Top-down centralised control of public services has failed to deliver. The CPS has been a consistent advocate for greater choice and diversity of provision, opening up state monopolies to new providers and putting greater power and responsibility in the hands of parents and patients.
New technology can create opportunities for the individual to take greater control of public services.
But the information revolution should be used to empower the individual. They should, for example, be able to compare the performance of different schools, hospitals and police forces. What should be avoided is the alternative: the drift towards greater centralisation of personal data in state-run databases.
The Centre is also developing a model of freedom for public services, which transfers accountability away from the centre to the local level. Local professionals should be trusted to do their jobs; and citizens should be trusted to hold them to account. Central targets, regulations and quangos can then be cut and eliminated, thereby reducing the cost of government and improving services on the ground.
Related publications:
- So Why Can't They Read? by Miriam Gross (2010)
- A Magna Carta for Localism by Colin Barrow, Stephen Greenhalgh and Edward Lister (2010)
- More Bang for the Buck by Antonia Cox (2010)
- An End to Factory Schools by Anthony Seldon (2010)
- Wasted: The betrayal of white working class and black Caribbean boys by Harriet Sergeant (2009)
- In blood stepp'd in so far by Adam Holloway (2009)
- School quangos: A blueprint for abolition and reform by Tom Burkard (2009)
- The Reality Gap by Jill Kirby (2009)
- It's Ours by Liam Maxwell (2009)
- Speech by Michael Gove MP on Conservative education plans (2009)
- A New Great Reform Act by Antony Jay (2009)
- Ticking the Right Boxes by Tom Burkard (2009)
- Freedom for Public Services by William Mason and Jonathan McMahon (2008)
- In Bad Faith by Cristina Odone (2008 - accompanying Times article here)
- Who Do They Think We Are? by Jill Kirby (2008)
- From Troops to Teachers by Tom Burkard (2008)
- A levels fail to open the hearts and minds of our young adults by Anthony Seldon in The Daily Telegraph (August 2010)
- Too many initiatives, not enough teaching by Harriet Sergeant in The Guardian (November 2009)
- Breaking the grip of the database state by Sam Talbot Rice in The Public Service Magazine (February 2009)
- Why the NHS keeps failing mothers by Jill Kirby in The Daily Telegraph (July 2008)