The government must go much further in extending the scale and scope of choice in public services - Byers

Speaking at a conference organised by the Social Market Foundation in London on Tuesday 6 April the former Cabinet Minister Stephen Byers will urge the government to go much further in extending the scale and scope of choice available to the users of public services. He will warn that the forces of opposition to choice are gathering and that the case for choice needs to be made on the grounds of social justice and as part of a modern agenda for redistribution which includes choice and opportunity.

Stephen Byers will propose that choice needs to be extended further for individuals and that detailed consideration now needs to be given to the ways in which choice can be exercised collectively.

In relation to individual choice he gives the following examples of areas where it might be extended:

• Schools – parental choice of school needs to be made real and not just an opportunity to express a preference. To achieve this, the present restrictions and regulations on pupil numbers in a school; on the admissions in any one year group and on opening and closing a school will need to be relaxed.
• Individual learning – the school curriculum needs to be made far more flexible in order to provide the choice of a distinct and personal programme of education and training for each child.
• Social care – the elderly should be able to choose who carries out adaptations to their property and what form it should take; they should be able to select the person who is to be their home help and even the supplier of home delivered meals and the time at which they want to have their main meal of the day.
• Those with a disability should also be able to control their own care package and have a choice of provider.
• Tenants – there is an urgent need to move to a choice based lettings system for council and social housing. 27 pilot schemes have operated since April 2001 with positive interim results. The principle is that the decision as to where someone will live – which will profoundly affect their life – should be made by the person concerned and not by a housing officer.

Stephen Byers will also call for a debate about extending choice beyond that of the individual to include groups of users. He calls this ‘collective choice’ and says it may be most useful in relation to a service that requires strategic planning and co-ordination.

In his speech he gives the following examples of areas in which collective choice might apply:

• Underperforming schools – the parents of children attending a school which is failing should have the choice of replacing the headteacher, senior management and governing body and to decide on who is to take their place. This would mean taking over some of the powers which presently reside with the local education authority.
• Refuse collection and street cleaning – residents who are dissatisfied with the level and quality of service could be offered the choice of a new provider.

Stephen Byers will also propose that in order for choice to be exercised by all there will need to be established a network of advisers to provide information and guide an individual through the options available to them.

This would build on the personal advisers now available through Jobcentres and the patient care advisers in the NHS who explain the choices available, make arrangements like booking appointments and organising travel and are available if any problems occur.

In his speech Stephen Byers will say –

“the forces of opposition to choice in our public services are gathering. They must be resisted. Choice must not be denied but its scope and scale needs to be expanded if we are to secure social justice.

“At present choice is available to those who can afford it. It needs to be made available to all as part of a modern agenda of redistribution which includes choice and opportunity.

“The government has taken the first, often tentative steps on the path to a choice based system of public service provision but it must now go much further.

“Reforms to achieve this will have to be driven forward. This is not the time to stand still and consolidate.
 
“There are those who allege that the very idea of choice, giving people a greater say in the services they receive and the diversity of provision that goes along with such an approach must drive inequality of provision and of outcome.

“They are wrong for three reasons. First, they ignore the fact that the paternalistic model of public services failed to tackle inequalities. Indeed in many respects it reinforced them.

“Second, it is a view that patronises the poor. Saying that they don’t have aspirations for their own children or simply cannot be bothered to take steps to improve their own quality of life.

“Third, they fail to recognise that by supporting people with their own personal adviser they are able to take advantage of the opportunities available through the exercise of choice.”