The long-awaited “open public services” white paper published on Monday, July 11th, has been presented by Mr Cameron as ushering in “democracy on a properly hyper-local scale”. Trade unions, however, see it as a step towards privatising public services.
The open public services white paper includes five core principles:
Choice: Allowing people to choose which school or hospitals they use.
Decentralisation: De-centralising services to the lowest possible level of government such as neighbourhood councils running libraries or maintaining roads.
Diversity: Allowing private companies or voluntary organisations to run public services such as schools.
Fair access: Providing extra funding for schools with poor pupils and extra funding for community organisers in poorer areas.
Accountability: Payment by result for providers of back-to-work support, rehabilitation of offenders, welfare, and drug and alcohol recovery.
The paper plans to give the public open access to standardised satisfaction data for all public services as well as data such as crime maps and the health outcomes of hospitals and GPs. The government wants to promote mutualisation and employee cooperatives.
In the case that private or voluntary organisations fail to provide up-to-standard services, the state will have the power to intervene quickly in order to endure continuity of service.
Mr Cameron said in a speech at the think tank Reform: “I’m not going to make the mistakes of my predecessors – blocking reform, wasting opportunities and wasting time.
“This is a job that urgently needs to be done, and we are determined to see it through. Because this is not just about improving our schools and hospitals, it’s also a vital part of building a bigger, stronger society that is so central to my vision for our country.”
The Minister of State Oliver Letwin told the House of Commons: “To some degree, the White Paper continues where the previous Labour government left off – they did some things that we think were good and which we are carrying through, evolving and developing. … However, the White Paper carries the previous government’s programme much further, deeper and wider.”
Dave Prentis, general secretary of UNISON, said in a statement: “If this is Cameron’s big idea, he needs to go back to the drawing board. Today’s white paper is just another stepping stone towards Cameron’s same old goal to privatise public services.
“Not only does Cameron want to wash his hands of providing public services, he wants cut price privatisation. He is removing protections on workers’ pay and conditions, creating a race to the bottom, so that services are more attractive to private buyers.”
Brendan Barber of the TUC was equally critical of the white paper. “This is nothing less than a manifesto to break up our public services, smuggled out while all attention is focused on the misdeeds of News International,” he said in a statement.
“Yet on the day Southern Cross’s failure underlines just how dangerous introducing the profit motive into public service can be, people should be very afraid at what these proposals could mean.
“Of course they are skilfully wrapped up in warm words, but when the prime minister talks of charities and voluntary groups, he means parcelling up public services for private companies; when he talks of ending top-down control, he really means introducing a postcode lottery with few winning tickets; and when he talks of fairness he means new opportunities for the sharp-elbowed middle classes to push others aside.”
