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This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Sunday, January 20, 2019

Time to reclaim public services

To coincide with this year’s Davos Conference, Oxfam has just released what has become an annual shot over the bows of the global plutocrats.who assemble in that Swiss resort at this time of the year. And this year’s publication focuses on ….public services….just in time to serve as a nice intro to this post. So read Public Good or Private Wealth? (Oxfam 2019) with the rest of this post.

I realise I’ve been muttering all these months about the importance of public services – but have been very frugal on references.
The most valuable source for me on privatization was the Public Services International Research Unit at the University of Greenwich which, very sadly, now appears to be closed? Their last publications seems to be this report on benefits, costs and processes of Public ownership of the UK Energy System – in 2016

The other important briefing source has been the Transnational Institute which, in 2017, produced a superb 250 page report Reclaiming Public Services - analyzing the way that 1500 cities throughout the world have managed to get rid of the privatized bodies which had made a mess of things.
In 2009 the same body had helped publish Hilary Wainwright’s Public Sector Reform – but not as we know it - which remains one of the very few clearly-written documents on the subject (see “recommended reading” below)

Unusually, the United Nations has now added its voice to the critique of privatization with a major report recently which details the appalling effects on poorer countries of the privatisation model which the World Bank and IMF continue to peddle. The report is 25 pages long and the English version can be read here.

Last summer I offered a crisp summary of my thinking about administrative reform – a summary which has, I think, withstood the test of time…..

-       In 1989 “the state” crumbled – at least in eastern europe…   30 years on. how do we assess the “huge efforts” to make its operations more “effective”??
-       15 question offer a key to the most interesting writing on the matter. 
-       Different parts of the world have their own very different approaches and ways of talking about reform. English language material has tended to dominate the literature; but
-       Scandinavians, Germans and French let alone South Americans, Chinese and Indians have also developed important ideas and experience - of which English-speakers tend to be blithely unaware.
-       Two very different “world views” have held us in thrall over the past 50 years….a “third” and more balanced (eg the “new public service”) has been trying to emerge
-       We seem to be overwhelmed by texts on reform experience – but most written by academics. Where are the journalists who can help the public make sense of it all ?
-       At least 8 very different groups have been active in shaping our thinking about “reform” efforts
-       These are - academics, journalists, politicians, think-tankers, global bodies, senior officials, consultants and an indeterminate group
-       each uses very different language and ideas – with academics being the most prolific (but tending to talk in jargon amongst themselves; and therefore being ignored by the rest of us)
-       Some old hands have tried to summarise the experience for us in short and clear terms. The lesson, they suggest, is that little has changed…
-       What is sad is how few “social justice” campaigners seem interesting in this issue. Hilary Wainwright being an honourable exception…..

Of course, the “huge efforts” were external (mainly EC) and financial – the “local elites” have had their own “exploitative” agendas and lack a single gram of altruism in their bodies…

Good Reads

Readable generalist books – the last 25 years have seen astonishingly few such books (in the English language)
Dismembered – the ideological attack on the state; Polly Toynbee and D Walker (2017) a clear analysis by two british journalists
How to Run a Government so that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers don’t go Crazy ; Michael Barber (2015). A clearly written toolbook by Tony Blair’s favourite consultant
The Fourth Revolution – the global race to reinvent the state; J Micklewaithe and A Woolridge (2015) Editors of no less a journal than The Economist give us a breathless neoliberal analysis
The Tragedy of the Private – the potential of the public; Hilary Wainwright (PSI 2014) an important little pamphlet
Public Sector Reform – but not as we know it; Hilary Wainwright (Unison and TNI 2009) A rare readable case study of a bottom-up  approach to reform
Democracy Inc – managed democracy and the specter of inverted totalitarianism; SS Wolin (2008) the doyen of American political science takes the American political system apart!
The Essential Public Manager; Chris Pollitt (2003) A critical analysis of the political and technical aspects of the search for effective public services
The Captive State – the corporate takeover of Britain; George Monbiot (2000) A powerful critique of the nature and scale of corporate involvement in our public services
Change the World; Robert Quinn (2000) Simply the best analysis of the process of social and organizational change
Reinventing Government; David Osborne and Graeber (1992) The book which started the New Public Management revolution.

More specialist recommended reads
Reinventing Organisations; Frederic Laloux (2014)

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