experiences of using public services and tried to clarify the values necessary to deliver services with responsiveness and consumer choice at their heart. It said that public service reform was beginning to deliver, but progress was patchy. Services needed to adapt to social and cultural change shifting family structures, growing individualism and greater diversity of race and culture or public confidence might ebb away from key sectors such as health and education.
Source: Policy Commission on Public Services, Making Public Services Personal: A new compact for public services, National Consumer Council (020 7730 3469)
Links: Report (pdf) | NCC press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Apr
A think-tank report warned that 'personalised' public services would look very different, would be labour-intensive, and would require the skewing of public resources towards the least well-off in order to equalise opportunities.
Source: Charles Leadbeater, Personalisation through Participation: A new script for public services, Demos, available from Central Books (020 8986 5488)
Links: Report (pdf) | Demos press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Apr
A think-tank report called for a new system of 'public service guarantees', based around user representation, rights and redress. These would clearly set out what users could expect from public services, and what they could expect if these expectations were not fulfilled.
Source: Tony Wright and Pauline Ngan, A New Social Contract: From targets to rights in public services, Fabian Society (020 7227 4900)
Links: Summary
Date: 2004-Apr
A think-tank report said that enhanced choice offered a clear way of improving both the receipt and delivery of local public services. It was based on a study of how local authorities were introducing wider choice in the provision of their services (in for example, community care and housing).
Source: Adam Lent and Natalie Arend, Making Choices: How can choice improve local public services?, New Local Government Network (020 7357 0051)
Links: Summary | NLGN press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Mar
A report reviewed relevant literature on extending choice in public services, including relevant government policy on the subject. It looked in greater depth at the experience of extending choice in four areas: parental choice in schools; patient choice in the National Health Service; choice-based lettings in both local authority and housing association housing; and an example of choice in an aspect of social care.
Source: Michael Hughes (ed.), Enabling Choice: Research on choice in public services, Local Government Association (020 7664 3000)
Links: Summary
Date: 2004-Mar
The government said (in the Budget) that it planned to reduce central government running costs by 20 billion by 2007-08, involving a cut of over 40,000 civil service jobs. The proposals went further than those in an earlier independent review, which said that nearly 20,000 civil servants should be relocated out of London, and another 7,500 civil service jobs cut, over a 15-year period. The main civil service union attacked 'a day of the long knives for public servants'.
Source: Prudence for a Purpose: A Britain of stability and strength - Economic and Fiscal Strategy Report and Financial Statement and Budget Report, HC 301, HM Treasury, TSO (0870 600 5522) | House of Commons Hansard, Debate 17 March 2004, columns 321-336, TSO | Michael Lyons, Well Placed to Deliver?: Shaping the pattern of government service, HM Treasury (020 7270 4558) | Press release 17 March 2004, Public and Commercial Services Union (020 924 2727)
Links: Budget report (pdf links) | HMT Budget press releases | Budget speech | Lyons report (pdf links) | HMT press release | PCS press release | Guardian report (1) | Guardian report (2) | Guardian report (3)
Date: 2004-Mar
A think-tank report criticised the secrecy and lack of accountability surrounding private finance initiative projects.
Source: Tim Gosling, Openness Survey Paper, Institute for Public Policy Research (020 7470 6100)
Links: Report (pdf) | IPPR press release | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Feb
A report questioned whether the government would be able to complete its reforms of public sector pay systems, designed to ease recruitment problems, in the light of increasing public spending deficits.
Source: Pay in the Public Services 2004, Incomes Data Services (020 7324 2599)
Links: Summary | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Feb
A report argued that the causes of 'regulatory failure' were deep-seated, deriving in part from the willingness of governments to devolve decisions about the public interest to regulators, thereby creating a democratic deficit. It said that government needed to take back responsibility for deciding the public good, leaving regulators with clear frameworks for decision-making.
Source: Dieter Helm, The New Regulatory Agenda, Social Market Foundation (020 7222 7060)
Links: Summary
Date: 2004-Jan
A Conservative party think-tank report argued that there had been no improvement in public service delivery corresponding to the increased spending on them. Money had instead been wasted on rampant public sector inflation and declining productivity.
Source: Mark Nicholson, Stand and Deliver: Has Labour's public spending spree worked?, Bow Group (020 7431 6400)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2004-Jan
The Prime Minister promised to decentralise public services if the Labour Party won a third consecutive term in office. He said that 'change driven from the centre has its limits', and that he wanted the public to be offered a real choice in public services, and a real voice in their running.
Source: Speech by Tony Blair MP, 29 January 2004
Links: Text of speech | Guardian report
Date: 2004-Jan
A think-tank report examined the role of user charging in key public services. It concluded that user charges were a no more politically acceptable way of revenue raising than tax rises, and that policy makers had to tell a 'clear and consistent story' about how user charges would help achieve important economic, social and environmental outcomes.
Source: Peter Robinson, How Do We Pay? The funding of public services in the EU, Institute for Public Policy Research (020 7470 6100) and The Centre (a Brussels-based think-tank)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2004-Jan