Of
course this simply reflects the fact (as I’ve emphasised in recent posts about
reform efforts) that those who write about admin
reform are predominantly (95%) academics – and that they talk only to one another – or
down to students – and never to the public at large ….
But every European State
spends about 40% of its GNP on public services – so there must be a few
informed citizens out there – even if most of us are so overwhelmed with apathy/fatalism
that we don’t bother…. We mutter amongst
ourselves but, otherwise, leave it to the politicians, bureaucrats, trade
unionists and lobbyists!
And
I know of at least one academic who did try (in 2003) to write a book about the
subject for the general public – it was called The Essential Public
Manager.
Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have made much impact….
But what
effort - it might be asked - do public service professionals make to try to
change the things we (and they) don’t like about the services they work in? It
is, after all, real individuals who run our schools, hospitals and state
infrastructure. They have received expensive training; surely they should be
more active?
The
idea of transferring
some public services to its staff caught the imagination recently in
Britain in a policy called “mutualisation” - which was indeed embraced early
into the UK 2010-15 Coalition government programme. The Post Office was to be the
gem in that particular policy jewel but ideological fervour beat principle and
the famous PO
was duly privatised in 2015….. Despite
that setback, the past couple of decades have seen a considerable growth
of social enterprise (employing about 1.5 million) particularly in the
field of public health and some welfare services….
But
how many articles do you see about this - even in north-west europe let alone the south-east?
Indeed, looking back over
the past 40 years or so, I can recall only two books by journalists about
public services
(in the English language at any rate) – one an American (David Osborne) who
produced in 1992 what turned out to be a best-seller – Reinventing Government. The other is a Brit
(Polly Toynbee) whose recent book Dismembered – the ideological attack on the
state
actually triggered the blog series I did last autumn…
I understand the environment in which journalists
write – but still think it’s sad that so many journalists just take the PR
handouts from government departments and don’t bother with even minimal some
policy digging. (Needless to say, my friend doesn’t belong in this category)….
Perhaps
other journalists might therefore be interested in a little book (100-odd pages)
which has pictures, tables and para headings to make it all the more
reader-friendly; not to mention an eye-catching title - How did Admin Reform get
to be so sexy?
I
readily concede that the book titles and lists which adorn the text are a bit of
a turn-off but there is little I can do about that since one of the book’s intentions
is to guide the interested reader through the extensive literature; and to help
people identify what is actually worth reading….
I always liked the comic-book approach – in
the 70s there were a couple of good series (Writers and Readers Coop was one) which did
excellent ones on figures such as Marx, Freud…even Chomsky…
Of course, cartoons
should be used more often to liven up such texts. Dilbert has long shown the way…
Perhaps
the subject of Government Reform needs that sort of approach?
Further Reading on mutualisation and social
enterprise
https://journals.openedition.org/osb/1632
The Big Society
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