Plugged In
Paul O'Brien
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Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas and regular contributor to The MJ, succeeded in fulfilling the brief to do her usual thing and ‘stir it up’ when she spoke at APSE’s recent annual conference in Cardiff.
Ms Fox also took the opportunity to make her usual rallying cry for less state nannying.
The underlying tenet was that what once constituted the public sphere is being eroded while the state delves further and further into the private lives of citizens. This argument warrants consideration, but is perhaps lost amid her evocation of some sort of municipal Dystopia, complete with spying helicopters and a moratorium on anything remotely resembling fun (see ‘Stop monitoring the public’, The MJ, 1 October).
We welcome debate on how scarce resources can be best targeted to achieve public value, which was, indeed, the theme of our conference. But I think Ms Fox is being slightly mischievous in her interpretation of this point. For us ¬– and for service-users – frontline means collecting the waste, cleaning the streets, providing affordable housing, caring for elderly and vulnerable people, feeding schoolkids, repairing roads, cutting the grass and a whole host of highly-tangible services on which people rely, day in day out.
These local services have a huge bearing on the health and wellbeing of local communities. They are also important economically – with our research showing every local authority pound spent can generate £1.64 in the local economy.
Promoting behavioural change that will reduce the longer-term economic and social costs of ill health and create a better environment actually means more effective use of public resources.
‘Co-production’ was a term used by those speakers at our conference who had first-hand experience of making service improvements and multimillion-pound savings by finding effective local service solutions from within their own in-house teams and communities. And doing things ‘with’ residents, rather than ‘to’ or even ‘for’ them is surely the intention of all of us in local government. The reality is that the majority of people are happy to recycle and do not want their taxes used to clean up after the few who drop cigarette butts or beer bottles.
Is Ms Fox suggesting that, instead of encouraging healthier lifestyles, school meals and high-quality public spaces, councils should be promoting deprivation, misery and a return to public squalor? Since long before the recession began, APSE has been supporting the delivery of excellent frontline services and fighting against bureaucracy and waste. But focusing on the frontline does not mean councils should stop taking a wider approach to the health and wellbeing of residents – it goes hand in hand.
And yes, service-users will defend against cuts which affect not only their lives, but also their life-chances.
Paul O’Brien, is chief executive of the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE)
Ms Fox also took the opportunity to make her usual rallying cry for less state nannying.
The underlying tenet was that what once constituted the public sphere is being eroded while the state delves further and further into the private lives of citizens. This argument warrants consideration, but is perhaps lost amid her evocation of some sort of municipal Dystopia, complete with spying helicopters and a moratorium on anything remotely resembling fun (see ‘Stop monitoring the public’, The MJ, 1 October).
We welcome debate on how scarce resources can be best targeted to achieve public value, which was, indeed, the theme of our conference. But I think Ms Fox is being slightly mischievous in her interpretation of this point. For us ¬– and for service-users – frontline means collecting the waste, cleaning the streets, providing affordable housing, caring for elderly and vulnerable people, feeding schoolkids, repairing roads, cutting the grass and a whole host of highly-tangible services on which people rely, day in day out.
These local services have a huge bearing on the health and wellbeing of local communities. They are also important economically – with our research showing every local authority pound spent can generate £1.64 in the local economy.
Promoting behavioural change that will reduce the longer-term economic and social costs of ill health and create a better environment actually means more effective use of public resources.
‘Co-production’ was a term used by those speakers at our conference who had first-hand experience of making service improvements and multimillion-pound savings by finding effective local service solutions from within their own in-house teams and communities. And doing things ‘with’ residents, rather than ‘to’ or even ‘for’ them is surely the intention of all of us in local government. The reality is that the majority of people are happy to recycle and do not want their taxes used to clean up after the few who drop cigarette butts or beer bottles.
Is Ms Fox suggesting that, instead of encouraging healthier lifestyles, school meals and high-quality public spaces, councils should be promoting deprivation, misery and a return to public squalor? Since long before the recession began, APSE has been supporting the delivery of excellent frontline services and fighting against bureaucracy and waste. But focusing on the frontline does not mean councils should stop taking a wider approach to the health and wellbeing of residents – it goes hand in hand.
And yes, service-users will defend against cuts which affect not only their lives, but also their life-chances.
Paul O’Brien, is chief executive of the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE)
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