Last update

 31Jan 2011

     09.55hrs.:

THE FOUNDERS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

1900

Cutting the public service and transferring control to the individual should be the political story of the 21st century, writes former British health secretary Alan Millburn

(This article is presented because of its topicality - The Rudd Government talks a lot lately about helping the “workers” but appears to persevering with Old Labour ideas just like the British Government of Gordon Brown.- D.H-J.)

THE next British election is up for grabs. Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown is down but not out and there are signs of a recovery. Conservative Party leader David Cameron, having tickled voters' interest, has hit a glass ceiling. Both sides engage in trench warfare but neither breaks through. Politics is in a no man's land.

Today politics is struggling to come to terms with great changes: more assertive citizens, more diverse societies and more globalised economies. Together they call for new ideas, particularly a new relationship between the state and the citizen. As yet that call goes unheeded.

From the mid-19th century, state power grew - rightly - to guarantee clean water, safe streets and legal rights. In Britain, it culminated in the post-World War II Attlee government's nationalisation program and the welfare state.By the last quarter of the 20th century, however, it was clear that too much state could be as bad as too little. Governments had a poor record of picking, industrial winners but losers had developed a consistent habit of picking governments. Thatcherite reforms moved power from state to market. Blairite reforms have again shifted power from the state to new institutions. But neither Thatcherism nor Blairism moved power from the state to the individual.

This post-Blair agenda is the bridge needed to close the growing gap between politics and public. 'Membership of British political parties has halved in just 25 years, but we are not alone in witnessing record levels of cynicism about politics. Across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries average election turnout has fallen by 10 per cent. Yet with half of Britons now volunteering, public involvement in civil society is increasing. not diminishing. It seems people aren't so much turned off by politics as the way politics is done. Public disengagement is a symptom of disempowermement To often we shut people out when we shouid be letting them in. Such a shift is in keeping with the spirit of the times. Faced with forces that feel bevond control. people are taking refuge in what they know: their families. communifiies. local identities. Ordinary consumers are getting a taste for greater power. But while people may have become more empowered as consumers they feel disempowered as citizens.

0urs remains a "them and us" political system, framed in an era of elitism. Rulers ruled and the ruled were grateful. Economic advance and universal education - and now the internet - are sweeping aside deference and ignorance. Representative democracy from the pastcan evolve to a more participatory democracy in this.

Modern challenges, such as the environment, cannot be solved by government alone any more than a solitary state can bring about better health or lower crime. They require the citizen as well as the state. Governments that nationalise responsibility and make competence their yardstick risk finding they lack the levers to put right the things that are wrong. Progress in the future depends on sharing responsibility and power.
Equity demands empowerment. Despite rising living standards and falling poverty under Labour, a deep inequality gap still scars  Britain. Through many decades social mobilitv has slowed down.

The gap growing gap between  those with skills and those without is partly to blame. but addressing inequality is not just about money. As Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen notes, people suffer social, educational and cultural - as well as economic - disadvantage. Breaking this cycle means moving beyond the traditional welfare state solution of retrospectively correcting the symptoms of inequality, like low wages and family poverty, towards a proactive assault on the roots of disadvantage. Real equality of opportunity means giving people real control over their lives and a fairer share in power.
 

None of this suggests the state has no role. Global warming and global terror, economic uncertainty and mass migration make for insecure times. People want to know they are not alone. But they want also to control their own destiny. So the modern state has to step forward where citizens indiNiduallv are weak- providing collective security and opportunity - but step back where citizens individuals usually are strong, exercising personal choice and responsibility.'

The modern state should not just enable. It should empower so that more people can realise their individual aspirations to progress.. The Right wrongly rejects the state. The trick is to transform it so that the state controls less and empowers more.

It is time to complete the post-war journey from Attleeism through thatcherism to Blairism, from the state being in charge to the state empowering the citizen to be in charge. from "they control" to "we control".

This narrative should run through government policy like a stick of rock. So in economic policy the siren voices of protectionism and interventionism would be ignored. Tax policy should help create more wealth, not penalise, particularly when it comes to those on low or middle incomes. And wealth should be democratised by extending employee share ownership and home ownership far beyond present modest government proposals.

Next, the choice agenda in public services - most desired by the most disadvantaged - would be universalised. With record numbers of parents seething because they cannot get their child into their preferred school, they need more than sympathy. They need power. So the government should give parents - starting with the poorest. who are usually stuck with the worst schools - their own budgets to make school choice real, not rhetorical.

In old age. health. child care or training. individuals should be able to control budgets to make the choices that are right for them. The same applies to communities. Minimum standards would be set nationally that local services could exceed locally. Councils and their funding should be freed from much central government control. Local police and health services would be directly elected. Local communities would have a bigger say in local courts and could run local parks and childcare centres.

Of course, no one willingly gives away power, so the public service should be capped. Civil servant numbers in Britain have been reduced but still total almost 500.000..My ministerial e-perience taught- me that the bigger the machine. the more it will do. So the civil service should be reduced by one quarter. This change would symbolise the state running less, not more, and place and place a new principle at the heart of our governance: one of subsidiarity, where power is relocate to the lowest possible level.
 

This is the new political territory. Neither Right nor Left has yet come to terms with it. Whoever does so first can win ideologically and electorally.