29 September 2009
Stop monitoring the public
Claire Fox
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CHIEF EXECUTIVE
Tendring District Council
£112,000 - £120,000 -
GROUP MANAGER DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT & PLANNING
Dacorum Borough Council
£47,505-£56,109 -
GROUP MANAGER ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES
Dacorum Borough Council
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GROUP MANAGER TENANTS & LEASEHOLDERS
Dacorum Borough Council
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ASSISTANT DIRECTOR HOUSING LANDLORD
Dacorum Borough Council
£63,153-£72,843
Do we really expect customers to defend local government against cuts when so many council initiatives are aimed at policing the public? asks Claire Fox.
Now that the ‘c’ word has finally been uttered by all sides of the political divide, we are likely to be in for a splurge of rows about good cuts versus bad cuts.
The whole discussion is so dispiriting. It’s fine for the TUC to wave banners proclaiming ‘No cuts’. It sounds brave to say you will fight to the end to defend all frontline services, as many proclaimed at the APSE conference, where I spoke recently.
I want to agree that we should oppose every cut and defend every service, but can’t. This isn’t a case of pragmatic realism. It’s because much of what passes for services today is politically indefensible.
APSE’s publication Citizens and communities stresses that the public ‘value most those who make an impact on their lives through the services they consume daily’. The talk at the conference was of mobilising these ‘customers’ to defend services against the impending onslaught.
But you don’t need a customer satisfaction survey to realise that if you treat the public with mistrust, whose behaviour needs to be monitored, you are likely to alienate the very constituency you want as allies.
Councils have expanded their jurisdiction from service provision into regulating every nook and cranny of people’s private lives. No service is allowed to stand on its own merit, without focusing on changing individuals’ perceived bad behaviour.
Healthy living is an apt example. APSE tells us: ‘Local government services… play a vitally-important role in encouraging communities to adopt healthier lifestyles’. Investment in school meals is urged because ‘it can lead to educating the wider community on healthy eating’.
You can’t even go for a stroll these days without it being turned into a local government health initiative. Parks and green spaces are repackaged as adjuncts of government fitness schemes.
As a consequence, many municipal jobs are now devoted to policing the public, checking what food they feed their children, how often they turn lights off, how much bath water they use, how diligently they separate their rubbish, how many units of alcohol they drink, how much CO2 they emit...
Too often, this new local government mission turns service deliverers into state spies, snooping on citizens’ lives.
Why should the public defend such activities – aimed at policing them rather than servicing them – from the chop?
Consider this: Should the public defend the intrusive schemes to force us all to recycle, such as micro-chips in wheelie bins?
Would it be a cut too far if those councils which commissioned aircraft fitted with military-style thermal-imaging equipment to fly over areas to identify wasteful households, couldn’t afford to repeat the exercise?
Can we envisage a popular rebellion in support of the services of community support officers who fine citizens for dropping cigarette butts and confiscate cans of lager from those of us who dare have a tipple in public? Is there any chance of a public campaign to defend the £44m Contact Point database, designed to track and monitor the nation’s children from birth?
The current backlash against the controversial ‘big brother child protection database’ vetting scheme should act as a valuable lesson for local government. Vast sections of the public have united in opposing these new Draconian rules which mean more than 11 million adults who have ‘frequent or intensive’ contact with children will be subject to criminal records checks.
The furore has been so loud that children’s secretary, Ed Balls, looks likely to climb down and has asked for a review of the scheme. But why didn’t public sector unions and local councils oppose vetting as soon as it was mooted several years ago?
Unless councils, elected members and employees, start untangling genuine service provision from surveillance of constituents, how can they hope to mobilise support from those same people.
Surely, it is time for local government activists to identify as worthy not cutting inefficiencies but those reprehensible activities they undertake which turn the public into enemies rather than allies?
Claire Fox is director of the Institute of Ideas
Now that the ‘c’ word has finally been uttered by all sides of the political divide, we are likely to be in for a splurge of rows about good cuts versus bad cuts.
The whole discussion is so dispiriting. It’s fine for the TUC to wave banners proclaiming ‘No cuts’. It sounds brave to say you will fight to the end to defend all frontline services, as many proclaimed at the APSE conference, where I spoke recently.
I want to agree that we should oppose every cut and defend every service, but can’t. This isn’t a case of pragmatic realism. It’s because much of what passes for services today is politically indefensible.
APSE’s publication Citizens and communities stresses that the public ‘value most those who make an impact on their lives through the services they consume daily’. The talk at the conference was of mobilising these ‘customers’ to defend services against the impending onslaught.
But you don’t need a customer satisfaction survey to realise that if you treat the public with mistrust, whose behaviour needs to be monitored, you are likely to alienate the very constituency you want as allies.
Councils have expanded their jurisdiction from service provision into regulating every nook and cranny of people’s private lives. No service is allowed to stand on its own merit, without focusing on changing individuals’ perceived bad behaviour.
Healthy living is an apt example. APSE tells us: ‘Local government services… play a vitally-important role in encouraging communities to adopt healthier lifestyles’. Investment in school meals is urged because ‘it can lead to educating the wider community on healthy eating’.
You can’t even go for a stroll these days without it being turned into a local government health initiative. Parks and green spaces are repackaged as adjuncts of government fitness schemes.
As a consequence, many municipal jobs are now devoted to policing the public, checking what food they feed their children, how often they turn lights off, how much bath water they use, how diligently they separate their rubbish, how many units of alcohol they drink, how much CO2 they emit...
Too often, this new local government mission turns service deliverers into state spies, snooping on citizens’ lives.
Why should the public defend such activities – aimed at policing them rather than servicing them – from the chop?
Consider this: Should the public defend the intrusive schemes to force us all to recycle, such as micro-chips in wheelie bins?
Would it be a cut too far if those councils which commissioned aircraft fitted with military-style thermal-imaging equipment to fly over areas to identify wasteful households, couldn’t afford to repeat the exercise?
Can we envisage a popular rebellion in support of the services of community support officers who fine citizens for dropping cigarette butts and confiscate cans of lager from those of us who dare have a tipple in public? Is there any chance of a public campaign to defend the £44m Contact Point database, designed to track and monitor the nation’s children from birth?
The current backlash against the controversial ‘big brother child protection database’ vetting scheme should act as a valuable lesson for local government. Vast sections of the public have united in opposing these new Draconian rules which mean more than 11 million adults who have ‘frequent or intensive’ contact with children will be subject to criminal records checks.
The furore has been so loud that children’s secretary, Ed Balls, looks likely to climb down and has asked for a review of the scheme. But why didn’t public sector unions and local councils oppose vetting as soon as it was mooted several years ago?
Unless councils, elected members and employees, start untangling genuine service provision from surveillance of constituents, how can they hope to mobilise support from those same people.
Surely, it is time for local government activists to identify as worthy not cutting inefficiencies but those reprehensible activities they undertake which turn the public into enemies rather than allies?
Claire Fox is director of the Institute of Ideas
Your comments
I am glad that you put 'customers' in parentheses. One of the greatest problems that has afflicted service provision is 'rebranding' LAs as businesses. They are not; nor are they businesslike; they have no competition and as such cannot offer 'value for money' to 'consumers'. I agree with the Conservative proposal that every single penny spent by councils, from light bulbs to directors' pay, should be made accessible to the public. We need the same kind of backlash as with MP expenses.
Mara MacSeoinin, Added: Saturday, 3 October 2009 02:43 PM
Claire would be right if the public had any consistent view about what it wants. The problem is that it alternately berates the nanny state and demands that 'something must be done'. The breif moment of relief after these 'services' are cut would quickly be followed by renewed demands of crackdowns. It isn't the state that's syfcuntion - it's us. Until we can thrash out what on earth we want and what we don't, none of this can make any sense.
Alastair McCapra, Added: Friday, 2 October 2009 04:16 PM
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