Come Together

Services need to be joined up at the level of the citizen not just at the provider level

Public service reform is the obsession of all governments but improvements appear to illusory. Too often the focus is on ownership. The Tories (and elements of new Labour) seem to believe that if everything is contracted out to the private sector somehow there is a superior management ethic which will sort everything out. With the NHS they think changing the framework for commissioning will solve some undefined problem.

In my professional role I have been looking at service improvement and it seems to me that the political class have been asking the wrong questions. The more I look at public services the more disfunctional they look, not because of the people working in them, a huge proportion of which are committed to providing quality services, not because of who runs them, although I’ll say later why privatisation is not going to improve things.

The problem I see is that public services have evolved in such a way that they don’t place the service user at forefront of their service. Instead services are designed around assessment systems, structures and processes which turns the user into subject of the system.

Listening to recent presentations from Total Somerset about their client centred approach just further reinforced my view. They have run a 6 month project which placed a small group of ‘high contact’ families at the centre of the processes which have largely failed to deal with their problems.

First they mapped all of their contacts with agencies over the last two years. People continually being asked the same questions as each organisation carried out its assessment. Some assistance which dealt with a small part of a problem and then disengagement.

The project liaised with the agencies but more importantly they placed the person at the centre of the process. Each family has an advocate who helped them navigate the agencies. Organisations unable to share data because of legislation could have it joined up and shared when they ceded that power to the people who the data related to. Now currently it is common for a range of bodies working with a person or family to hold case conferences. These rarely if ever involve the person they are talking about. While improved joint working is essential it is not on its own sufficient.

The experience of this project is that families took more control of their lives, started to deal with some of their problems and started needing intervention from the agencies a lot less. The estimated savings per family over the 6 month period was around £50,000 across all the agencies.

There has been some progress though, the personalised budgets for people with disabilities were long fought for and can put people in charge of their care but this initiative seems to have stalled.

Some on the right might say that market mechanisms and competition can sort all this out. However processes for commissioning public services only create a short term competition for the contract and the choice is vested in the commissioner and the legalities of the process and not citizens. The Work Programme contracts were supposed to demonstrate a new commitment to a ‘black box’ approach where contractors would be paid on the basis of what they achieved and not on their systems, processes or service models. This just meant that the contracts went to the lowest bidders as the black box effectively eliminated quality measures from the tender.

To make real change to public services we need to be able to join them up at the level of the citizen as well as at the strategic level.

Services need to wrap around the service users needs rather than strait-jacketed into procedures and organisational silos.

Yes in some instances services will need to be standardised – we don’t all need a personalised refuse collection service or sewage system. standardised services can run alongside personalised ones – e.g. taxis are still needed even if you have an excellent bus service.

We also need to give more control over our data held by a myriad of organisations. Give us the ability to log into our health records and other public sector contact and case management systems, how about even allowing us to update some of our own details.

We can have public services which more effectively serve the people.

Link: www.somerset.gov.uk/totalsomerset

New Years Day #2012

The twittersphere is an interesting place to see the Labour Party turn in on itself (used to have to go to meetings for that – no more).

The main complaint is that Ed Milliband has failed to impress the electorate and that Labour has not pulled away from the Tories in the polls. Both these things are true but, for me not unexpected, but then I was active in the Thatcher years and have seen the country move away from one term Government of the 60s and 70s to a more stable view around giving a party the chance to get things done.

Firstly why is Labour only neck and neck with the tories.  As someone who spent a lot of time on the door step I know that many people were unhappy with the Labour Party in Government, some of this was classic ‘time for a change’ but was also coupled with some anger (Iraq, 10% tax, economic collapse – people had 13 years to decide which issue had upset them).

While Labour people seem to think that the voters realise that the economic collapse was due to the inevitable periodic implosion of capitalism. Many voters still see the Labour Government as at least partly responsible (which one could argue that the failure to regulate the City or to deal with bonus excess until the horse had bolted).  The general election was not that long ago and people don’t switch their views that quickly, even those suffering under the austerity programme.

This is also partly the reason why the Tories are maintaining their popularity (above general election levels).  People who support their analysis of the economic problem are happy to support them, there are others who do see them as trying to sort out the mess left by the previous Government.

The Tories have also been partly shielded by the Liberal Democrats whose polling collapse has almost returned us to 2 party politics. The view seems to be – ‘we expect the Tories to be bastards, they are doing what tories do’ indeed some people who are not conservatives are privately pleased that they are tackling ‘excess’ in public expenditure and the welfare system.  The lib dems are another matter, having sold themselves as fluffy, left of centre, tree hugging pavement politicians they have found themselves branded as traitors and turncoats who have rejected their principles for power. This is not entirely fair, Nick Clegg did promise ‘savage cuts’ and did give interviews to magazines like the Spectator putting forward a right of centre agenda – unfortunately for him people weren’t listening to that and so the u-turn on tuition fees – a totemic lib dem policy – and lib dems fronting Tory policies has done them in. This means the people who like the Government’s policies are crediting the tories and those that don’t are blaming the lib dems.

So why isn’t Ed Miliband having an impact.  Wouldn’t Labour be better if David had won. I think that whoever the Labour party had at its head would make little difference. As the opposition 3 years away from the general election the media and the public largely see the Party as irrelevant.  It could have perfect policies and a fantastically charismatic leader, but it can’t do anything – not yet anyway – so its pronouncements are largely meaningless. Any policy the Labour Party had now is almost certainly not going to be in the manifesto – the world and the economy is moving and the answer today will be wrong in 2015.

The only interesting domestic politics is the dynamics between the three parties of the coalition – the tories, the lib dems and of course the completely barking tory fringe.

So Labour people if you want to make a difference stop refighting the last leadership election and engage with your communities and work places and build a foundation for 2015.

Build

Housing Minister Grant Shapps

This week the Government launched its housing strategy, the next day it revealed that during the last quarter the number of new social housing starts had collapsed from 26,000 to 250.

So first the good news. I think its great that the Government have recognised that housing is a key economic driver and needs to be given greater importance. The housing minister is also right to say we need to double the number of new homes coming onto the market. He is also right to be enthusiastic about self build housing and bringing empty homes back into use.

So far so good.

Then we look at the strategy itself launched with three of headline policies:

A mortgage guarantee scheme for new build housing allowing deposits to be dropped to 5%.

A £400m fund and measures to get the housing market moving by investing in ‘stalled’ developments.

A right to buy scheme for council housing which includes a one for one replacement (although not a like for like replacement and not necessarily in the same area where the property was sold).

The mortgage scheme appears like a good idea at first glance but it actually addresses the wrong end of the problem.  The problem is that house prices are too high and that people can’t afford to enter the market. The right wing think tank Policy Exchange has published a report this week which suggests that any support for mortgages will just have the effect of increasing prices and therefore, if they are right, this measure is self defeating. The other main criticism is that this policy is the Government encouraging sub-prime lending, the very thing which got us into this mess in the first place. Given the currently house prices are falling there is also a danger (if policy exchange are wrong) that 95% mortgages could see people descending into negative equity within a year or too.

Stalled developments

The Government are also promising £400m to get stalled developments going again.  This is basically a subsidy to private sector house builders. Given that they all seem to be showing healthy profit growth at the present this looks like completely unnecessary spending, but then builders have a strong track record of funding the Tory party…

The other measure they using to help these schemes is to encourage the dropping of section 106 planning agreements on the projects, in particular the requirement for affordable housing. We have already seen Bristol council dropping these requirements for developments as developers run rings around our elected members. This measure shows that housing for those in need is not a priority for the Government (last year £4bn was cut from the social housing programme).

Right to buy

The one for one replacement promised by the Government takes the right to buy back to the schemes run successfully by councils before the 1981 act which brought in the discounts. However its not clear how this can be paid for from the sales income. There will be a 50% discount in the value, then the first call on the payment is to pay off historic debt on the property and then to pay the Government an amount to allow for lost income. Also there is no guarantee of like for like.  The replacement homes will be at the higher ‘affordable’ rents further reducing the amount of social housing in the country (and increasing the cost of housing benefit). Most social housing sold under the right to buy is three bedroom houses but there is no guarantee that the replacement will be the same size, we could see 3 bed houses replaced with 2 bed flats.  The Government have also said that the money could go into a national pot and not be used in the council area where the home was sold.  We shall see.

The rest

The rest of the strategy is a rehash of measures already announced (one housing magazine estimates around 70% of the strategy has been announced before – I think they are being kind).

One housing professional neatly described it as:

“You know when a band promises a new album but then releases a greatest hits compilation and a couple of cover versions?”

Some elements of it are welcome common sense others are more bizarre. One measure (to allow social landlords to evict or push up the rent of high earning tenants) seems to be aimed at one trade union leader.

As you would expect there is no recognition of the problems brewing from the proposed welfare reforms and no measures to halt the huge cuts being introduced by some local authorities to the supporting people fund which supports the vulnerable and the homeless.

 

This is not a strategy its a list of policies shoved between two covers and given a fancy title. It would be like me laminating my shopping list and calling it a retail strategy.

For a more coherent economic critique of the strategy read this blog post from a Bristol University academic (who is also a lib dem member) posted on a Conservative member’s blog.  Its the best one I’ve read so far:

http://www.iaindale.com/posts/a-new-approach-to-housing-policy

Spirits in the material world

 

Picture nicked from bristol247

I have a great sense of frustration at my inability to express my anger at what is going on in a rational and informed way.  Perhaps I should have studied economics rather than physics.

I am sick of hearing that we have to do things because that’s what ‘the markets’ want. At no time do our great media institutions tell us who the markets are, who stands behind them, in whose interests they act, how they are held accountable.

We do know that if the markets lose ‘confidence’ share prices fall, economies stumble and people lose their livelihoods. The markets demand that government slash their spending and if they don’t they will drive up borrowing costs and drive out governments.  In the last week the markets have deposed two elected leaders (not that I have much time for them) in Greece and Italy.

Apparently we are seeking to promote democracy around the world, people fight and die for it.  We support the fall of dictators while allowing unknown, unseen people to rule our lives. No votes can remove them and revolutions are unable to remove them.  There is no equivalent of the Arab Spring rising up to throw off their yoke.

 The markets have presided over a massive shift of the distribution of wealth towards being increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small elite. I guess it wouldn’t take much digging to find out that many of those are also the people who control the working of ‘the markets’.

Some of ‘the markets’ were responsible for the way that debt was packaged and repackaged and traded until the economy became unsustainable.  Having started to destroy themselves they are now seeking to consume our democracy and to thrust large numbers of people in poverty.

‘The markets’ are described in the media as if they are some benign, rational higher intelligence able to decide objectively what needs to happen to individual states and the world economy. They appear to be more like a group of 8 year olds playing football all chasing the ball with no real idea of a strategy.

reading back through this I am worried by my incoherence, perhaps I should get a tent.

Back Home

A visit to Manchester has helped me to crystallise why I feel so dissatisfied by the new museum at M Shed.

For those of you who don’t know the history.  George Micklewright who has leader of the council around the turn of the millennium had long had a desire to have a museum in the city which told the story of its people. I think this was inspired, at least in part, by the peoples museum in Glasgow. I remember discussing it when I was Chair of Leisure in 1988/89 when trying to develop a long term home for the slavery exhibition.

MShed was the long awaited realisation of this vision. But it isn’t. On the ground floor it includes some sadly glib and almost mythological descriptions of some of Bristol’s communities and on the upper floor an almost random selection of items, some interesting some just appearing to fill a space – giving the impression of an old style junk shop.

Last Saturday I visited the People’s history museum in Manchester (when I went to the one in Glasgow it was closed). Now I know that this museum has an agenda to tell a story of the struggle for freedom and equality of working people. We don’t want a replica of this in Bristol. However what it does do is tell a range of those stories through the centuries as a chronological narrative. For me history is not about a few interesting snippets but it is about how changes and developments build upon eachother over time, recreating a journey which provides a rationale for why we are where we are now. (I have a similar concern about history in primary schools which seems to be about randomly selected periods in history rather than a flow).

I found MShed deeply disappointing and I know that I am not alone

Gotta Serve Somebody

Following huge demand - well one request – above is my speech to the Bristol Labour Party on the case for an elected mayor for the city.

The last gang in town

David Cameron calls for a crackdown on gangs

Babylon’s burning

We have had an outpouring of reasons as to why the riots erupted across London and England over the last week. Many people don’t want to understand just to punish, this is understandable but won’t help with dealing with the underlying issues. So what are the reasons (not excuses) given and my take:

 

The cuts – most unlikely, there was no obvious political element to the looting, no placards, no demands

Anarchists – I am sure some of them would love to claim credit and a few may have even jumped on the bandwagon but McCartyite hysteria is no explanation.

Moral decline – partly I will deal with this later

Gang culture – undoubtedly the existence of gangs create an infrastructure for the criminality and looting

Poverty – being poor of itself does not necessarily lead to rioting but I need to come back to this to

Inequality – not exactly the same as poverty but undoubtedly linked

Stupidity – I am not sure that this is helpful what I see is anger rather than stupidity per se. Although it is not clever to trash your own community or put yourself at risk of a prison sentence for a night of excitement

Boredom – I think the excitement and adrenalin rush of destructive activity does stop people from thinking about the longer term consequences of what they are doing

Atheism – Even when Britain was a deeply religious society we had riots so its hard to see secularism as a cause

Irresponsibility – well looting and in particular burning down peoples’ homes is irresponsible but irresponsibility doesn’t strike me as a cause

Family breakdown – while the family should be the place where children learn about right and wrong, responsibility and ethics the family for a minority is a place of danger and fear. Most children who are abused physically, psychologically or sexually experience this in the family. Most families provide security and boundaries for children but not all.

Commercialism – the society which judges and values people on the basis of what people own seems to me to be empty and amoral. If we see all around us people using their economic, political and social advantages to further their individual interests then we devalue altruism.

Policing – the riot in Tottenham was clearly sparked by the police killing of a local man. The pattern is common and was the cause of the riot I saw at first hand in 1992 (which is covered elsewhere on this blog). It is hard to see how this influenced young and not so young people to loot trainers and plasma TVs.

 

At its heart we live in a society which lacks a clear value base. We have deepening and widening inequality. Over the last two years we have progressively seen those in authority abuse their power for their own selfish ends:

 

Members of Parliament fiddling their expenses on an almost industrial scale. This was not just a few people making honest mistakes but a culture of “I can so I will” systemic abuse;

Senior bankers and others working in the finance industry inflating their multimillion pound bonuses with reckless investments eventually wrecking the world economy;

Journalists using any tactics available to get the story to produce the headlines to increase the sales of their newspapers;

Police taking bribes from journalists and providing them with confidential information for cash;

and footballers….

 

While not everyone in these groups are guilty of the issues listed above each story has exposed a deep hypocrisy rotted in our society. Those in authority who seek to lecture the population on morality and responsibility abusing the systems for their own ends. Maybe it was ever so but I can’t think that it was ever in our faces.

 

The growing gap is not just between rich and poor but also between government and the governed. This is not just about money it is also about a culture of looking after number one.

 

So why are so many young men in gangs? Gangs give them a sense of belonging, identity and even rules. Something which too often their families and society fails to do. It can also give them some power over their lives. Yes it is frightening for others as well as dangerous. It is most dangerous for them and those who live in the communities they terrorise. For many years now we have had a quiet riot. Young people are being murdered in shocking numbers either in gang disputes, robberies or caught in the crossfire. This shocking fact is mostly ignored because it rarely affects those who shape opinions, they live elsewhere. Each knifing or shooting is reported in the media, then quickly forgotten as we move on to more celebrity gossip. The poorest communities have also fallen apart as housing policy has concentrated the most vulnerable into the diminishing supply of social housing, increasing left in rows of tower blocks.

 

In saying this I am not seeking to make party political points the pursuit of economic liberalism which is happy to see around 20% of the population fall behind the rest and 5% rise to unbelievable wealth is a result of thatcherism and was not challenged by New Labour.

 

The cuts didn’t cause these riots, its too early, but they will make future ones more likely. Non statutory services like youth work, family intervention are being lost as councils cut back services and charities see their incomes shrink. While these projects help deal with some of the causes and pick up some of the pieces in the future they will not be there. It is understandable that the current focus in on loss of police numbers a wide range of support services are also being cut back or put under unbearable stress.

 

While it is easy for those in the cabinet, born with silver spoons in their mouths, to rant and rage about the rioters and the rule of law. I can’t help thinking that they don’t really have any idea what it is like to live in despair in the poorest parts of this country. While I support the rule of law and that people who have been caught committing arson, looting or just generally being violent should be dealt with I also despair that so many of the guilty get away Scott free without any legal sanction. I think 3 or 4 MPs have faced custodial sentences, most of the rest, including the Prime Minister were just allowed to pay the money back. How many bankers have been sent to prison, they have indirectly caused the destruction of more businesses and more peoples’ livelihoods than a 100 nights of rioting could. It appears that face justice you either have to have done something dramatic or to be poor.

 

Is Britain broken? I’m not sure but the divisions we have and are creating could destroy us all.

 

 

God save the Queen

Politics, it is often said, is about priorities. Last week has shown an interesting sense of the priorities of the MP for Bristol West.

First this from the Daily Telegraph Max Pemberton Column:

“In a letter that has been passed to me, Stephen Williams, Liberal Democrat MP for Bristol West, assures a worried constituent that the NHS Reform Bill will “improve the NHS and therefore definitely not lead to the privatisation of services”.

Doubtless Mr Williams means this sincerely. But I wonder if he has actually read the Bill. I telephoned and asked him: no, he hadn’t.”

Second from Mr Williams e-bulletin to the good people of Bristol West:

“Parliament has given approval to the Sovereign Grant Bill which makes the first reform to the finance of the Royal Family since 1760. .. In the first debate I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether Buckingham Palace could be opened up on more days of the year in order to generate more income. The Chancellor has now announced that the Palace have agreed to this proposal.”

Full link for Daily Telegraph article: http://ht.ly/5NI2V

When I’m 64

I am not a public sector worker. I have often been outraged at the way senior staff in public organisations scramble to radically increase their pay in the run up to retirement. At Bristol City Council in the 90s there was a scandal when a group of senior staff tried to sneak a pay rise through a report, all were close to pension age. I have seen Chief Executives of housing associations seek merger to give their pension a boost with a final year promotion as part of the deal. I also have a son at school whose class was cancelled today because of the strike.

I support the strikes. The main argument seems to be that it isn’t fair that public sector workers have better pensions than the larger group of private sector workers who pay the taxes to pay for them. What isn’t fair is that we are seeing an increasing concentration of wealth in a smaller proportion of the population. It isn’t fair that many private sector workers don’t have decent pensions and end up relying on state benefits, also paid by taxpayers to keep them just above the poverty line, sometimes not even that.

The answer is for private sector workers to become better organised and represented and seek a better deal, not wish their parlous situation on public sector staff. The best pensions in the private sector are in well organised unionised workplaces (admittedly many previously public sector). Tories are saying that this isn’t a ‘race to the bottom’ but is exactly what we are beginning to see. Incomes are being squeezed, rights reduced and the argument is always to point to those worse off and tell people how lucky they are. Really we should be paying more attention to the wealthy and asking why they have so much.

The claim that strikes damage the public who depend upon public services. This will be true for some. But what about the long term damage wrought by the cuts. Public services are closing or more often being left to decay. People are losing their jobs to find benefits being slashed. Homelessness has already started to rise and it is predicted that house repossessions about also about to follow them.

Strikes might not be very effective and no-one in the Labour movement wants to see a repeat of the tear jerking return of the miners to work in 1985. However to just let these attacks on working people continue unopposed would be a crime.