Government commission will boost ‘mutual moment’
The government will today launch an independent Commission on Ownership in a bid to boost rates of public service delivery by employee or community-owned enterprises.
Applying the John Lewis Partnership model to hospitals, schools and housing could see service users turn from ‘passive’ to proactive under the new model of mutalism.
In the aftermath of the credit crunch and expenses scandal, people are looking for different types of organisations offering a greater sense of ownership and control, according to cabinet office minister Tessa Jowell, who will launch the commission during a speech to the think tank Progress this evening.
The MP will refer to society entering a ‘mutual moment’, where a new sense of community ownership can be created via better use of organisations in public service provision.
‘Public services are owned by the public, so the public must have the right to influence how those services are delivered,’ she will say. ‘We can’t really expect citizens to take on greater responsibility for their own health, learning and environmental impact if public services fail to give them the right to shape the ways they work.’
The new commission, chaired by economist Will Hutton and funded by Co-operative Financial Services, will be tasked with creating a level playing field for mutuals by encouraging greater input from staff and users and extending the right to ownership to communities.
The New Economics Foundation and the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts today also called for service users to be involved in design and delivery, as opposed to ‘passive recipients’.
Their joint report, The challenge of co-production, says: ‘Co-production allows health, education, policing and other public services to be delivered more effectively, more efficiently and more sustainably.’
As Labour pushes a ‘John Lewis’ service delivery model, Conservative leader David Cameron recently pitched the concept of ‘easyPolitics’, in which councils could opt to use a budget airline-style basic ‘no-frills’ package or charge top-up fees for additional services.
by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
