Local residents are wary of politicians’ plans to reform public services, and few want direct involvement in how they are run, a leading think-tank has revealed.

Research into public attitudes towards national and local services, to be published by the 2020 Public Services Trust (PST) shortly, reveals ‘concerns that government or [public sector] managers do not really understand the specific needs of individuals and communities’.

The survey, conducted in partnership with pollster Ipsos MORI, raises serious questions over the major parties’ plans for public services beyond today’s general and local elections.

Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, for example, has proposed the creation of a ‘Big society’ under a Tory Government, promising a reduced role for the state and greater public participation in the design and delivery of future services, such as the ability to set up and run new schools.

But headline findings from the 2020 PST research, published in advance of the full report, suggest while voters are ‘interested’ in greater control over some services, they ‘are suspicious it would become party-political, or captured by interest groups, and would not, therefore, empower people’.

One fear which emerges is that the articulate and ‘sharp-elbowed’ middle classes would dominate public participation in services, possibly at the expense of other local residents.

The survey results also cast doubt on proposals for participatory democracy within the Labour Party and Liberal Democrat manifestos, including Labour’s plan to allow residents to oust failing police chiefs and intervene in failing local services. As regards local government, the findings suggest that while people are receptive to greater local control over services, they do not necessarily want to participate directly in delivering services – and want devolved provision to be underpinned by the safety net of national standards for policies such as children’s services.

One senior local government source told The MJ: ‘The initial findings suggest there is a limit to the public’s appetite for direct involvement in services – and perhaps reinforces the role of councils as the most appropriate “buffer” between direct Whitehall provision and public participation.

‘However… concern that public sector managers do not understand the needs of their community is worrying, and should be a wake-up call to both central and local government. If true, we need to re-engage quickly with residents over their real needs and their ambition for local services.’

The 2020 PST survey gleaned the views of regular public service-users across five English cities – London, Birmingham, Oxford, Stockport [Greater Manchester], and Ashford in Kent. It found residents are content with many services – and value highly the concepts which underpin provision, such as ‘security’ and ‘fairness’. But residents worry about what politicians will do to services amid the threat of swingeing cuts to budgets over the next five years.

Ben Lucas, director of the 2020 PST, described the current relationship between the public and politicians as one of ‘fear and loathing’. He also warned of a ‘reality gap’ between what politicians had said they would do to services during the election campaign, and what must be done to reduce the UK’s spiralling debt and to manage rising demand on services.

Sir Andrew Foster, chair of the 2020 PST, told the BBC: ‘Public policy is at a low ebb, and quite a lot of people don’t believe quite a lot of what politicians say – and don’t believe quite a lot of what managers say.

‘If people do get interested in it… they start saying [that we should] make any changes practical and specific, and to make changes [to services] gradual, incremental and small scale.’